Workshop Notes: October 2025
Detroit to Dresden to Bristol to Whitstable.
I’m writing this the day after Machina Bristronica, the huge and friendly gathering of electronic music people in Bristol, where I grew up. It was fun and inspiring to meet so many current (and future?) Workshop System players - people like Duncan Speakman, who’s been doing interesting things with sound since 2001. Two standout performances were Russell Haswell on Saturday (loud, bracing, palate-cleansing), and Kaitlin Aurelia Smith closing Sunday (lush, sensual, emotional). I also performed a traditional chaotic interview with Sonic State.
Two interesting new program cards from kjnilsson on the Discord (I’ll get these into the main program card repository soon):
UMel uses the unique serial number on every program card to create a 256-step sequence, with various controls to scroll around that unique sequence looking for treasure.
NZT is a grain noise source inspired by the Elektron Digitone II and the Nord Modular G1. I love to see this kind of ultra-niche idea, so well executed.
And Divmod (maker of the Patch The Random Book) has created Toolbox, which is “inspired by the utility section of the Make Noise 0-Coast” and includes a mixer, VCA, Clock generator, noise sources and more. In other words, all the useful things that didn’t fit into original the Workshop System design.
This is undoubtedly one of my favourite Workshop System demo videos yet: Bark Bark Dog Studios worked with composer, cellist and improviser Semay Wu. “This is an extract from the musical result of @semay.wu ‘s selection, prompted by the words ‘magnetic’ and ‘bubble’ processed through Sheep, a granular processor for the @musicthingmodular Worskshop System programmed by @dessertplanet_.”
At the start of September the Workshop System loan set went to Whitstable on the Kent coast for a fun, intense, day-long workshop hosted by Coastal Electronauts. We started with Sine Sketches, moving on to the One System Four Hands exercise shown above.
It was nice to see a Workshop System in Sound on Sound magazine again this month (thanks Tom), after their lovely review back in April (thanks William).
Upcoming events and workshops:
In Leeds, the Computer Club team have the Workshop System Loan Set for the last two weeks of October, leading up to Computer Club v4.0, on Saturday 25 October at Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen, which will open with the Music Thing Modular Ensemble, a 12-piece improvised performance. They’re planning various events — if you’re in Yorkshire and have any ideas, get in touch with Jake.
Radio Music, the new Dyski residency in Cornwall is completely sold out, but Join the Dyski Mailing List to hear about future events, we’re currently planning a weekend non-residential event in London, a potential residency in Toronto, and something online-only.
If you have an idea and want to borrow 1-12 Workshop Systems for an event (probably UK only unless you have a way to ship them yourself) then please get in touch.
And if by any chance you’re in Beijing and attending Modular Commune in November, please also drop me a line.
I’m always blown away by live shows with the Workshop System, this month Lazenbleep played in Dresden with OP-XY and Workshop System with the Sheep program card, and here’s Pablo Ruiz at UFO Bar in Detroit using the WS as part of a full live set.
Four Voltages — those four red buttons at the bottom of the Workshop System — is probably the hardest part of the system to explain. It has four outputs, four buttons and one tiny knob. Because it’s not random, but it is unpredictable, it’s designed to be played with the ear rather than the brain. Push one button, patch the outputs to a few places (oscillator or filter frequencies, slopes CV inputs) tweak everything so it sounds nice. Then, push another button and the whole thing should fall apart, go back to the first button and it pulls back together. Ben Regnier’s fab video, with just a WS and a Reverb+ card, is a little masterclass.
Finally, a beautiful and chill five minute ambient patch using the Turing Machine card.
If you’re still reading this, please forward it to someone who might enjoy it!
See you next month,
Tom