Dreamt in Passing | Sequential Take 5 (Dreamscape)

video upload by hvegel

"A patch I created to showcase how massive the Take 5 can get. Apart from a bit of 'ITB Mastering' this is just the instrument. With 'Vintage knob' or things like LFO slew, not engaged, yes, it is true, this instrument, by design can do some very precise Analogue material, think Elektron Analog 4, but it can get into the weeds, and sound out right wild, and unruly, not unlike the Sequential Godfather it shares its DNA from.

The latest firmware update, has really encouraged me to start using this more as centrepiece in my studio. A/B-ing, sound for sound with the Prophet 5 Rev 4, with a bit of attention to detail with programming, it gets just about every bit there (factoring in a substancial lower mid-range bump in tone with P5, with a touch of those mids being abscent on design, some may consider the Take 5 a bit more 'glossy'), The Prophet 6 might be a better (more immediately satisfying) than both the P5 ot T5, but Sequential has done a wonderful job at taking the core Prophet sound, its Rev 1/2 filter, modernising it with bass compensation, and stable filters, that can be pitched to a wonderfully pleasing instability.

This reads a bit as an apologist letter, but I also think the Take 5, is very misunderstood amongst the Internet, for what it's DNA really is, how these firmware updates keep unleashing it further into the stratosphere, and despite its massive popularity at your local Synth Store, it's still this mystified object that kind of gets relegated to a vastly updated Dave Smith Mopho."

Våld Labs Tresse: a multiengine synthesizer based on Plaits, for desktop.

video upload by Våld Labs

This one was sent my way via Meska who had the following to say: "It's 'basicaly' a standalone MI Plait with 3voice and extended oscilator models."

Video description follows:

"Tresse — 3-voice polyphonic desktop synth, 38 engines

Hey all,

Been working on this for a while and it's finally at a point where I want to share it.

*Tresse* is a standalone polyphonic synthesizer built around Mutable Instruments' Plaits DSP code, running on an ESP32-S3 with a custom PCB. Three voices of polyphony, 38 synthesis engines, USB, DIN/TRS and Bluetooth MIDI, and perhaps Ableton Link and our upcoming stack (VMB) Våld Modular Bus, expected to ship this summer, and which will a new wireless comms protocol with negligible latency, auto discovery and machine mesh capabilities (to be released soon).
Also enough knobs and encoders to actually play the thing without menu-diving, and a battery for when you're bored outside of your studio.

*The core idea:* take the full Plaits engine library — all 24 algorithms — and make it polyphonic in a self-contained hardware instrument. Then keep going and add 14 more custom engines on top.
There are hundreds of options similar to this in modular systems and i thought why not bring all these god-level creative tools to bedroom, desktop producers who don't have the money or the space (or will) to mingle in the modular space, and bring them one contained box with all they need.

What's inside

*ESP32-S3* doing all the DSP across both cores (voices 0+1 on Core 1, voice 2 on Core 0, parallel render)
**PCM5102A DAC**, 24-bit output, 32kHz sample rate
*4 pots + 4 rotary encoders* through CD74HC4067 mux and MCP23017 I2C expander
*OLED display* (128×64) for patch info, engine select, preset browsing
*USB MIDI + BLE MIDI* — works with everything, no adapter needed for wireless
Custom PCB, all through-hole friendly

38 engines

The first 24 are straight from Plaits — East Coast, Phase Distortion, all three DX7 variants, Terrain, String/Chords, Chiptune, Wavetable, Speech, Swarm, Particle, the Rings modes, the three drum engines, etc.

Then 14 custom engines built from scratch:

*Karplus-Strong* — proper physical string modeling with excitation morphing (noise → impulse → tonal)
*ByteBeat* — 8 classic formulas with pitch-tracked rate, gets wild
*CZ Phase Distortion* — Casio CZ-style, three distortion shapes
*Supersaw* — up to 7 detuned saws with PWM, the obvious one but it needed to exist
*Formant* — vowel synthesis with 3 bandpass resonators, gender shift control
*2-Op FM* — clean FM with 13 ratios and operator feedback
*Wavefolder* — sine/tri/saw/square source into a proper folder with bias
*Noise Drums* — SVF-based with pitch envelope, covers kicks through metallic hits
*Modal Resonator* — 8 tuned bandpass partials, morphs from harmonic → bell → bar inharmonicity, with a bowed excitation mode
*Sympathetic Strings* — 3 coupled Karplus delay lines with controllable coupling and interval ratios
*Comb Resonator* — 4 parallel comb filters with spread control
*Drawbars* — organ-style additive with 8 Hammond-ratio partials
*Complex Oscillator* — FM into wavefolder, Buchla-adjacent territory
*Grain Noise* — granular noise with smoothing, good for textures and pads

Controls

Three parameter layers accessible via toggle buttons:

*Normal* — Timbre, Morph, Harmonics, Color on pots; Attack, Decay, FM, LFO Depth on encoders
*MOD* — Fold, Detune, Ring Mod, Chorus on pots; LFO destination/shape/speed/sync on encoders
*SHIFT* — Filter Cutoff/Reso/Env/Type on pots; Portamento, Octave, Vibrato depth/speed on encoders

Hold both buttons → engine select overlay. Double-tap MOD → system menu (randomizer, MIDI config, play mode). Double-tap SHIFT → preset browser across three banks (own patches, generated, branches).

