The Sound Journal

Complete Arturia MiniBrute 2 panel schematic for the Release the Beast patch, knob positions and cable routing marked — Plate I — The complete patch, as set on the instrument.

The Premise

Memory, in Print

Visual recall for the semi-modular age.

The Sound Journal is visual memory for artists working with semi-modular synthesizers — instruments that forget every patch the moment the power drops.

Each sound is curated and drawn out on a blueprint, so a setting once dialled in can be read back and rebuilt.

Breakwater — Splashdown (1980), the funk record whose bassline became Daft Punk's Robot Rock — Breakwater, “Splashdown” (1980) — the source of the riff.

From the Workbench

Release the Beast, Rebuilt by Hand

The growling monosynth that powered Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” — reconstructed, knob for knob, on a single Arturia MiniBrute 2.

Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” rests on one borrowed riff: the snarling bass of Breakwater’s 1980 funk cut “Release the Beast.”

Both VCOs are pressed into service — the first dropped two octaves for the low, chest-rattling foundation. FM is nudged in fractions until the tone stops merely sounding and begins to sing.

The waveshapes patched into linear FM and the two attenuators colour the rest.

Detail of the MiniBrute 2 patch bay showing the five cable connections for the Release the Beast lead patch — Plate II — The patch bay, point by point.

1 Sound, 5 Patch Cables

The ADSR controls the amp. The AD controls Resonance. Sawtooth drives Linear FM. Square waveshape drives Attenuator 1, and the Triangle waveshape drives Attenuator 2.