The summer is usually quiet for synth and music tech releases but we have lots of software this month and I’ve pulled a load of Eurorack into a bumper bonanza roundup.
Also available as a podcast
https://moltenmusictech.podbean.com/e/molten-music-monthly-june-2025
Molten Music Monthly June 2025 – Molten Music Tech Podcast
PMT Online – We were all surprised to learn that PMT, the slightly dodgily named music shop brand had closed. It had 11 stores and is pretty much the last music shop chain in the UK. In the last five years we’ve lost GAK, Digital Village, Dawsons and others. I think it’s really difficult to run a bricks and mortar music shop these days, particularly for music technology when everything is cheaper online. It hits Norwich quite hard because it was our only local source of synths and pro audio where you could play on big brand machines. It just leaves us with Cookes which is guitars and other band instruments although funnily enough it was the place I first played on a Casio CZ-101 back in the 1980s. So it raises questions about the future of MI retail – do we need it? What does it offer? How can we do it differently? It probably comes down to how much is the physical interaction with a store worth? And who foots the bill? I have some ideas that i’ll share at the end.
SOS For Artists – Something new and interesting from Sound On Sound magazine that offers a sort of everything for everyone musical production subscription. SOS has been running as a magazine subscription for almost 40 years so they know a thing or tow about retaining readers and producing content every month forever. There are plenty of companies out there offering subscriptions whether it’s for plugins, DAWs, mastering, distribution and what SOS for Artists wants to do is bring that together into a single destination that will support you from the tools you use, the plugins you load, the mastering you need all the way to the streaming services to get your music heard. It’s an ambitious one-stop-shop that could be awesome. For $8.25 a month you get over 40 plugins, 3 million samples, stem separation, mastering and DAW software, streaming to over 150 platforms, youtube tools, promotional ideas and reporting.
I think the mastering, distribution and reporting is probably worth the subscription on its own. There’s some good stuff in here although the DAWs are Ableton Lite and Cubasis and some of the other freebies feel a little bit like what you’d get bundled with any audio interface. There are other cool things like royalty splits, cover song licensing, youtube integration and promotion tools. The one thing it lacks, perhaps, is an alternative to streaming. I’d like to see SOS champion a more Bandcamp style approach or offer cassette/CD/Vinyl printing as I’m not sure streaming is the best solution – but heck, it’s a reality of music distribution. SOS say they will be adding to it every month so it could grow into something truly amazing and be the best way to manage your creative output.
Gforce Halogen FM – Oh no, not FM again! This time, apparently, it’s infinite. Halogen FM is another attempt at simplifying FM synthesis which is famously difficult (although I’m not sure it really is). Halogen is generative, playful and visually fascinating. Hit the Spark button for another magical sound which you can then tweak and refine and get deep into if you want. Looks really interesting, sounds pretty good actually and could be a way of finding new sounds. According to the video hardly anyone uses a regular keyboard anymore. Gforce has sent me a copy for review which I’ll do if I can find the time.
https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/halogen-fm/
Sonicware LIVEN Evoke – Oh no, not another Liven! These machines seem to have endless variations built on the same hardware and then resold to us. This time it’s Evoke – acoustic sounds with granular dressing. Comes with a intriguing bunch of acousticy algorithms from scraping sounds out of reality. Sounds great but still suffers from the clacking keys, terrible speaker and often unintuitive interface. Sonicware do some fabulous work in squeezing a lot of sound and motion out of these machines for a great price and so I’ll cut them some slack on the plastic box and learning curve.
https://sonicware.jp/en-gb/pages/liven-evoke
Buy from Perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-livenevoke
Buy from Thomann – https://thmn.to/thoprod/620132?offid=1&affid=1460
Cherry Audio ODC 2800 – Cherry Audio have come up with an expanded evolution on the ARP Odyssey to celebrate what would have been Alan R Pearlman’s 100th birthday. It looks distinctly ARPy and takes on all three versions of the Odyssey, expands the polyphony, adds an oscillator, an LFO and gives it masses of modulation options. The demo video moves too fast to comprehend, but it sounds pretty funky. I like the pedal board of effects.
