Molten Music Monthly November 2024

Molten Music Monthly November 2024

Molten Music Monthly News
robinv

Synths are getting weirder in this month’s round-up of music technology from November.

Bedtime Tape!

Four virtual cassette heads in a little box emulating tape behaviour. Lots of cool tape-style elements, overdubbing, pitch change, wobble and lo-fi etc. It looks like there are some disappointing connections and it’s in a bit of a fiddly form, but could be fun.

Korg Nanokey Fold

Hilariously compact and foldable keyboard for your pocket. The keys are mebranes, has a couple of ribbon controllers, built in arp and scales. Very nifty.

Neutral Labs Scrooge

Sequenced Malfunction Generator. 5 channels of weirdly analog noise and percussion threading through a 64 step sequencer with a couple of modulation tracks. The voices leech power from the sequencer and are passive, like the Landscape Noon which gives them a starved and desperate quality. Oooo look at the cool buttons and faders.

Synthux Audrey II

Horrorscape synthesizer that uses feedback to fearlessly explore chaotic sonic territory. It’s “feedback synthesis” involving karplus strong strikes into deep drones and soundscapes. Karplus pluck, resonating into reverb, finding harmonics in a filter, and oh my god, that’s a flippin’ distorted guitar feedbacking like a bastard.

Shmoergh HOG

Analog two oscillator monosynth. Interestingly switch switch-laden front panel. Emphasis given over the waveshape and octave rather than filter. It claims to be FAT and has a switch to prove it which folds in the second oscillator for detuning and stuff. The filter is a “drippy ladder” which sounds lovely. 2 LFOs feeding some autowah/vibrato and 1 envelope. The “Playground” enables a bunch of cross-modulation features. Completely open source, no product to buy, but you can make your own.

NapKeyChord

Fab-looking box like a groovy 70s Commodore 64, but it’s a sort of Omnichord or autoharp – which is a bit of a theme this month. The keys offer chords and the strip on the side is a strummable space in which to explore the sounds. It has a built-in speaker and a 20-voice polysynth inside, or you can use MIDI/USB to play other stuff.

Madrona Labs Sumu Software

Fascinating software synth combining additive resynthesis with FM and vector field spatialization. The idea is that samples are sliced into 64 partials which are then manipulated by 10 processing modules. The sound sort of tumbles it’s way through the interface, poking and moving, sliding into space, rolling over into harmonics, and crumbling under modulation. It looks strange, sounds strange and has you mulling over it’s possibilities. Thankfully there’s a nice sensible filter on the end to play with.

Yum Audio Ember

Flashy virtual analogue software synth with a very modern front end but a gorgeously gooey vintage sound. It’s designed to be simple, fast and analogue. Choose your waveform, dial in the filter, add an envelope, modulation – yada yada – but what’s interesting is the vibey stuff. You can push drift into up to 4 parameters that will slowly mess up over time – there’s a Circuit section which purposely degrades and strains the sound before falling into a bunch of effects. Lots of easy XY controls to get you in there. Fun, fast, and fat.

Nystrom Crum Hum

3-voice experimental soundscape instrument in an alarming purple. It has 12 sounds engines, 12 scales, chords and melody generation, delay reverb and overdrive. Interesting touch-plate triggering with melodies played on the turning of the frequency knob. I’ve taken to do that in my modular with the lightstrip. Pretty interesting.

Teenage Engineering OPXY

Ewww, apparently, we’ve had wet fantasies about this machine – speak for yourself. It’s based on the OP-Z but good this time, and it’s serious, because it’s black. It has 8 tracks of internal sequencing plus 8 external, with a fast workflow, automation and generative qualities. It has a drum sampler, synth sampler, multisampler, instant sampler and a 24-voice synth. It has a load of effects, looper, patterns, presets, grooves and a price tag to match the pretentiousness of the vibe and pointless video. Oh, it’s fabulous, of course – fill your boots.

Bastl Kastle 2 FX Wizard

Now, this almost wins the award for this month’s best product video. Bastl are like the opposite of TE – they are real, fun, slightly bonkers and not that fussed if they look cool or not. The FX Wizard is a funny little box that uses funny little patch cables to reroute effects in bizarre ways. It’s stereo, with delay, amplitude and pitch-based effects. Stick in some audio and patch in modulated effects for instant fun and satisfaction. Simple controls, crazy stuff, i have one in for review.

Knob Technology Carinae VCO

Also vying for the best video of the month is Carinae from Knob Technology. They built that weird feedbacking drum synth module named after some star that I thoroughly enjoyed. Anyway, now they have a VCO. It’s analogue with two-level waveforming, two sub oscillators and a vactrol-based low pass filter. I have one, looks fantastic – give me a chance!