Play modes: Poly, Mono, and chord modes (Major, Minor, 7th, Sus4, Power, Octave).

The randomizer is one of my favorite things — it generates random patches with procedural names (stuff like "Velvet Moth" or "Iron Shard"), you scroll through them with the encoder, and save the ones you like to a generated preset bank. 512 slots each for generated and branch presets, 128 for your own.

What it sounds like

Honestly covers a lot of ground. The Plaits engines already span everything from classic analog to FM to physical modeling to noise, and the custom engines fill in some gaps I wanted — proper supersaw, real Karplus-Strong, the modal/sympathetic stuff for metallic and evolving tones, and the ByteBeat engine for when you want to go full chaos. The global FX chain (filter, wavefolder, ring mod, chorus) ties everything together.

The project should be available from April 2026, in kit or assembled units! Price to be discolsed once i have the final FINAL prototype, but shouldn't hurt the wallet.

This is a *Våld Labs* project from Lisbon Portugal. Much more to come.

Would love to hear what people think, and happy to answer questions about the build or the DSP. Be aware that this is a pretty advenced prototype, but still a prototype"

https://valdlabs.com

Note they also have the Consequencer pictured left but no additional info aside from the following on it yet.

"A portable, desktop-first sequencer with modular DNA — built for the art of shaping chaos."

CubuSynth also has a Consequencer announced back in 2024, but they appear to be unrelated.

Elektron DIGITONE 2

video upload by Electric Bear

#digitone2 ‪@WeAreElektron‬ #beatless #electronicmusic

3rd-Wave Synthesizer song demo

video upload by Brian Schaft

"Short little song that showcases some of the bubbly digital waveforms among its traditional waveforms as well."

Gleeman Pentaphonic Demonstration

video upload by mysterycircuits

"Going through many of the features of this rare synthesizer from 1982 after repairs."

One of only 20 of 50 ever made in a clear case.

Arp 2500 - Overview

video upload by Ian Nieman

SynthFest France 2026 Set for April 17 - 19

"SynthFest France is expanding!

Great news for SynthFest France 2026! Dear synth enthusiasts, we are thrilled to announce that SynthFest France 2026 is moving to a larger and even more suitable venue. SynthFest France 2026 will take place on April 17, 18, and 19, 2026, at the Centre de Congrès de la Fleuriaye in Carquefou.

Why the change? The Théâtre de l’Odyssée, which has hosted us since 2023, is a venue we love, but our festival is growing thanks to you. With record attendances in 2024 and 2025, we need a more spacious venue to ensure your comfort and that of our exhibitors. No more temporary structures: the new venue offers modern spaces, a capacity of up to 1,500 people, an 800-seat auditorium, modular spaces, easy access, and improved public transport connections, just 20 minutes from the center of Nantes.

Why Carquefou? The Fleuriaye Convention Center, currently undergoing renovations to meet High Environmental Quality standards, will be ready to welcome us with state-of-the-art technical facilities, catering areas, meeting rooms, and an optimal setting for everyone. This new phase marks a step up for SynthFest, and it's all thanks to your loyalty and passion.

See you in April 2026 for an even bigger and better festival!"

Stanky Sequential Super Saw Sonic Showdown - Fourm vs Take 5 vs Prophet 10

video upload by Pork Chop Synthesizers

Why to Love the Sequential Prophet X

video upload by Red Means Recording

"Free Prophet X presets: / 150773870

Support the channel on Patreon: http://bit.ly/rmrpatreon
Take a lesson with me: https://rmr.media/education

Find my music here:
https://rmr.media/findme"

Tintinnalogia: A 17th-century technique for generative music

video upload by Electrum Modular

"Introducing my second sequencer for the Disting NT: Tintinnalogia. This Lua script (written with Claude) is an implementation of 'change ringing.' Invented in 17C England, change ringing is essentially a procedure for ringing church bells. It’s an early example of algorithmic composition, and is also proto-minimalist in its emphasis on a fixed, deterministic process. So...perfect for music-making on the modular!

All Tintinnalogia needs is a sample player with multiple trigger inputs: eg ALM Squid Salmple, Bitbox, or Disting’s own Sample Player.

Random thought: if the number of bells could be increased to 12, the script could be a twelve-tone serialism machine!

Free download: https://github.com/expertsleepersltd/...

Sources consulted - all highly recommended:

Katherine Hunt, 'The Art of Changes: Bell-Ringing, Anagrams, and the Culture of Combination in Seventeenth-Century England,' Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2018): connects change ringing to 'mathematical recreations' and to Early Modern ars combinatoria such as anagrams. If there was a meaning to change ringing, it was the 'exhaustion of meaning.'

Margaret Aston, Broken Idols of the English Reformation (2015): specifically, the chapter on bells.

Robert Adam Hill, 'The Reformation of the Bells in Early Modern England' (PhD thesis, 2012): dispels the assumption that bells lost their earlier, sacred meanings in the era of change ringing.

Brian Eno, 'Bells and their History,' Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, ed. Paul D. Miller (2008). 'The same supply of metal would be made into cannon in wartime and would go back to bells after hostilities were over'

Thumbnail image shows cartoon of British PM, Robert Peel, as a change-ringer, getting tied up in the ropes. © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Film sequence from Church Bells Ring on Civil Defence Day in Great Britain (1942), provided by the Sherman Grinberg Film Library, Los Angeles.

#modularsynth #electronicmusic #algorithmicmusic #eurorack"