https://cherryaudio.com/products/odc-2800-synthesizer
Universal Audio Anthem – I was on SonicState last week and it was suggested that perhaps we don’t really need another dual-oscillator analogue modelled software synth. I mean, what? If we decide that then it’s pretty much all over! However, I know what they mean and so does Anthem offer anything different? To me that’s the wrong question. The only thing that matters, I feel, is whether the thing in front of me, the instrument at my fingertips, inspires me creatively. That can be through the sound, the interface, the presets or simply how it presents itself. In all those areas Anthem excels. UAD do a great job on the look of their plugins and there’s some thought put into how modulation works and the simplicity of the flow. I like how they’ve gone with a paraphonic mode of polyphony – not just thrown in 16 voices so it sounds the same as any other analoguey synth, but instead we are contained with the weirdness of a single filter for multiple voices. The layout is great, it really works for me and it’s backed up by a really solid sound. It’s more expensive than most which is the only let down in light of the super affordable options from Cherry Audio and Gforce.
https://www.uaudio.com/products/anthem-analog-synthesizer
Acustica Audio Expanse-5 – Oh no not another Prophet-5 emulation! Apparently this is more than a mere recreation – it’s a tribute, a homage, which usually means they’ve changed and added a load of stuff. It uses analog modelling and convolution all running through an oversampled engine to offer the highest fidelity and detail. They use words like “emotionally authentic” which is really interesting. You can increase the polyphony up to 5 voices, add some wear and tear to the warmth, add dynamics, effects, stereo widening and a sub-oscillator. It looks pretty fabulous although the AI trailer is a bit unhelpful.
https://www.acustica-audio.com/shop/products/expanse5
Physical Audio Tetrad Synthesizer – Right, what the heck is this? It’s a hybrid of physical modelling and granular… Wait a minute, that sounds like the Liven Evoke? It must be a popular thing to do although the demo video is giving nothing away. It’s designed with sound artist and composer Gadi Sassoon and connects four oscillators through amplitude modulation into four late resonators for elaborate sonic exploration. You can do interesting tunings, mix and mess with levels and then smash it all into grains that bounce about on the plates. There’s a huge modulation matrix to give everything alive and in motion. It’s really odd – and interesting.
https://physicalaudio.co.uk/products/tetrad/
Teia Synthesizers RipWave – A nicely compact analogue oscillator with simple waveforms that can be transformed with a twist of a knob. It has an octave switch, tune and fine tune, individual waveform outputs and CV controlled bending – everything I want in a VCO in 6HP.
https://teiasynthesizers.com/product/ripwave/
Buy from Perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-ripwave
ALM Pip Filter and Pip LFO – What’s the Pip about? Dunno but it looks like a couple of compact and useful modules. The filter is a 2-pole lowpass with self oscillation and a trigger input to ping it into life. It has a built in VCA, which is handy and two CV inputs to the cutoff. The LFO can also be a VCO and has a bunch of waveform outputs. Simple, useful stuff.
https://busycircuits.com/alm039/
Buy from perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-pipfilter
Steady State Fate TAPE-Op – Analogue tape and tube distortion module with a nice big saturation knob and some tape bias to add wear and tear. It has a three band EQ and a hard limiter for getting crazy. It’s nice and compact, very CV-able and sounds pretty nice.
https://steadystatefate.com/products/tape-op-distortion
Koma Elektronik Monoplex Sequencer – Fabulous information on the website about this beauty. It’s a CV and MIDI sequencer you can preorder today that’s going to be released a month ago. All we get is a dodgy illustration but it looks like 16 steps on sliders with play directions and stuff. It appears to be a single channel version of their old 4-channel Komplex Sequencer Could be fun but it’s hard to tell!
https://koma-elektronik.com/new/product/monoplex
Buy from perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-komamonoplex
Bonus Eurorack fabulous Odds and sods
Divkid is not weird but he has a new version of Mutes out and a 1U version too.
https://divkidvideo.com/mutes-mk2/
Buy from Perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-divkidmutesmk2
Ear Modular – Windstring and Paperbird. Somehow about sound swaying across 10 outputs while Paperbird deals in logic and shift registers. https://www.earmodular.com/windstring
Dawned Instruments Acadie – Bi-timbral polyphonic analog synth, chord generator and performance instrument. Has some omnichord vibes. https://www.dawnedinstruments.com/products/ACADIE
New Systems Instruments Discrete Map – It looks like a sequencer which is can be, but it’s also an event generator, quantizer, chord generator, switch and when pushed to audio rate it’s a VCO and wave shaper. https://nsinstruments.com/modules/dmap.html
Buy from Perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-discretemap
Aircraft Designs high-end modules including Ember mid/side saturator, Cascade VCA compressor, Horizon EQ and more. Great look! https://www.instagram.com/aircraftdesigns.info
AMSynths AM1078 Triple Resonator – Three vactrol filters as a triple bandpass resonator for the ARP 2500 Eurorack format. https://www.amsynthstore.co.uk/product/am1076
Free Modular Quantizer – Cute 2-channel quantizer with a circular scale. Can be linked or independant, transposable and stuff – https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FreeModular
Catoff 100FX – It’s a module with 100 effect presets and no controls other than wet/dry. Slightly weird idea but then again why make it hard for yourself https://catoffsystems.com/100FX/
Behringer Skies is a Mutable Clouds clone which feels like it should have come out years ago
https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=0720-ADM
Buy from Perfect Circuit – http://moltenmt.com/perfect-behringerskies
Buy from Thomann – https://thmn.to/thoprod/619528?offid=1&affid=1460
Buy from Gear4Music – https://tidd.ly/4lpeeYa
Cakewalk Sonar – Sonar is back for free again. We thought Bandlab has abandoned the idea but it looks like the name is back and so is the free access. You’ll need a Bandcamp account and then you can use Sonar without any registration or subscription. It’s a fully fledged DAW with multi channel audio and MIDI, lots of regular plugins, ARA and VST support and it gets a bit of an updated look. It’s pretty decent although some of the more pro plugins are only available as extras.
