The Bishop’s Miscellany was Shakmat’s first entry into the Eurorack scene back in 2014. It was a dual‑channel stepped CV recorder and looper that had plenty of things to keep a Bishop busy. The MkII builds on the concepts of quick note capture and turns it from an instant riff maker into a sequence‑generating, CV‑manipulating, pattern‑chaining song machine.
The original Bishop’s Misc was very instant and playful; you could patch it up, lean on the Record toggle switch to record some notes, loop it and mess with it. The MkII feels a lot more complicated. Your focus is inevitably drawn to the screen and endless encoder; there are twice as many buttons, the knobs are generically labelled, meaning that they are not going to be dedicated to one function, and the module seems busy before you’ve done anything.
Once you understand that it’s going to take a bit of learning and a bit of screen/encoder patience, the liveliness that made the original so much fun begins to return, along with a whole load more miscellany.
The basic idea is that the BM MkII can record CV and gate signals into two channels and output them as stepped, scaled notes in up to 64 steps. It has two manipulation engines. One side is generative and regenerative, and can improvise off those notes, shift, slice and delay them, or generate its own sequences through randomisation or arpeggiation. The other side processes CV through augmentation. This could be adding slides, ratchets, gate length, vibrato or noise. These can be done in real time, turning the BM MkII into a sort of multi‑effect for any control voltage passing through. So, there’s loads of functionality here, it’s just that you have to lean quite heavily on the screen to access it. However, Shakmat have worked up an interface that’s fast and fluid enough to keep you creatively in the moment of capture rather than scrolling through menus.
So, let’s record something. Plug in a CV/gate keyboard, or a CV‑generating knob or touchstrip, have the BM MkII clocked and give yourself a beat to play along to, as it will aggressively quantise to the step count. When you’re ready, hold the Rec Ext button to record your notes or knob twists. Release the button when you’re done, as it will keep overwriting on every loop. You can press the Hold button with Rec and it will record continuously, letting you find your best take before releasing the button to let it loop. You can also throw notes in with little taps of the Rec button to build up a sequence over multiple cycles. Switch to channel 2 and you can do the same with the same input connections if you wish. It’s really easy, really fun, and you quickly get into a rhythm of grabbing notes, adding more, erasing and doing it all again, but better.
Transformations
Once you have your notes, you can then start applying some interesting transformations. The big button on the left handles generation and regeneration, so it can create sequences or mess with existing ones. Hold the big button to throw the algorithm onto the notes while the X and Y knobs handle a couple of parameters. You could be shifting notes, increasing the pitch range, skipping steps or looping four‑note slices from your sequence. The right‑side big button does the augmentation ‘Process’ and so scatters in ratchets, slides and so on, with a single knob controlling a key parameter. Holding Rec Int as you play with the big buttons and their controls will print the processing and regeneration to the sequence.
There’s a lot of great live‑action processing going on, which would make for a button‑mashing live performance, but that’s only half the story. The BM MkII has an SD card on which you can store thousands of sequences. Through the little screen, you can build playlists of any number of stored sequences for both channels. You can then launch each pair manually when the right moment for the change occurs, or have them stepped through as a complete work of music. The train of thought involved in chaining sequences changes the way you approach the module, and makes you far more forgiving of some of the screen shenanigans. It also brings the Rec Int button more into play. In live performance, you’re likely to be throwing on effects temporarily with the big buttons, whereas if you are crafting a song or constructing a set, then you’re going to want to be printing those effects onto the sequence and saving them as a different pattern. It’s a more studied approach that’s perhaps less instant but puts the BM MkII right in the middle of where you’re making music.
The Bishop’s Miscellany MkII is fun on the fly for wild live variations on a grabbed instance of melody.
The Bishop’s Miscellany MkII is fun on the fly for wild live variations on a grabbed instance of melody. But it can also be a great companion for thoughtful sequence generation and song building. The versatility will cost you some time and practice, but I think it’s worth it.