Very cool little box for mixing up to 5 synths and splashing them with saturation and distortion. And we find out what a pre-routed feedback channel is.
Bestie
First, there was the Dude, now there’s Bestie. Bestie follows on from the basic Dude idea of having a mini mixer so you can hear more than one synth at a time without having to buy a space-stealing mixer console.
Bestie has 5 channels, each with a knob to control the level of up to 20dB gain and a very useful mute switch. At 12 o’clock everything is peachy but as you start to push the level clockwise lots of delicious things happen to the audio. The headphone output has a switch for pre or post mute, so you can listen to stuff before you feed it to the main output. Channels 1 and 5 have split mono left and right inputs whereas the others have single TRRS inputs.
So, what’s the feedback about? Well, if you leave channel 3 unplugged it takes the rest of the channels and instigates a riot. It adds distortion up to the 12 o’clock mark and then spins off into self-oscillation and really wild times. Apparently you can do all sorts of crazy stuff without anything plugged in anywhere.
Bestie runs on batteries or USB and can fit painfully in your pocket.
It’s €180.
