Busy Circuits ALM has released a new oscillator with through-zero FM modulation, waveshape crossfading and a built-in VCA.
TAZM-O
Busy Circuits would like this to be your primary oscillator. It has everything you need a solid oscillator to have, with the added bonus of the more tuneful Thru-Zero FM with Index control.
TAZM-O has a bit more than the regular things you’d expect from a VCO. It has a dedicated Sine and Saw waveform output with two square wave sub-oscillators (sub-2 can also be a pulse). It has a Shape output that contains the waveform from the Shape knob that can crossfade between Sine to Saw to Pulse to Square. It has an Octave transpose input, which is interesting. And then, it has a “Level” input with an associated knob which is a built-in VCA. You can stick an envelope straight in there for shaping the level of the output or use an LFO for a bit of amplitude modulation. TAZM-O can also be switched into an LFO mode for some interestingly shaped modulations.
It’s quite wide for an oscillator with a really nice frequency knob. I quite like the CV-controlled octave switching. The wave crossfading is nice with the pulse width modulation at the end of the turn. FM is not necessarily my thing, but I do appreciate the Thru-Zero feature, which keeps it all more musical than regular linear FM.
The video below is a solid guide to what the oscillator can do. It’s over 20 minutes long so there’s lots of great detail and examples in there.
- Busy Circuits website.
