Feedback, as viewed on an oscilloscope. Photo (CC) Audin, via Flickr.

Ed.: Feedback loops usually fall into the “things to avoid” category, but cleverly used, they can be a powerful creative technique. Part of what Kore is about is being able to create unusual routings easily, so where better to start than a loop? Eoin walks us through sound design with feedback here, using an external input (like a mic) or plug-in as a source, or even self-oscillating (crank up the gain, and the setup itself will produce its own sound). -PK

If you’ve read the Kore 2 manual, you might have seen mention of the possibility of feedback loops, but there are no instructions for how to safely set this up. Today we’re going to do this step by step, and hopefully by the end you’ll have an idea of how easy this is and the kind of wild sounds you can get.

If you don’t have access to Kore, you can still hear the end results; the audio examples below demonstrate some of the sounds that can be obtained with just a few simple routings.

You can use the Kore demo to complete tutorials; sessions shut down every 30 minutes, and saving is disabled, but there are no other limitations. The examples included work with Kore 2’s internal engines and effects.