That trick is all about mixing two very different signal streams. The minimalist part is usually a low‑frequency, well‑structured waveform—think a clean sine or a simple waveform bank—sampled at a decent rate, maybe 44.1 kHz. The chaotic noise comes from a pseudo‑random generator or even a physical source like a microphone picking up white noise or a hardware noise diode. You feed the noise through a mixer, then use a filter to shape its spectrum. Often a low‑pass filter keeps the high‑frequency hiss from drowning out the underlying minimal beat. Next, you apply a modulation envelope to the noise amplitude. A simple ADSR that opens fast and closes slow can make the noise feel like an atmospheric layer rather than a flat hiss. If you want more drama, add a tremolo or a pitch‑bend LFO to the noise, so it warps in time with the minimal rhythm. On the tech side, everything runs on a DAW’s audio engine: the sampler clocks the signals, the mixer sums them, and the plugin chain applies the filters and envelopes. If you’re doing this live, a low‑latency buffer—maybe 256 samples—keeps the timing tight. So in short: clean minimal signal, chaotic noise source, mix, filter, envelope, all routed through your DAW’s audio thread. That’s the backbone, and tweaking each knob will give you a whole new sonic texture.

Yeah, swapping the sine for a grainy sample is a classic way to push the edge. Just make sure the sample is sliced into tiny grains—say 10 to 30 ms each—so the texture stays fluid. If you run that through the same mixer and filter chain, the grains will keep the chaotic noise in check, but you’ll hear a lot more micro‑variations. Keep your buffer at 256 or 512 samples; anything higher and you’ll start to hear those latency clicks, especially when the grains are shifting quickly. If you’re looping, lock the project tempo and use the DAW’s “warp” feature to keep everything in sync. That way you’ll have a tight beat with that surreal, glitchy vibe you’re after. Happy experimenting!