We’re nearly at the end of the summer and I for one am looking forward to seeing more hardware emerge as we head towards SynthFest in October.
I feel I need to say a little something about AI as it’s increasingly turning up in products and plugins, and the bun fights are getting real. Some of the AI stuff I see is astonishing, most of it is crap. Sometimes there is artistic intention behind it, often there is not. It can be fascinating as a technology while at the same time being totally destructive to all sorts of creative industries. Some of it is inevitable, some of it is not, most of it is an opportunity for large companies to pay less people and make more money for themselves – nothing ever gets cheaper. AI is not one thing and we can hate all the bits we hate while asking ChatGPT for a recipe without contradiction. I have an idea I’m working on that celebrates humanity and artistic endeavours that I will invite you into at the end – I would rather attempt be more human than spend my time complaining about a nebulous technology.
Affiliate links where I can get a few pennies for the things you buy:
► Signal Sounds (UK): https://moltenmt.com/signal-sounds
► Thomann Music Store (UK/EU): https://www.thomann.de/de/index.html?offid=1&affid=1460
► Perfect Circuit (US): http://moltenmt.com/perfect-circuit
► Gear4Music (UK): https://tidd.ly/42otxsx
Raccoon Audio RoboComp – I mentioned Raccoon Audio’s Fuzz and delay plugins recently, well they have a new one. This time the Raccoon is squeezing the life out of the bloke in what I though was compression but actually they are calling it a stereo colour shaper. It has a way of letting you compress the mid and sides differently, and then tilt it towards the high or low frequencies. Loving the animations as always.
Audio Spices Ginger Morse Code -this is quite a cool concept. It uses morse code to generate a gating effect. So you type something in, it converts it to morse code and uses the pattern as a gate. Groovy. It’s got controls for depth, length, attack and release so you can tweak the gate shape to your liking. Yeah, cool idea.
https://audio-spices.com/?p=ginger
Forma Labs Filament – This one is for people who love playing with virtual orchestras or want to play virtual instruments live. Filament is a MIDI processor that takes your playing from a single keyboard and maps it to all sorts of articulations of your orchestral libraries and instruments. It’s a VST host so you can load up all your instruments and then key switch between entire arrangements and combinations so that you can play lots of instruments at once but in a clever, dynamic and believable way. It has some cool tools built in to revoice chords to appropriate instruments, add arpeggiations, MIDI clips, patterns, splitting and layering. You can then mix the lot, add effects, create macro controls and manage it all like once enormous instrument. It’s a bit like Main Stage or Gig-performer but very focused on how to get the most amazing performance out of a single controller.
Nomz Studios StemMaster – In the transparently AI corner this month is StemMaster from Nomz. It is a mastering program that acts on stems rather than a stereo mix with an AI engine that shows its workings. What’s interesting here is that you’re not just sending audio off and it comes back mastered – instead your stems are analysed, decisions are made and detailed in text, and then you can watch the process – interrupting and interacting as you like. You can choose a profile to follow, you can A/B the result and try again. At no point does your audio leave your system – you can do the whole thing offline – and then, if you want, you can enable the LLM and involve text direction and AI analysis of the local measurements. Something like that!
Dawesome Abyss II – I really like the Dawesome approach to synths. There’s something giddy, colourful and unusual about them. They use colour, concepts, objects and creatures to convey tone, timbre and possibility. Abyss was beautifully weird and so I have high hopes for version 2.
V2 appears to flesh things out in all the right places. Where things were stark we now have warmth, fulfilment and cinema. You’re supposed to just mess with the colours and see where it takes you. It’s beautiful and strange and full of granular and sound jumping, morph hogging something or other.
https://www.dawesomemusic.com/plugins/abyss-2
The Audio Stuff Ear Training – Here’s a useful webpage that will help you practice the art of identifying pitches. It gives you a pitch and gives you four choices in a multiple choice kind of way. It’s cool but also annoying because it would often be outside my hearing range and three of the answers would be contenders for that. Anyway, lots of great information and it does sort of turn ear training into a game – nice one.
https://theaudiostuff.com/tools/ear-training/
Liljeholmen DSP Trumsynt-16 – It’s a drum synth and percussion sequencer based on two oscillators, noise and click layers, filters, drive, envelopes and four lanes of automation for each step. It looks really good – very competent and clear, with everything out on the front panel in a very analogue style. One instance is designed to be a single sound with the idea that you would run multiple instances to build up a track.
Phaseburn One – This revolves around a Phase-Locked Loop turned into a oscillator, combined with a vector phase shape, a morphing oscillator and a sub and then gives you interesting ways to change the character. There are a lot of knobs to play with and multiple views to work through so if complexity is your thing then this may be for you. It has this weird PLL lab that involves magnets and orbits, drift windows and tracking. It has a modular effects engine where you can patch different oscillators through different pathways. It has sequencing and rhythm patterns aplenty that seems to be adding a lot to the sounds. Looks like fun.
https://phaseburn.music/phaseburn-one
1bitDragon – this weird sort of sequencer for people who don’t know how to sequence, just got a big upgrade. It’s now got a load more synths inside, a bunch of effects, audio import and other stuff. It’s a simple grid-based idea where you choose a scale and then throw notes about the place – you can’t go far wrong. It’s designed to have everything right there without having to understand or make difficult choices – you just choose a sound, put in some easy drum patterns and scatter notes. It’s famous for making game soundtracks and reminds me of Fruity Loops before it went all FL Studio. If you fancy something easy, decent and different, give it a look. You’ll find it on Steam.
