MATRIXSYNTH: introducing midiphy zetaSID: expandable modular SID synth voice


Thursday, February 26, 2026

introducing midiphy zetaSID: expandable modular SID synth voice


video upload by midiphy

"midiphy proudly presents: zetaSID expandable modular SID synth voice

The legendary SID chip reimagined as an expandable modular synth voice: powerful synthesis engine, animated OLED display, and polyphony-expandable.

zetaSID is a powerful eurorack modular synthesizer voice packed into just 4 HP, expandable via the new midiphy phybus backplane link. Start with a single monophonic voice controlled via CV/gate and scale it to a full polyphonic MIDI synthesizer with up to six stereo voices with MIDI control. At its core lies the legendary MIDIbox SID synthesis engine, featuring six LFOs, dual envelopes, quad wave sequencers, eight modulation paths with dozens of sources, algorithmic operations, and an extensive trigger matrix.

It ships with 100 carefully crafted patches in its ROM bank, ready to use as-is or as inspiration for your own creations.

zetaSID is an expandable powerful SID voice covering a wide range of tones and textures, from classic chiptune staples to sounds you might not expect from a SID chip.

Try out the free web-based emulator (no installation required) here:
https://www.midiphy.com/en/zetasid-em...

More info:
https://www.midiphy.com/en/zetasid"

midiphy 4 x zetaSID Song

video upload by Avrilcadabra

"Hi everyone, These are midiphy eurorack modules.

Disclaimer I have marked this video as Paid Promotion although I was not paid to make this or any video, I was sent these to test before release.

The zetaSID modules are based on the legendary Midibox Sid Synthesizer.
They contain the lead and drum engines from the Midibox Sid and use Hermits (creator of Sid Wizard tracker) Sid emulation.

Each zetaSID contains 3 voices and filter as you would expect from an Sid chip ( The Sid chip is the sound chip from the legendary Commodore 64 home computer from the 80's )

So each zetaSID is a like one commodore 64. If you have multiple zetaSID's they can be linked together with supplied ribbon cables internally to add them to the Phybus, midiphy's way of having all modules being able to talk to each other. They then can work in unison, as stereo pairs, monophonically or for polyphony so a lot of different ways to use them. Of course I wanted to test how I could use them multitimbrally, and in this example I have them unlinked (not physically you can do it from the menus)

The midi module is Nexus Midi by midiphy and allows you to control the zetaSID's via regular midi over the Phybus (they do support cv gate also)

zetaSID 1 is using the drum engine, here I have split, kick, snare and hats over different voices on a single zetaSID, so indeed you can play a kick, hat and snare at the time time if patched this way.

zetaSID 2 is the lead sound, it is going through some hall reverb in this example. It shows off legato bends and using the impressive wave sequencer to increase vibrato over time (like tables if you are familiar with trackers)

zetaSID 3 Uses the Arp to provide classic c64 Arp sounds, I am just sending chords to this module over midi and it is handling the arps itself. It actually has 3 arpeggiators, one per voice, so a stereo pair of zetasids can run SIX arps with completely different settings at the same time from a single patch, impressive.

zetaSID 4 Is using one of the factory presets Den of Saws, I've just high passed it a bit since we are using a lot harmonically rich voices in this song.

This was midi sequenced via a Dirtywave M8 Tracker.

I will show more of the zetaSID's, as they are very powerful and very deep, the amount of modulation they have is outstanding even has Logic Gates, you can literally XOR lfo's together and I need to say if you are seeing this video and thinking you want like to write songs on these that program change isn't currently implemented, but is a high priority on the roadmap.

If you like my music I have a bandcamp here https://avrilcadabra.bandcamp.com/
And you can find me on streaming services and socials also."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: To reduce spam, comments for posts older than 7 days are not displayed until approved (usually same day).

PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE HOME




© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH