Sitar Grid

Sitar Grid — 42 HP

Modal string-resonance sequencer, and the largest module in the plugin. Three independent sequencers — one for pitch, one for timbre, one for articulation — drive a Karplus-Strong string through a nonlinear jawari bridge, with an eight-voice sympathetic resonator bank and a chikari drone ringing behind it. On top sits a breakdown engine: a state machine that builds, accelerates, breaks into jhala, and lands.

The three sequencers run on their own lengths and, for the resonance brain, its own clock division. Set them to different lengths and the module stops repeating in any obvious period.

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Sound in 60 seconds

1. Add Sitar Grid. Patch a clock into CLOCK and MAIN L/MAIN R to your interface.
2. It arrives playing: RAGA is Yaman, the pitch sequence is eight steps, and JAWARI sits at 35%.
3. You hear a plucked string with buzz, sympathetics ringing underneath, and the chikari drone at 30%.
4. Turn RAGA through its six settings. The same sequence re-quantises into Bilawal, Bhairav, Bhairavi, Kafi and Khamaj.
5. Set RES LEN to 5 while PITCH LEN stays at 8. The timbre sequence now cycles against the pitch sequence, and the pattern takes forty steps to repeat.
6. Raise BD INT and send a gate into BD GATE. The breakdown engine builds, accelerates into jhala, and lands.

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Signal flow

CLOCK ──┬─► PITCH brain  (8 steps, PITCH LEN, direction fwd/pend/rand)
        │        └─► quantise to RAGA scale, + ROOT, + Sa gravity
        │                                            │
        ├─► RES brain    (8 steps, RES LEN, own clock division)
        │        └─► timbral resonance per step ─────┤
        │                                            │
        └─► RIFF brain   (8 steps, RIFF LEN)         │
                 └─► articulation / ornament ────────┤
                                                     ▼
                                    Karplus-Strong main string
                                    (DAMPING · BRIGHTNESS · MEEND glide)
                                                     │
                                    Jawari nonlinear bridge
                                    (JAWARI · EDGE · CHAOS)
                                                     │
                        ┌────────────────────────────┼──────────────┐
                        ▼                            ▼              ▼
            8-voice sympathetic bank        chikari drone      main string
            (DECAY · SPREAD · FEEDBACK)     (CHIKARI)               │
                        │                            │              │
                     SYMP OUT                    DRONE OUT     MAIN L / R

BD GATE ──► breakdown state machine: IDLE → BUILD → ACCEL → JHALA → LAND
            (BD INT · BD ACCEL · BD LAND)
LOCK GATE ──► freeze the sequencers where they are

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Controls

The three sequencers

Control	Range	Default	What it does
PITCH STEP ×8	0–100%	ramped	Eight scale-degree steps, quantised to the current raga
PITCH LEN	1–8 steps	8	How many pitch steps play before wrapping
PITCH DIR	fwd / pend / rand	fwd	Forward, pendulum, or random step order
RES STEP ×8	0–100%	50%	Eight timbral-resonance steps
RES LEN	1–8 steps	5	Length of the resonance sequence
RES DIV	1–4	2	Clock division for the resonance brain only
RIFF STEP ×8	0–7	0	Eight articulation steps
RIFF LEN	1–8 steps	8	Length of the riff sequence

Tuning and phrase

Control	Range	Default	What it does
ROOT	−4 to +4 V/oct	0	Transposes everything
RAGA	0–5	1 (Yaman)	Bilawal, Yaman, Bhairav, Bhairavi, Kafi, Khamaj
PHRASE LEN	1–32 steps	8	Phrase length for the breakdown engine to work against
SA GRAVITY	0–100%	60%	How strongly the sequence is pulled back to the tonic

String and bridge

Control	Range	Default	What it does
DAMPING	0–100%	30%	Karplus-Strong damping — how fast the string dies
BRIGHTNESS	0–100%	60%	String brightness
MEEND	0–100%	20%	Glide between pitches, after the sitar bend
JAWARI	0–100%	35%	Buzz amount at the bridge
JAWARI EDGE	0–100%	50%	Brightness of the buzz
JAWARI CHAOS	0–100%	10%	Flutter and instability in the buzz

Sympathetics, drone, breakdown

Control	Range	Default	What it does
SYMP DECAY	0–100%	70%	How long the eight sympathetic voices ring
SYMP SPREAD	0–100%	50%	Tuning spread across the sympathetic bank
SYMP FEEDBACK	0–100%	60%	Sympathetic recirculation
CHIKARI	0–100%	30%	Density of the chikari drone string
ORNAMENT	0–100%	30%	Ornament density on the main line
BD INT	0–100%	0%	Breakdown intensity — at zero the engine stays idle
BD ACCEL	0–100%	50%	How fast the breakdown accelerates
BD LAND	0–100%	70%	How hard the breakdown lands on sam

ROOT and JAWARI have dedicated CV inputs.

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Ports

Port	Direction	Notes
CLOCK	Input	Drives all three sequencers; RES divides it by RES DIV
RESET	Input	Returns every sequencer to step 1
V/OCT	Input	Pitch input
ROOT CV	Input	Transposition
JAWARI CV	Input	Buzz amount
BD GATE	Input	Triggers the breakdown state machine
LOCK GATE	Input	Freezes the sequencers at their current step
MAIN L / MAIN R	Output	The main stereo voice
DRONE	Output	Chikari drone, separately
SYMP	Output	Sympathetic bank, separately
PITCH CV	Output	The quantised pitch, for driving other modules
GATE	Output	Note gate
RIFF TRIG	Output	Trigger from the riff brain
RES CV	Output	The resonance sequence as CV

The separate DRONE and SYMP outputs matter: take them to their own channels on Choke or Mass-Driver and you can balance string, drone and sympathetics independently rather than accepting the internal mix.

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Patch recipes

Three-against-eight. PITCH LEN 8, RES LEN 5, RIFF LEN 3. The three brains realign only every 120 steps, so a short clock produces a long non-repeating line.

Sitar Grid as a pitch source. Ignore the audio outputs. PITCH CV and GATE into DroneClone or String-Mass-Core — the raga quantiser and phrase logic drive the wall instead of a string.

Breakdown as arrangement. BD INT 70%, BD ACCEL 60%, BD LAND 90%, with Drift GATE → BD GATE at a very low RATE. The piece breaks down into jhala at unpredictable intervals and lands hard each time.

Separated mix. MAIN L/R, DRONE and SYMP each to their own Choke channels. Bring the sympathetics up under a quiet passage and drop them for the breakdown.

Locked drone. LOCK GATE held high. The sequencers freeze, the string keeps sounding, and JAWARI CV becomes the only thing moving — a static drone with a live bridge.

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Known pairings

Module	Routing
Choke	MAIN, DRONE and SYMP to separate channels for an independent balance
Mass-Driver	The same, with sixteen channels to spare
String-Mass-Core	PITCH CV → V/OCT IN; the raga logic drives the mass
Drift	GATE → BD GATE for unpredictable breakdowns
Collapse-Saturator	MAIN L/R → IN; EVEN mode suits the jawari buzz
Pulse	Share a clock so percussion and string land together

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See also

Music-Theory · String-Mass-Core · DroneClone · Playbooks

Full parameter spec: docs/modules/SitarGrid.md