https://www.cakewalk.com/sonar
Loci 2.0 new version – Love these stands, I have variations of them all over the place. Ste tells me they have a new version which is even more versatile. It has girders that increase stability, slip pads to prevent sliding and new ledges for wider gear. The modular nature is fantastic as you can essentially construct exactly what you need and it all comes apart flat for easily slipping into a bag with your gear. The cable-snagging potential remains but it’s sort of a trade off of having something this versatile. I should be getting some in for review soon. He’s also doing some fabulous illustrated cork slip mats for your desktop.
DayDreamer Synth 1 – Hybrid polyphonic synthesizer in a wooden box, with wooden knobs and a £299 price tag. It has six analogue oscillators offering up to 6 notes of polyphony through a single low pass ladder filter. It has digital envelopes and LFOs, glide, noise and a BBD delay. The demo video is a little bit dodgy but it gets better if you hang in there. It’s all open source and is intended to offer professional synthesizer features in a reasonably affordable box. It’s actually pretty cool.
https://www.daydreamersynth.com
Rhodes Wurli – Rhodes music has conjured up a superb Wurli reed piano sampled from the classic Wurlitzer 200A. Other than volume and vibrato you wouldn’t expect to find much in terms of control but under the hood rhodes gives you access to all sorts of stuff. You get preamp drive, EQ, vibrato, velocity, microphones, pedal noise and a whole bunch of effects along with an emulation of the speakers. It’s a lovely thing to play and perfect with our next item – Walls.
http://www.rhodesmusic.com/#a_aid=Molten
Klevgr Walls – Algorithmic space effect – as in reverb rather than outer space. Its bendable, twistable and ruins what we know about reverbs. It has six algorithms and a beautifully clean Klevgr interface. You can interact visually with each mode, playing with the parameters while experiencing how that alters the space around your sound. You can also play with the width, filter, modulations and depth of diffusion. Fascinating stuff that sounds oh, so, wonderful.
https://klevgrand.com/products/walls
And Finally what’s my solution to the demise of music shops? Well, it’s Synth East of course, but maybe a more frequent Synth East, a “Popup” Synth East if you will. This idea has been rolling around in my head for some time and the PMT thing brought it into focus. There are a number of elements in play which include the lack of synth demoing availability, me looking for ways to put the spare gear I have to work, providing more space for electronic musicians to play and get exposure, sharing my synthy passions with the world and attracting new viewers. All of that is solved in Synth East but perhaps it needs to be more often, more compact, and able to support Molten Music Tech while providing an awesome synth-driven service to Norwich and those happy to travel here. So, my intention is to find a space in Norwich for a monthly showcase of synths, modular and music. It will be potentially offer demos of gear that can then be bought via affiliate links – I’d invite various manufacturers to come over time. So no stock but i’d get a kick back for my trouble. Rentals – it would be a solid collect/drop off venue for monthly rentals of synths and modular – far better than sending in the post. It would provide a space for enthusiasts to come, bring a synth and show it. Then maybe evening performances. While groovy community events are great we already have EMOM and a synth club or two – this is going to be more about trying new gear, sales and seeing if a small shop-style business can be supported in this way rather than just jamming and drinking beer. Would that work? Would it be interesting? Would people come, would they buy or rent or would it just be a nice place to spend a Saturday? These are the questions.
Coming up – So let’s talk about it at this Sunday’s live stream – 8pm BST.
Otherwise reviews from me coming up include the Seashell, some Shakmat Modular, Redshift 6 and a shed load of DIY.