Talkback – A new online collaboration platform where artists and producers can review music together. You upload mixes and can switch between different versions on the fly. You then invite other people to listen and comment. It has useful tools like spectrograms, loudness meters, speaker simulations. I can see this being useful for working musicians who need a way of comparing mixes with clients or collaborators – nice.
Midilar Apparatus – Jakub at Midilar had this great idea where you could build a hardware MIDI controller for VCV Rack that had all the modules, knobs and patching of a real modular system. Patch the hardware and it patches on screen and you get the sound of modular with the physicality at a much smaller cost. He’s been working on making it smaller, more convenient, cheaper, versatile and broke it down to something simpler with knobs separate to the patch bay. The reflection of the modular patch was not the same, but it appeared to be just as usable. Then, inspired by a sort of matrix module called Splice Kit he went the whole hog and replaced the patch cables with a switching and LED driven system. It still makes using VCV Rack an absolute dream but without the clunkiness of cables. It leans into the computer side a bit more and offers a compromise that I think works really well. If it’s cheaper and simpler than the cable version then it could be an awesome way to get into the feel of modular that using a mouse doesn’t give you.
https://midilar-controller.webnode.sk/
Love Synthesizers First Love – I think we first saw this at Superbooth but they are preparing for release and have just sent me all the details. First Love is a beautifully realised object that claims to offer polyphonic FM synthesis in an over-simplfied interface. It has two rotary encoders, a couple of buttons and rather delicious touch-screen displaying a fabulously animated interface. It is 4-part multitimbral, comes with lots of wave shaping and envelope morphing, effects and modulation. It has an inbuilt MIDI looper, arpeggiator and more. Honestly it looks pretty cool and the interface appears to invite a lot of useful interaction. Although we are yet to see anyone show us very much. I am hoping to get one for review!
https://www.lovesynthesizers.com/
Arthur Joly Recodrum-S – It’s always great to see a new release from Arthur Joly. This time and possibly for the first time, it’s based on samples. Arthur’s machines are usually solidly analogue, however, he’s sampled all his old drum machines onto tape, mastered through fabulous analogue gear and then sampled them for the Recodrum S – so it’s as analogue as it’s going to get. 8 channels of drums, 808-style button interface, classic upright console vibes. It has a spring reverb or dsp reverb built in. Simple stuff with some of the best recorded samples you’ll find anywhere.
https://www.recosynth.com/recodrum-s
Rush Systems Shaper – We love a weird synth controller and so Shaper is right up our alley. It looks like a synth-guitar and it does indeed have a fret board and strings, but at the strumming end the strings are sort of separated and expanded into a unique triggering and bending strip. So you’re sort of playing notes on the fretboard but activating them with the strings on the body, and shifting pitch with either…. Depending on what you’re trying to achieve. It’s all MIDI, there’s no sound in the instrument itself and the demo show him playing all sorts of sounds and drum kits quite effectively. It offers string players an opportunity to control MIDI in ways perhaps they haven’t before. Or maybe it’s over-engineering a level of control that no one is asking for. I don’t know – it’s certainly fascinating and could offer a new approach to playing and performing sounds.
https://www.rushsystemsltd.com/
Pittsburg Modular Lifeforms SV2 – An interesting return to the Taiga Keys format, but this time Pittsburgh have gone all in on the traditional architecture of the subtractive synth but with two filters and bags of overdrive and character. It has a similar level of digital control with waveforms that flip on every note and some nice side panel arpeggiation. But the polyphony and signal routing gets really interesting because along with the two main VCOs you can pull in two LFOs to give you potentially 4 notes of polyphony, routing through two filters and so some chords, independent notes and duophonic playing is possible. It sounds great, is easy to use and offers a solid analogue experience. Check out my full review.
https://pittsburghmodular.com/lifeforms-sv-2
Buy the SV2 from:
► Signal Sounds (UK): https://moltenmt.com/signal-sounds
► Thomann Music Store (UK/EU): https://www.thomann.de/de/index.html?offid=1&affid=1460
► Perfect Circuit (US): http://moltenmt.com/perfect-circuit
► Gear4Music (UK): https://tidd.ly/42otxsx
Vaemi Synterra – This is a weird looking thing. Synterra is a bio-interactive generative synthesizer in a little standalone box. Plug it into a banana and all sorts of things could happen. It’s one of those machines that measures magnetic and electrical fields in fruits and objects, plants and skin and produces voltage and MIDI in response to that. It has 8 scales and determines things through probability and quantizer structures and establishes a generative synthesis structure within itself. So, it has a synth that you can use or you can pipe MIDI out of thing into other things. It will also take in MIDI in order to remain musical with a larger system. Pretty cool.
