Dreadbox Artemis | Six ambient sketches

video upload by Jay Hosking

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Exploring the Dreadbox Artemis in my way. All sounds from the synth, with no additional effects on the master (other than a little compression and limiting for volume).

00:00 Super slow envelopes
03:29 Exploring bass sequence w/ effects
05:08 Modulated osc drone magic
11:06 Stereo bass arp
15:30 ???
15:38 Cover song on modulated pad
17:24 1980s pad

Full disclosure: while I have bought many, many Dreadbox synths over the years, Dreadbox did send this one to me for free.

Here, I explore the Artemis for the first time, mainly initializing patches and seeing where they lead me. I find that while other demos have done a great job of showing off the wild and weird, the Artemis mainly leads me to two places: slow beautiful expansive pads, and bouncy unison basses.

There are a few things that elevate this device over other table-top modules, like the Nymphes: the spread of stereo voices (for both unison and polyphonic patches), effects (very decent sounding delay and reverbs, for example), and an internal drive for shaping the character/personality. Plus, all of these patches took just a minute or two to set up; the Artemis has a fast and friendly interface for exploring.

There are at least three ideas here that I might potentially develop further, which is quite a high hit rate for a first exploration of a synth. I can't wait to get back to the city and put the Artemis on the table with some friends.

There is one notable shortcoming to the Artemis as of today (4th July 2025): its envelopes have something that occasionally makes them get very clicky at onset of gate/note. I'm not sure what's causing it, but contributing factors seem to include using the internal drive, and not just at very fast attack rates. In any case, it's a bummer. I've read online that Dreadbox are currently working on this in terms of a firmware update, but I don't personally have any firsthand information. The clickiness really can interfere with a project, so know if you're thinking of buying, you should plan to work around this shortcoming. (My personal opinion: don't buy gear for promised or hoped-for firmware updates, because they may never come, and they may never solve the problem.)

But otherwise, Artemis is a great synth. Lots of personality, strangely well behaved at times, very good at bouncy basses, and very easy to design interesting sounds with.

Thanks for listening.

The cover song is one of my very favourites, "Poor Edward" by Tom Waits."