Shooting Stars Stochastic Sequencer

Ethereal Electronics Shooting Stars

Shooting Stars from Ethereal Electronics is a stochastic CV sequencer that invites you to approach building melodies in the modular not through step-by-step programming, but more intuitively, by shaping the material with a few macro gestures. Compactly packed into 16hp, the interface is centered around four encoders and the LED arrays above them, which Ethereal Electronics asks you to read as a night sky—every note falling across it as a shooting star, with color and intensity carrying pitch, gate activity, accents and modulation state.

Rather than entering notes one at a time, as traditional sequencers would have you do, here you set the statistical character of the material and let the module fill in the specifics. The encoders govern rest probability, the mean pitch the sequence centers on, the range it spans in octaves, and the voltage at the DRIFT output. Pressing and holding reveals a second layer for step count, transition time and scale. Reseeding by button or trigger discards the current sequence and generates a fresh one, with the built-in quantizer making sure you land in key.

Sequences evolve through a clever Save and Recall function: store a set of parameters as a starting point, dial in a destination, then morph between the two over anywhere from one second to five minutes, under manual or CV control. The two NOTE outputs are complementary, the second offset from the first while retaining a diatonic relationship. Triggers for Clock, Reseed and Restart, plus CV inputs for Root, Mean, Range and Recall, make the sequencer a rewarding thing to weave into the rest of your system.

While many sequencers ask you to start with an idea, Shooting Stars always has one waiting—a place to begin the journey, and from there trust in where the stars take you.

Shooting Stars Features

• Stochastic CV sequencer for semi-generative evolving melodies
• Four encoders control rest probability, mean pitch, note range in octaves, and DRIFT output voltage, as well as time, step count, and scale via press-and-hold
• Sequence length up to 32 steps, plus a free-running mode
• Reseed by button or trigger to generate a new sequence
• SAVE and RECALL function allows morphing between two parameter states over transition times ranging from 1 second to 5 minutes, triggered manually or via CV
• LED arrays visualize the running sequence, with color and intensity carrying pitch, gate activity, accents, and modulation state
• Built-in quantizer with ten scales: Chromatic, Major, Minor, Pentatonic Major and Minor, Whole Tone, Hirajoshi, Persian and Hungarian Double Harmonic, and Bohlen-Pierce
• Two V/oct NOTE outputs, the second offset from the first before quantization for a diatonic rather than chromatic interval
• GATE output with selectable trigger, variable gate length, or inverted trigger behavior
• DRIFT CV output with accent response
• Trigger inputs for CLOCK, RESEED and RESTART
• CV inputs for ROOT, MEAN, RANGE and RECALL.