Make music without playing it.

Using the Kilpatrick K4815 Pattern Generator.

A little background on me:

Most of my studio is comprised of vintage synths, with the exception of a few effects and my Eurorack system. I generally enjoy making music “outside” of the computer, however, I usually record to Logic, and have no problem using plug-ins. I am by no means an analog purist, but I do often prefer the sound of analog synthesizers.

Right off the bat: I love the K4815, it makes my Eurorack system extremely fun to use by allowing me to quickly start patching and creating sounds without having to spend any time “writing” music. It also has a tendency to come up with things I wouldn’t normally do, which, for me, is part of the reason I got into modular synths in the first place. Of course it’s not limited to use within the modular & I am often able to get better results using it with my vintage synths.

This module is a little pricey, and has some limitations (which I will get to later) but I don’t think I will ever get rid of it. It’s a great tool for sound design, and a great way to really listen to your sounds without getting distracted by the notes you are choosing (because you aren’t). With that said, I usually pair the pattern generator with an Intellijel µScale, so I have some control over the key / notes being played. This makes the Major/Minor switch pretty much useless to me most of the time. The K4815 offers some built in scales, but I work better by visually seeing the notes so I can more easily add elements without thinking too hard. I am not classically trained as a musician so the talk of Dorian Minor etc doesn’t mean much to me.

The feature I miss the most on the K4815 is a clock / sync out.
This thing can produce some great sequences, but if I want to run another sequencer, I have to waste an LFO just to get them both running in time. I usually resort to mult-ing the gate output which works ok, but then your other sequence is bound to the gate pattern that is selected. Based on the way I use this module, I would gladly trade the clock in for a clock out. I have the K1600 midi converter that is bussed to the K4815 so it automatically accepts the midi clock, which is nice, but I would LOVE to be able to drive something else at the same time. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it would be awesome if there was a firmware update that could make this change.

One thing that confused me for a while (I will admit that I did not throughly read the manual) is how the clock speed knob works when the K4815 is being slaved to an external clock. It’s an awesome clock multiplier / divider that does triplets. Including some indication of the division / multiplication on the panel would make it easier to use, and cv control would be nice, but in the end, I’m just glad that the feature exists.

*Since writing this article, I have been informed that a firmware update has added a momentary display of the clock division on screen. I will be installing this ASAP :)

The Motion Length knob can be useful in allowing you to add notes into a sequence to keep it interesting, or to set a strange loop point for a sequence if you want. It would be helpful if the dot grid showed some visual indication of where the loop point is (like choosing a Motion Type), since most people will probably want multiples of 8. Adding a visual indicator would make this feature much more playable, making it easier to make quick changes on the fly (Apparently this was also addressed in the firmware update mentioned above, looks like I need to go download some software). If you have a CV to MIDI converter & can map the correct CC, then it is possible to control motion length (and some other things) externally, although I don’t have one of these.

Overall this is an indispensable module in my system.

I can understand how someone might not see the value in a module like this, since it’s more or less a preset box, (although there is a pattern editor available now) but it’s great for me. The only “problem” I have with this module is that it can keep me from actually playing keyboard for weeks at a time!