modular

NAMM: Doepfer, Jomox, Black Market Modular, WMD, SSF

We pick up our post-NAMM coverage where we left off after the show. As stated in earlier articles, this was a great year for synthesizers, including analog modular synthesizers. For the first time, several manufacturers formed a super booth in Hall A in the main show floor.

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Holding court in the center was Deiter Doepfer himself with a giant Doepfer modular system.

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The new modules from Doepfer this year included an opto FET filter (an alternative to the popular vactrol filters), a quadrature thru-zero VCO, and a large trigger sequencer. The trigger sequencer has a nice appearance and provides a lot of outputs. It plays well with a new clock divider that Doepfer introduced as well. The FET filter has some interesting properties for doing FM filter effects as it can modulate much faster, though it apparently distorts at higher volumes.

JoMoX has been long known for its small tabletop instruments. This year, like several other manufacturers, they introduced Eurorack modular versions, including the T-rackonizer filter matrix along with some of their drum synths.

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Black Market Modular collaborated with Foxtone Music to bring the Colour Pallete to the Eurorack modular format. It’s really a “modular inside a modular”, where one can mix and match up to three “colour palettes” (expansion cards) that operate as standalone modules, each with its own VCA. They hope to release more expansion cards over time, which will be compatible with their outboard system.

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Another interesting collaboration featured WMD and Steady-State Fate (SSF). There are some basic modulesl, but also some specialized sound and control elements such as the Spectrum and Mini Slew modules. And all of them can put together in this neat little case complete with keyboard that supports MIDI and CV.

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This is only the beginning of what was on display in the analog modular superbooth 6990. More will be presented in subsequent articles.

NAMM: Tom Oberheim SEM Eurorack Module

This year, Tom Oberheim joined his fellow giants in the synthesizer world Dave Smith, Don Buchla, and Roger Linn at NAMM. He has rereleased the classic SEM synthesizer and introduced a new Eurorack module based on the SEM.

Oberheim SEM Eurorack module

The EuroModule SEM is a single voice of the standalone synthesizer. It has two VCOs, a VCF, two envelopes, LFO, and VCA. It’s pretty much an entire instrument in one, and it takes up quite a bit of space in a modular system. Where I could see it being of particular use in this environment route external CV into it.

The Tom Oberheim booth (under the name of his company Marion Systems) was a family affair, and indeed the entire Oberheim family was extremely welcoming and friendly.

The SEM module as well as a separate Phaser module are expected to be released later this year.

NAMM: Big City Music

A trip to NAMM always includes a visit to the booth of Big City Music. As always there was a mixture of old favorites (e.g.,an entire collection of Metasonix modules in a matching yellow case, the Mellotron, etc.), as well as new and unusual things. Upon arrival I was greeted by this rack containing Intellijel synth modules and a Mellotron rack-mount unit.

Mellotron 4000D rack and Intellijel modules

This the digital Mellotron M4000D in rack-mount unit. It sounds like the classic Mellotron in a unit that is more practical for live gigging or integration into a studio setup. Of course, there are no tapes in this one.

The polyphonic analog synthesizer from Schmidt was on display and I had a chance to play it.

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This thing is a beast! Beyond the polyphony, it has four oscillators and seven filters per voice. Quite feature rich and very playable. But it’s price is this instrument’s most infamous feature. It comes in at about $20K USD, similar to the price one might pay for the car to schlep it around in.

This odd but intriguing electromagnetic contraption was from boutique manufacturer Analog Outfitters. We still have no idea what it does.

Analog Outfitters

And of course there were lots of large modular installations, including this “Wall of Cwejman.”

Wall of Cwejman

It’s a dangerous booth to visit, as I start to get purchase ideas…

NAMM: New and odd modules at Muff Wiggler

The Muff Wiggler Store was onsite at NAMM this year, hosting quite a few module makers whose work I had not encountered before.

Minigorille

These eye-catching modules from Minigorille have graphic screens (an unusual feature for a Eurorack module) for manipulating control voltage. It includes several programs such as a pong-like game and an XY freehand drawing unit, and has an expander for input from a handheld controller.

Next was the rather psychedelic Circuit Shaman, featuring modules with purple knobs and colorful LEDs, all to be viewed through distorting rainbow glasses.

