Hard Techno/Acid/Tech House/Schranz
DJ, producer and live performer from Milwaukee, now in Colorado Springs, active since the late 1990s. Modular synths, drum machines and hardware FX, performed live rather than just mixed.
Away from the decks I build my own tools: the SynTHBloK series of synth modules for VCV Rack under the NoiZee ToyZ name, ToyBoX, a free browser acid synth with a step sequencer, and Acid Bedrock, a track builder for hard techno and acid that exports prompts, scripts and MIDI. Ten releases out on Bandcamp, with sets and live recordings archived here.
Hard techno, acid, tech house and schranz, played live on modular synths, drum machines and hardware FX. Every set is performed, not just mixed.
I design and code my own synth modules for VCV Rack under the NoiZee ToyZ name, from oscillators and filters to effects, mixing and mastering.
I build the tools I want to make music with, like Acid Bedrock, a track builder that exports prompts, scripts and MIDI.
SynTHBloK is a series of VCV Rack modules written in C++ for Rack 2.6, all with the same black panel and orange accents. They are meant to work as one instrument: a voice, a filter, effects, a mixer, a mastering strip, a MIDI player with its own piano-roll expander and a kick drum, with the polyphonic engine and the main synth sharing control signals so they act like one voice.
Synth voice
The main voice. Up to four oscillators blending triangle, saw, square and sine, plus a sub oscillator, with FM and PWM CV. Built-in filter with its own envelope, an ADSR with glide and accent, and an LFO with rate, range, fade-in, morph, retrigger and sync. Clock in and out.
Poly engine
A polyphonic engine that runs up to eight voices. Stacked unison with a live display, spread, per-voice drive, a tone control and post-mix chorus. Takes V/OCT, gate, spread and reset, and sends polyphonic envelope, VCA, filter and pitch outputs back out.
Filter
A stable state-variable filter built to be pushed hard. Morph between responses, then add drive, FM, keytracking, controlled chaos jitter and stereo width. Almost every control has a CV input and a colour-coded LED.
Modal resonator
A modal resonator that makes an audio signal ring like a physical object. Pick Metal, Wood, Membrane or Tube, then set body tuning, resonance, exciter strength and damping. Strike it with a trigger or tune it from V/OCT.
Effects
A tempo-aware delay and space processor with time, feedback, mix, tone, depth and rate. Sidechain-style ducking keeps echoes out of the way, and four character modes shape the sound: Clean, Tape, Analog and Modern.
Stereo and glue
Stereo shaping and bus processing in one panel: width, tilt, air, glue compression, punch and clipping, with a live analyzer for correlation, mid and side and tilt. Main and side inputs, L, R and side outputs.
Kick drum
A hard techno kick voice. A pitch-swept sine with tune, sweep depth and pitch decay, plus body decay, click, tone and drive. A separate rumble tail with its own decay is ducked by the kick for that schranz low end. Accent and V/OCT inputs, split kick and rumble outputs, and an envelope output for sidechain ducking.
Mastering strip
A full mastering chain in one panel. Tone section with low cut, low and high shelves, tilt and air. A glue compressor with soft knee, sidechain high-pass, external sidechain and parallel mix. Then saturation, punch, a three-band leveler, mid and side gain, width and mono bass, and a look-ahead limiter with ceiling and release. A spectrum analyzer with momentary, short-term and integrated loudness sits beside a vectorscope with correlation and level and gain-reduction meters. Bypass, mono check and side solo buttons, plus CV for threshold, drive and width.
Six-channel mixer
Six stereo channels, numbered 1 to 6, with level, pan or width, tilt, drive, air, glue and an FX send on every strip. Each knob has a fire-coloured ring that moves from yellow through orange to deep red as the value (or incoming CV) rises, and mute and solo buttons light when on. An amber OLED levels display shows every channel as stacked L and R segment bars, plus master L and R in dBFS with peak hold and a clip lamp. The master section adds width, tilt, glue and clip trim, and six global CV inputs move a whole row of knobs at once. Onboard FX has a Mackie-style program selector (room, hall, plate, echo, ping-pong, chorus, flanger) with its own OLED, three parameter knobs and a return level. Use the send knobs to feed any channel into it, or patch the FX send and return jacks to run an outside effect.
