Molten Monthly March 2025

Molten Music Monthly March 2025

Molten Music Monthly
robinv

Spring is in the air and electronic music devices are everywhere. Let’s ponder the latest news and releases from March 2025.

► Patreon and instruments – http://patreon.com/robinvincent
► Get your Stage 61 here – http://www.rhodesmusic.com/#a_aid=Molten
► Gig – https://www.fatsoma.com/e/jkad63lb/patched

Korg Multi/Poly Native – Announced at NAMM and now available Multi/Poly Native takes the guts of the Multi/Poly hardware synth and slaps it into a software plugin. These synths from Korg are all digital emulations of stuff and so turning it into a virtual instrument isn’t difficult. However what Korg do well is lean into the visual advantages of software to give you an alternative experience to the hardware. It has page upon page of visually exciting editing and clear interactions with the four oscillators, multiple filters and kaoss modulations.

XAOC Quad Digital Delay Samarkanda – Resampling Delay Performance Station. Look at the state of this! It’s a fabulous array of delay lines worked into a glorious four-part panel looking every bit like the controls of a soviet sub marine. It can handle all sorts of delay effects like echo, chorus, flanger but it also resonates, reverses, granulates and loops. Up to 15 seconds per channel, digital and analogue modes. Each one can be a regular delay or you can link and normalise your way to a flexible network of signal interplay. Just look at those knobs, but heck, it’s huge!

Omnitone Beatsi and Rhythmi – I have these in for review and will be spending time with them over the next few weeks. Beatsi is easy, it’s a percussion sound source and contains three drum kits inspired by modular synthesis. It has an interesting grid which helps us select and change parameters with just two knobs. You’ve also got 2 CV inputs for modulation. Rhythmi is a generative drum sequencer and the perfect companion to Beatsi. The idea is that it has a basic root rhythm that can be sent off into different directions of complexity. Could be a bit like Grids in that it gives you an endless supply of rhythms but differs in that you can grow a whole different set of rhythms with the touch of a button. It has interesting things like energy, density and sync and lets you dictate it for each of the 6 outputs. The two modules can link behind the scenes for a perfect little drum machine.

Jamcorder – Fabulously simple box that records MIDI from your digital piano. Stick it into your piano and it’s happily recording everything you play…. For 100 years – it’s like retrospective recording but in a cool little box. A phone app lets you access and organise the recordings. You can export as MIDI, audio or video

Erica Synths Echolocator – Gosh, what an alarming looking box. It’s the same enclosure as the NightVerb but this one is a stereo delay developed with 112db.com. It’s very very hands-on that starts with different delays and then spills into a filter, reverb and shimmer modes and a freeze function. It has a footswitch input, full MIDI control 30 presets and room for 70 more.

Divkid/Vostok Path – This is a clever idea. Design one module that can do two different things for two different applications with the same hardware. The idea with Trace was that it takes up to four inputs and scans between them for morphingly mixed outputs. For Path it flips the idea so that you have a single input and four outputs where the signal is faded between the four. So it’s like you could move modulation between 4 different destinations. It’s a very cool idea for getting more modulation moving your stuff about.

Xfer Records Serum 2 – Serum is probably the biggest software synth in the history of software synths. It’s probably the most successful wavetable synth ever – and as Steve Duda from Xfer says he’s never marketed the product and has no social media accounts. The update is free because Steve hates the whole forced update conveyer belt for titbits after spending hundreds on a piece of software. However he’s spent millions of dollars over 5 or 6 years developing and expanding Serum so it would be justifiable to charge, however, apparently, he doesnt need the money and he’s invested everything back into Serum 2 and is confident it will sell. Steve is a rare enthusiast who really does stand by idea like free updates for life and creating the best thing he can without screwing people on the update charges or retiring and leaving people in the lurch. It’s like a big thank you to everyone who has supported him by buying Serum. He’s not looking for growth, he just wants to make cool things and support the music technology industry with quality tools. What an amazing attitude and an amazing guy.

Anyway Serum 2 looks similar but they’ve packed a whole load more stuff inside. There are three primary oscillators that can be wavetable, sample, granular, spectral or soundfont multisample. There’s a new mixer, expanded effects, more envelopes and LFOs, macros, new filters and a better browser. It sounds amazing, looks exciting if a bit busy and has enormous amounts of sound design depth.

Ujam Vox Humana plugin – Based on samples from the Polymoog 280A captured by the fabulous Alex Ball, Ujam and The Bob Moog Foundation have created a plugin showcasing the most numanesque of all Gary Numan sounds – Vox Humana. It has some effects, a couple of presets and absolutely looks and sounds the part. It’s $20 and all proceeds go to the Bob Moog Foundation.