https://www.vaemi.net/product-page/synterra-bio-interactive-generative-synthesizer
Hampshire Electronics Vulcan Mk2 – An interesting and more compact upgrade to the Vulcan polyphonic synth voice. The Mk2 has 8 voices of analogue synthesis. It then has a separate digital engine for FM, wavetable, noise, modal and karplus-strong modelling. You can control it individually with CV or completely with MIDI. Lots of hand-on control and a bit of data-screen fiddling to make it all come together. You can add an optional effects board if you like – seems weird to me, just stick it in there. It’s a bit of a monster but heck, it’s an 8-voice monster in your Eurorack.
https://hampshireelectronics.co.uk/products/vulcan-mk-2-polyphonic-analogue-synth-for-eurorack
Vannes Devices Obsidian semi-modular synth – cool looking semi-modular with definite Music Easel vibes. It’s all analogue with west coast oscillators, waveshaping and subs. Multimode morphing filter with external input, envelopes, LFO and a digital delay. It even has a 5-step sequencer. The whole thing is very patchable, ordered and sensible. It looks completely beautiful and sounds lovely.
Rubato Audio Plaits firmware generator – Do you have a Plaits? If so you can now rummage around in the firmwares and compile your own version with this handy online tool. That’s it really – phenomenal, no more swapping firmwares, just build the one that has the algorithms you want to use. Doesn’t work on the Behringer Brains.
https://rubato.audio/plaits-palette/
Ghost in Translation Drone 3 – A new version of Drone is upon us. It’s a compact module with 16 algorithms that pull together 4 voices for some serious droning. You have six knobs for control and you can record and loop movements for lots of dynamics. Sounds like some kind of throbbing nightmare that wants to destroy your mind with sound waves – awesome!
https://www.ghostintranslation.com/drone
Voltage Foundry Modular – Scattering a bunch of modules across ModularGrid are Voltage Foundry Modular. After closer inspection it appears to be the same module in lots of different guises. Within the family we’ve got an advanced clock generator, a physics based generative sequencer, a chaotic attractor modulation source, a pair of interacting Turing machines, a scope and a dual quantizer. It’s just the faceplate that changes so I’m assuming you can load all the firmwares on the one module. They’ve already released versions on VCV Rack, now they are looking to scratch the ich of hardware. There’s some cool functionality in 6HP, it’s all open source hardware and it looks like you’ll have to print the PCBs yourself. Hopefully they might be persuaded to do some kits?
Polyend Keys – This just dropped as I was about to start filming so I thought, heck, let’s get it in there. Polyend have built a QWERTY keyboard with a sneaky piano keyboard built in. They’ve rearranged the function keys to be the black notes and added a row of encoders, it even has a MIDI output. Waste of time or actually quite brilliant? QWERTY Keyboards are often used as controllers – Arturia does it with all their synths and it’s pretty handy. I’m also reminded of the Commodore 64 music system – maybe that’s an upgrade for some smart alec and a 3d printer. In any case they are taking it to a gaming convention to see what people think.
Synth Picnic – Synth Picnic is back in Norwich on the 12th September, up in the Honesty Library, in the Castle Mall. We’ll have new and old synths and a load of modular to play with – come and say hello. I’ll be starting up the rentals again so you could take home something very interesting for a month.
Synth Picnic Radio – BlastRadio – I thought I’d tie this into the Synth Picnic brand just to lend it some synergy. I’ve talked about this before – never finding the time to properly listen to music and coming up with a cool and creative way to do that – essentially I want to run a radio show where we all listen to music and talk about it. It was difficult to work it through something like YouTube because of copyright concerns. However, through the magic of transience I’ve discovered I can play what I like on Blast Radio and because the expires after 24 hours, no one has time to lodge a copyright take down – awesome! So, the plan it, every Monday night (yes, weekly) I’ll play some live music and interesting tracks, I’ll talk about them, review them and enjoy them. It will be a mix of things I want to play and tracks you send to me. The first one is this Monday night, 9pm for an hour or two. You can listen live or pick it up over the next 24 hours. I’ll put all the details of how and where to send your music in the first show – and it will be reviewed, so if it’s rubbish I’ll tell you why. Hopefully this will also help me develop my tastes. I’ll also play some live modular, but we’ll see how that goes. Tune in – it’ll be great.
THRP – I’ve just crowbarred The Human Response Project into beta and it’s ready (not ready) for some human interactions. The concept is simple – to respond to humans in the most creatively human way possible. Humans ask questions, post queries and a bank of human responders will consider the query and reply with hopefully artistic responses. They may be drawings, doodles, photos, music, video, poetry or text. They may answer the question – they may not – but it will be an authentically human response. Go and have a look – ask some questions and then, if you feel you can contribute, apply to be a Responder. I think it could be a beautiful antidote to the frenetic pace of life and the dissatisfaction we feel with the content that’s pushed at us.
Synth East – and lastly we have the dates for Synth East 2027 – it’s the 19th to 21st of February. Further details to come.