MIDI player
A MIDI file player with sixteen track outputs, each with pitch, gate and velocity. Load files by drag and drop, from the load button, or from a watched folder, and click any track row on the display to choose which output a file goes to. Paste a Python script from Acid Bedrock and it converts and loads the MIDI for you. Run, reset and speed CV in, track and loop progress bars, and sync outs for the 16th clock, reset and end.
Player expander
Snap it to the right of the Player Plus and it shows what the Player is playing. A scrolling piano roll draws every track in its own colour with a playhead, and click it to zoom between 2, 4, 8 and 16 bars. Track chips show which of the sixteen tracks are active, and click one to hide or show it in the roll. The channel numbers pulse gently with each note, and a transport readout shows bar, tempo and time with a progress bar.
The modules pair with ACID BEDROCK. Build a track blueprint there, export the Full Codex as a runnable Python script (or a MIDI file), and paste it straight into the Player Plus. It writes the MIDI, loads it and plays it. The MIDI + Expansion Module draws it as a piano roll, while the sixteen pitch, gate and velocity outputs drive QUAD, P and Kick. Run those through F, R and FX, mix them in the MIX24 and finish in BloKMaster.
ToyBoX is an acid synth I built for the web. Write a 16-step line with accent, slide and octave jumps, lock it to a scale, then shape the sound with a resonant filter, envelope, delay, drive, tilt and glue while you watch it on the live scope. Five presets to start from, and you can play it from your keyboard too. It is the browser cousin of my SynTHBloK VCV Rack modules. Press Play and tweak everything while it runs.
▶ Launch ToyBoX
Click the grid to place notes across 16 steps. Add accent for a harder hit, slide to glide into the next note, and flip any step up or down an octave. Pick a root note and a scale and the grid greys out the notes that would sound wrong.
Blend triangle, saw and square with a sub oscillator, stack up to four voices, then sweep the resonant filter while the pattern plays. Envelope, LFO, drive and delay are all live, so you can move any knob mid-loop.
Hit Randomize for a new line, load one of five presets, or play the notes yourself on your computer keyboard or the on-screen keys. Watch the scope and spectrum react as you go.
The classic: squelchy saw, high resonance, accents and slides.
Deep sub-heavy bass with long delay tails and plenty of space.
A driven, rolling low line with octave jumps for hard techno.
Short stacked plucks arpeggiating through a dark scale.
Slow, gliding notes with a wide four-voice stack and a drifting LFO.
A track-building tool for hard techno, acid, jungle, dub and symphonic ideas. Pick wub engines, break engines, percussion kits, dub material, acid patterns, symphonic layers and FX chains from the module library, arrange them into a blueprint, then export a prompt for AI music tools, a Python script, or a MIDI file for Ableton, FL Studio and VCV Rack. Works on desktop and phone.
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40 records Hear it before you load it: a waveform preview, four character meters (sub, harmonics, movement, aggression) and the full synth recipe: oscillator, filter, LFO and key.
Name the track, set the tempo and key, then tick any of 18 genres. Hit Create Stacks and the blueprint fills itself from your picks, ready to adjust.
Wub engine, break type, two ITP percussion slots, two dub slots, an acid pattern and a symphonic layer. Click modules in or drag them across. A compatibility meter at the top rates how well your choices fit together, and opens into a full breakdown.
Four free-form FX layers sit on top of the track, each set to Auto or a module you pick. The fill plan sets the fill at every section change: build to drop, drop to break, break to drop and drop to outro.
Randomise rolls a full blueprint in one click, and Clear All starts over. Save and Load keep your projects. When it is ready, Compact 10K is a prompt script for MOZART AI, Full Codex is a runnable Python script, and MIDI Export drops straight into Ableton, FL Studio and VCV Rack.
Original productions from LiQuiDNicK, available to buy and stream.
Download previously posted sets and live performances from LiQuiDNicK. All tracks performed and recorded live.
Welcome to the home of LiQuiDNicK — DJ, producer and artist hailing from Milwaukee, WI, USA, now residing in Colorado Springs, CO. Primarily a techno and house/techno performer, Nick is always mixing up genres. Known for hard techno, acid techno, tech house and schranz-influenced sets, he continues to evolve his sound while staying rooted in the Midwest underground. Check out the ever-evolving sound that has continued since the late nineties. Beyond the music, he builds his own instruments: a series of VCV Rack synth modules under the NoiZee ToyZ name, a free browser acid synth called ToyBoX, and software like Acid Bedrock.