Circuit Shaman

The flagship module was the Spectra Mirror, a resonant down-sampler with a variety of controllable parameters allowing it to sound like a clean VCA, a bit-crusher and various things in between such as downsampling the signal with a high-pass filter. It would be interesting to run the shape controls through an LFO, or through the Minigorille module.

While not in Eurorack format, this complete system in Moog format from Synthetic Sound Labs was quite playable, and included a newly released Steiner filter.

Synthetic Sound Labs

There was a lot more at the booth, some old some new, but more than I am able to cover in this article. Visit the Muff Wiggler Store to find more, including some you may have never heard of before.

NAMM: New Modules from Make Noise

Our friends at Make Noise were back at NAMM this year including a few new modules. The Telharmonic is a 3-voice additive synthesizer with a variety of controls including spectral centroid, triads quantized to scales, a more. This module is another collaboration between Make Noise and Tom Erbe of Soundhack.

Make Noise / Soundhack Telharmonic

You can see a bit of the Telharmonic in action in this video. Our little mascot gets a starring role 🙂

Make Noise also introduced the Fixed Filter, and the RxMx which pairs with it to do all sorts of interesting gate-like effects.

Make Noise RxMx

The RxMx is expected to be available soon after NAMM, but no word on the release date for the Telharmonic. Both are intriguing enough to consider for the collection.

NAMM: Buchla 200h series and LEM3 Spider

Buchla introduced several new instruments and add-ons this year, including an entirely new modular series, the 200h. The 200h aims to be a more compact (and hopefully lower cost) series of modules, but the same esoteric sound and control that make Buchla instruments infamous. They have been assembled into “mini-systems” including the LEM3 Spider shown below.

Buchla LEM Spider

That colorful circular thing is actually a 200e series, specifically a 252e polyphonic rhythm generator. It is visually gorgeous!

Here is a short video of my attempts to play the LEMs.

NAMM: Moog Modular and More

Moog Music seems to have a bigger presence and NAMM every year. This time they had a large enclosed space complete with retro neon signs.

Moog neon sign

But that merely prepared the way for what was inside. The centerpiece and main attraction was the reintroduced Moog Modular.

Moog modular

There was quite a bit of excitement with the news about the modular. Besides being huge and impressive, it also boasts simple and easy to control modules with distinctively Moog sound.

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While some sounds that one could get out of the demo system reminded me of the Minimoog, it was a different instrument. It is a modular, so the combinations can go quite distant from the classic Minimoog subtractive sound. Since the modules are fairly basic in terms of function compared to the recent Eurorack modular releases, it does take quite a few to make a patch. The larger size of the modules and knobs does make it easy to handle and play. But it is probably more of a studio instrument than a live instruments (especially with the high price tag).

More down-to-earth but perhaps odder was the Moog Werkstatt, a tiny patchable synth with Moog sound that interoperates nicely with Eurorack systems.

Moog werkstatt

This one is indeed something for live use. I’d love to see how it works together with the Theremini. It does make some weird crunchy sounds, and would make a great first stage of a modular in between the Theremini as controller and various Eurorack modules as post processing.

In between, Moog does continue to provide its “Phatty” line, including the Moog Sub 37. These are quite practical to get a Moog sound for live-stage situations.

Moog Sub 37

Of course there was quite a crowd to see the Modular. We at CatSynth certainly wish them well with the new instruments and exposure.

2014: Transition and Turbulence

CatSynth 2014 in Review
[Click to enlarge.]

Once again, it’s time for our traditional end-of-the-year image at CatSynth. 2014 was a year like no other for us: transition, turbulence, complexity, controversy, beauty. Luna turned 10, and is enjoying the life of a mature but very spoiled house cat. And for me, the year began with a profound change that is still reverberating. Some things stayed remarkably constant, as one can see from themes in the words and images here. But others changed in ways I was not prepared for. Changes in my music, my personality and identity, my friendships and relationships, and my professional life. But in the end I learned the importance of speaking one’s truth. It comes with tremendous risks, but with potential great rewards. So what this means is that even more big changes are likely in store for 2015, especially in music, work, and the pages of this website.

The blog did suffer a bit amidst all the tumult of this past year, but we are reinvigorating it for 2015. There is the new look and feel – one of our truths – and more posts and channels coming. Thank you for being part of this year with us, and looking forward to the next!