Tim Exile PTNSHIFT – This is a new generative music performance instrument for Ableton Push from the fabulous Tim Exile and is like a companion to Scapeshift that he launched last year. You make patterns and then perform them like clips in Ableton. Sounds come from six generative sound engines and you’ve got a couple of effects, mixing and blending. All the engines do their thing and you guide them through macro changes and micro fiddlings. Make something you like and save it as a pattern. Then you convert a bunch of patterns to a performable song. Something like that. It’s quite hard to grasp really but it’s a fascinating thing to play with.

BlaknBlu Oscar Tria – This was first revealed at Synth East last month but I was too darn busy to check it out. Never fear though BlaknBlu are sending me one to review. Oscar Tria is a triple mode stereo oscillator. It’s a regular VCO with regular although variable waveforms but as it’s stereo you can detune the two oscillator sources for some lovely modulations. It also has two sub oscillators for a big, deep sound. Then it can be a swarm oscillator with supersaws for lots of cascading gooiness, and finally it’s a chord oscillator with 20 CV selectable chords. This is quite an unusual and intriguing sound source that I’m really looking forward to playing with.

Frequency Central Florian – Named after that geezer from Kraftwerk Florian is a dual VCO synthesizer from modular makers Frequency Central. It’s based on Roland bits and ARP bits and has two VCOs, sub oscillator, ring modulator, multimode Roland 700 filter, regular ADSR and then ARP inspired VCA and looping A/R generator and two LFOs. It’s laid out like a modular system but all exists behind a 42hp panel. It’s a good, solid synth concept with a great looking filter knob and some classic vibes.

Synclavier Ork II – Synclavier has taken their weird looking Regen synth and built it into what looks like a Synclavier keyboard of old. It’s all wood and a more familiar weirdness that makes you think this is an advert for something from a long time ago. It was discovered in a brochure given out at last weekends London Pedal and Synth show. ORK II combines additive, FM and subtractive synthesis, it has multi track recording, DSP effects, a touchscreen and a couple of ribbon controllers and that big knob of navigation. Maybe this is what Synclavier fans have really been waiting for.

RaspiAudio Modulox Modular Midi Controller – Reminds me a lot of the Intech Studio system I reviewed for Sound On Sound some time ago. It’s a similar idea where you have a bunch of different MIDI control units that magnetically snap together to form a fabulous custom controller. The Modulox is smaller with fewer controls but looks pretty great. These things are always a good idea in theory but tend to be fussy in practice. Currently there’s a unit with two sliders, one with four knobs and one with eight buttons or pads. You can then configure it all via an online browser app and then control your stuff.

But there’s more. They also have the Modu-Brain box which is an open source software synth in hardware form. You can load different firmwares which gives you different synths like virtual analog, granular and sampler. You don’t have to use a computer, you can connect a MIDI controller or the Modulox modules to control everything. The weeny screen gives you access to stuff but… It is small. More firmwares to come so who knows where it could go.

Rhodes Stage 61 – What a beautiful thing. The classic Rhodes sound in a compact, stunning looking real instrument stripped down to the essentials. It’s the same electro-acoustic tine piano engineering as the MK8 but in a more portable simpler fashion. It doesnt even require power, it just needs an amp. I would love one.

Shakmat Griffin’s Claws – CV recording is definitely a bit of a thing at the moment and next into the fray are Shakmat with the fabulously named Griffin’s Claws. But this is different. Griffins Claws is about automating attenuation rather than generating CV (although it can do that too!). So, you plug your modulation in and the slider acts as an attenuator and then you can record the movements. You can record up to 81 seconds per channel, free clocked or quantised, with offsets, rate control and a 16 slot memory. It’s interesting because you’re not trying to be the modulator, you’re scaling the modulation which means the modulation is far more consistent than your feeble attempts at pulling something off. However, without an input patched you can also do your own feeble modulations. Review to come soon!

LookMumNoComputer Game – Madcap genius Sam Battle has teamed up with The Bitfather to produce a bonkers arcade shooter. The idea is that you stap the Kosmo synth to your back and get ported inside broken electronics and try to fix them by blasting things with synth sound waves. You can add to and upgrade the modular synth engine that’s producing the soundtrack as you go. Looks fantastic and is out this year sometime.

And finally – Very sadly Paul Schreiber passed away. He was the handy man at Tandy when Moog came to Radio Shack with the MG-1. Paul helped develop the famously cut-price synthesizer that was a major flop for Radio Shack but it regarded very fondly by fans of Moog synthesizers. I had the pleasure of talking to Paul about it for hours on the phone when I was researching the history of Moog synthesizers for an article. He was a lovely, funny guy. He went on to create the Synthesis Technology brand making modular synths from which he tried to retire many times without success.

Also we lost Seiki Kato, Korg’s President and son of the founder Tsutomo Kato.

Coming soon – gig –  – talk about late night music – rentals – Sunday night live stream – Patreon – Mantis