buggles

buggles · modulation · schema v1

Chaotic random voltage source — clean-room functional implementation of the Buchla / Make Noise wogglebug archetype. Internal "woggle clock" emits triggers at the RATE knob; outputs include SMOOTH (slewed random), STEPPED (sample-and-held), CLOCK (woggle gate), BURST (probabilistic clusters of 3-7 triggers), and RING (smooth × sub-osc ring-mod, the signature dirty texture). CV inputs modulate rate + chaos; EXT CLK replaces the internal scheduler when patched. The "Wogglebug" name is Make Noise's trademark — BUGGLES is our name; no proprietary schematic is copied.

A chaotic random-voltage source in the Buchla / Make Noise wogglebug tradition. An internal 'woggle clock' fires at the Rate you set (with Chaos adding timing jitter), and each tick rolls a fresh random voltage that sprays out across five correlated outputs at once: a slowly-slewing SMOOTH voltage, a jumpy sample-and-held STEPPED voltage, a CLOCK gate pulsing on every woggle event, an occasional BURST of clustered triggers, and an audio-rate RING output (the smooth voltage ring-modulated with a sub-oscillator) for Buchla's signature 'complex random' texture. Patch SMOOTH into pitch or filter CV for warbling drift, STEPPED for brittle melodic randomness, CLOCK to clock a sequencer, BURST for stuttered fills, and RING straight to audio. You can also feed it an external clock to lock the chaos to your tempo.

the faceplate

3 inputs · 5 outputs · 5 params

about this module

Hover a control, or open the patch panel and hover a jack.

inputs

id	cable	what it does
`clock_cv`	cv	CV that sums onto the Rate knob, speeding up or slowing the internal woggle clock (sampled at each woggle event rather than continuously). control voltage (CV)
`chaos_cv`	cv	CV that sums onto the Chaos knob, modulating how random/jittery the voltages and timing get. control voltage (CV)
`external_clock`	gate	External clock input: when patched, its rising edges replace the internal woggle clock — each pulse fires one woggle event (new random voltages + a CLOCK/BURST output), so the chaos locks to your tempo. The internal clock resumes about a second after the pulses stop. gate / trigger

outputs

id	cable	what it does
`smooth`	cv	A slowly-shifting random voltage: it slews toward each new random target instead of jumping, so it behaves like a lazy random LFO — good for warbling pitch, filter, or pan modulation. The Smooth control sets how lazily it glides. control voltage (CV)
`stepped`	cv	A sample-and-held random voltage that hard-jumps to a fresh value on every woggle event — brittle, steppy modulation for random melodies or jumpy timbres. control voltage (CV)
`clock`	gate	A gate output that pulses (~5 ms) on every woggle event — a chaotic clock you can use to trigger sequencers, envelopes, or drums; its rate and jitter follow Rate + Chaos. gate / trigger
`burst`	gate	A gate output that, with probability set by the Burst control, fires a cluster of 3–7 closely-spaced trigger pulses on a woggle event — for ratchets, stutters, and fills. gate / trigger
`ring`	audio	An audio-rate output: the smooth voltage ring-modulated against a sub-oscillator tracking the woggle rate — the Buchla 'complex random' texture, patchable straight into the audio path. audio signal

params

id	label	range	default	curve
`rate`	Rate	0..1	0.4	linear
`chaos`	Chaos	0..1	0.3	linear
`smoothness`	Smooth	0..1	0.5	linear
`burst_probability`	Burst	0..1	0.2	linear
`level`	Level	0..1	0.7	linear

controls

control	what it does
Burst	Chance (0..1) that a given woggle event fires a BURST cluster instead of a single pulse — 0 never bursts, 1 bursts every event.
Chaos	Chaos depth (0..1): at 0 the stepped output is a clean S&H of a stable random walk and timing is steady; turning it up makes each step a fresh independent value and adds up to ±50% jitter to the woggle period.
Level	Output scaling (0..1) applied to the SMOOTH, STEPPED, and RING outputs (the CLOCK and BURST gates keep a clean 0/1 swing regardless).
Rate	Internal woggle-clock speed (0..1, log-mapped to roughly 0.1–50 Hz): how often new random voltages are rolled. The Clock CV input adds to this.
Smooth	How lazily the SMOOTH output glides toward each new target (0..1): low is almost a step, high stretches the slew to about twice the woggle period for very gentle drift.

source

buggles.ts on GitHub.