Live Performance For Pencilina & Modular

Reader Bradford Reed shared this live performance for pencilina – a custom instrument that he invented – and modular synthesizer.

The unusual electroacoustic instrument features two necks, with four strings each. The strings are tuned using two sticks placed between the strings. The instrument can be played with a bow, by plucking individual strings or by striking them with sticks or mallets. And pickups let the sound be processed through external effects or even his modular system.

The results are wildly creative, resulting in sounds that veer from ambient tones to distorted guitar wails to striking microtonal harmonies.

Here’s what Reed has to say about the performance:

“It is from my Patch & Reed project, which features me playing various instruments (mostly the pencilina, which I invented), jamming live with, AI in the form of generative HW modular patches.”

9 thoughts on “Live Performance For Pencilina & Modular

  1. I feel very nerdy proud that this is premiering on this blog! Thanks for this and the kind words. Just for technical clarity’s sake, in this piece the sound of the pencilina isn’t being processed by the modular unlike in this other jam in the forest in which Patch is indeed going buck wild on the sound of the tree I’m playing: https://youtu.be/Tf2Bb7mEkqU

  2. Thanks so much y’all. If you like this please be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow on IG if you like this. I’m going to be putting more up and some geeky technical stuff that will surely be of interest to this community as well. If anyone has any questions please don’t hesitate to ask in the video comments. _B

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