Telepathic Instruments Orchid

This is simply the best product video I’ve seen in a long, long time. There’s a moment of initial fear that this will be a bit cringe but they power on through into something uncommonly cool and full of vibe. The product looks like something out of Space 1999 and thoroughly fantastic – gosh. It’s a half keyboard, half chord generating space console from a dream you once had where you worked as an accountant in the 1970s. The Orchid creates chords and variations, with different ways to play them. Inside is a fat synth engine with virtual analog, FM and reed organ sounds and a bunch of chewy effects. The way the video narrates you through a creative process is just excellent and makes you excited about the possibilities in a way i’ve not seen before. It could be amazing…. It could be really limited, plastic and cheesy – we will see.

Qubit Stardust

Cosmic Tape Looper and something about the cacophony of galaxies. Ultimately, it grabs audio and loops and then lets you modulate and vibe the heck out of it. Bunch of tape-style effects on board and it has Qu-Bits uncanny way to make things mysterious and beautifully complex – they reward your time rather than your intuition. But oh, this is really nice – give the demo video some time, it takes them 3 minutes to record anything!

Genki Katla

Icelandic boutique synth built by the people who gave us the wave ring thing. Inspired by sub-glacial volcanos – groovy. So it’s seismic and ethereal. Looks like a dark anime version of the Deckard’s Dream. Rows of sliders, four oscillators, enormous filter knob, granite sides and a spring reverb. It’s all about texture and drama. Although they are not really telling us anything, the short demo makes it sound flippin epic.

Polyend Synth

This does not strike me as something new and exciting. It feels very much like we’ve seen it before and already know what its about. Considering the bizarre and creative company it’s in this month the Polyend Synth looks… A bit boring? However, it is a sleek, multi engine polyphonic synthesizer and pretty cool – you can play three engines at once, tied to three sequencers, with three effects and it sounds brilliant. The 12×5 grid gives lots of opportunity for hands-on playing, shifting from play to sequencing and parameters. It has polyphonic aftertouch, fabulous mod engines and loads of space for your music. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fabulous device, at a great price, i just wonder whether we’ve come to the end of the road with this design.

Dreadbox Artemis

6-voice polyphonic synthesizer with a nice digital effects engine from Sinevibes. I guess the immediate question is whether this fills in all the gaps that undermined the awesome Nymphes. I love the Nymphes, it has a gorgeous vibe to it, but it was clunky in places and that second level of control could get frustrating. Does the Artemis put it all out on the front panel? I have to say the demos are fantastic, the front panel looks great, and I’m quite excited by the whole thing.

Steinberg Cubase 14

Look at that, modulators, what a fabulous idea – Tracktion and Bigwig have had these forever and I keep telling Presonus to put them in Studio One, but its Cubase that sorts it out. Basic idea is that you have a bunch of LFOs and stuff that can be mapped to any instrument or plugin parameter – awesome. It also has patterns (like studio one) a bunch of upgraded effects, drum machine, configurable mixer (like studio one) and better automation editing in the arrange window.

Herbs and Stones Mousse

looks like a game of GO! But it’s a groovebox from those earthy herb and stones humans. It’s bigger than you’d think, covered in a confusing grid of knobs, sockets and lights – what is going on? It has 2 hybrid synth engines, 2 sequencers, 2 envelopes ad 2 complex modulation sources. It’s sort of fiercely ordered while being completely bonkers. No info yet – fabulously weird.

Minichord

Another autoharp/omnichord in a compact form. Select chords, and then strum or tap the strummy thing – easy. It has a poly synth inside with 12 presets, is completely open source and editable via a webpage. It’s cute and buildable yourself.

Tim Exile Scapeshift

Conceived on his hospital bed, Scapeshift is Tim’s new project designed to keep him creating and focusing on staying alive. It’s a generative groove machine built into Reaktor and is quite capable of making its own music without the help of AI or anything nefarious. It works a bit like a loop library machine, but the engines are synths that are having their parameters manipulated. You can simply explore the curated banks of musical happenings and use macros to bring change and variation, or you can dive into the engines and tweak the heck out of it. You then sit back and blend….. In some ways it’s difficult to let go enough to let Scapeshift do the work, but it’s immensely pleasing when you do. Is it you, is it Tim, does it matter?

Music Thing Workshop

The marvellous Tom Whitwell of Music Thing Modular has put together a fantastic little modular system called the Workshop. It combines analogue modular with a computer system that’s patchable and hackable. It has 14 modules – 2 vcos, 2 filters, 2 slope envelopes, turing machine, reverb, ringmod, mixer, stomp box interface, 4 note playable thing and a bunch of knobs and patch sockets. It looks nicely designed and sounds like it would be a fascinating place to play that’s unusual and not the regular synth-voice approach to a mini system. It’s a kit – i’d love to build one if someone gets it for me for christmas.