Psytech in Vital: building a track with Evogenesis

A preset bank inside a real production session

Evogenesis is a bank of 100 psytech presets for Vital, covering basses, basslines, acid sounds, leads, stabs, plucks, sequences and two kinds of atmosphere. In this stream, Black Marvin builds a demo arrangement from the bank and explains how he turns those starting sounds into musical parts.

The useful material is in the decisions between auditions: choosing the bass character, recording a phrase, changing its processing and making a sustained layer evolve. The session is a work in progress. Its contrasting sections are designed to show the bank's range, rather than prescribe the structure of every psychedelic techno track.

Choose the bass by its role in the groove

Around 5:17, Black Marvin swaps bass sounds and listens for the particular feel he wants. Later, he moves between bouncier and more sustained basslines to give the demo distinct sections. That is a useful auditioning habit: compare a sound against the rhythm and energy of the passage, not only in isolation.

The bank separates 10 bass presets from 20 bassline presets. In the companion overview, the basses offer starting points for your own phrasing, while the basslines contain more complete internal grooves. A held note can reveal the latter's movement. Both remain editable, so the distinction helps you choose a starting point without locking you into a finished phrase.

At 1:31:55 in the stream, Black Marvin explains why he left some bass sounds brighter than he would personally use in that passage. Keeping harmonic content gives the producer room to decide how much to filter away. He then darkens the selected bass with a ladder filter. Treat that as a choice for the arrangement, not a setting that every preset needs.

Render phrases when the arrangement needs audio

At 21:17, Black Marvin discusses rendering a sound dry so he can choose its later processing. He records several phrases and uses the resulting audio to make sequencing easier. Later in the session, consolidating parts frees a Vital instance for another sound.

This workflow lets you commit to a phrase, edit its timing and keep the arrangement moving. Before bouncing, decide whether reverb, delay or a filter movement should become part of the recording. At 1:02:04, he explicitly notices that a filter sweep is already baked into the rendered atmosphere. Keeping the original MIDI and preset gives you a route back when a later change needs the synth.

The stream also contains troubleshooting specific to that recording setup. It does not establish a current limit on the number of Vital instances your computer can run. The transferable technique is choosing when to render, rather than expecting a fixed CPU saving from the bank.

Use the macros to create a phrase within the phrase

A viewer asks about the extra sounds created by the macros. At 51:32, Black Marvin explains the design approach: the first control usually articulates the patch directly, while the others may change its colour, rate or a more pronounced effect. These are recurring roles, with assignments that vary from patch to patch.

Start with one macro and give its movement a purpose. A gradual opening can introduce a layer; a shorter change can answer another sound. In the stream's later atmosphere example, Black Marvin uses the preset's own first macro because it was designed to articulate that sound. The resulting movement is part of the composition, rather than an extra effect added without listening to the rest of the track.

Build a moving layer with microlooped atmospheres

At 1:04:57, the stream introduces the MLA category, short for microlooped atmosphere. These are looping, evolving Vital patches that can provide continuous texture without behaving like a conventional pad. Evogenesis includes 15 of them alongside 14 other atmosphere presets.

The demonstration develops a scratchy, swampy layer over the existing parts. Around 1:08:29, Black Marvin starts shaping its evolution with macro automation, then compares other controls. Earlier, at 58:58, he introduces another atmosphere with ducking and a gradual filter opening. These examples show two ways to place a moving sound: work with its mapped controls, or shape how it enters the arrangement with external processing.

Choose Evogenesis for its sounds, then supply your own arrangement

Evogenesis requires a separate installation of Vital 1.5.3 or higher. The stream's drums, external processing and complete DAW session are not included in the 100-preset bank. The kick comes from the separate Psytech Kicks collection. Likewise, Quantum Fold Vol.2 contributed wavetable material to the bank's design, but the full standalone wavetable collection is a separate product.

For a category-by-category tour, the Evogenesis overview explains the difference between basses and basslines, demonstrates the acid sounds and explores the microlooped atmospheres. Use that shorter overview to locate a sound family, then return to the stream to see those ideas being arranged.