"I got a chance to sit down with Jean-Michel Pepin - a product designer at Elektron who worked on Syntakt, Digitakt II, Digitone II, Analog Heat+FX, Overbridge and much more - about how Elektron design & update products, his work there, and lessons learned.
This was recorded at the London Synth & Pedal Expo 2025!"
"Another jam at the Surfside Beach Hotel in Surfside, SC using my Sequential Take 5 and Walrus Qi Etherealizer pedal. Includes video and audio footage of the surf."
"Thanks to AI-friendly hardware design, it's easy to create software variations using generative AI.
With general-purpose components and a simple circuit, this module is affordable and DIY-friendly.
Kick:
Sin wave base , 6 parameters kick drum.
Pressing the button will change the assigned parameter.
Click CC at the bottom of the player for subtitles.
"Magnolia will be an 8-voice analog through-zero FM synthesizer, which we built to create sounds from the modular world through a classic keyboard interface.
Waveshapers, wavefolders, and, most importantly, analog linear through-zero FM unlock every sound associated with the 'West Coast' synthesis world. But that's not all! Fat resonant filters and powerful analog oscillators allow more traditional subtractive synthesis sounds as well.
A vast and flexible modulation section encourages complex patches with the twist of a knob, but it is always easy to keep track of what's going on thanks to LEDs on every source and destination. An arpeggiator and a sequencer complement the machine.
We are announcing and showcasing two pre-production units. We aim to release the final version at the end of summer, and it will show some differences. It may have a more refined interface, it will feature digital effects, and some of the features currently under evaluation may disappear.
We've been working on it for the last year, and we're eager to show it to the world!"
Follow-up to this post where you'll find additonal pics.
"I love new music technology. When I heard about TipTop Audio's new ART system that allows for polyphonic pitch, gate and velocity information to be transferred via regular patch cables and their own multi-tip USB style cables, I was intrigued. I never thought of Eurorack as being a fun tool for polyphony, as it requires a lot of modules and a spaghetti mess of connections. Can this tech change that?"
"The Fury-68 is a software instrument for Microsoft Windows (VST2/VST3/CLAP/AAX) and Apple macOS (VST2/VST3/CLAP/AU/AAX) simulating the KORG Poly-61 polyphonic synthesizer from 1982. It is written in native C++ code for high performance even on 'lighter' systems. Main features are:
"The #ZicBOX Pixel is the smallest example built in the ZicBOX ecosystem. The idea here is modular hardware meets modular software, so you can quickly scale up or down your #synthesizer and #groovebox ideas with a couple of JSON files and some 3D printed enclosures. Sponsored by #PCBWay. Table of contents:
00:12 concept
00:45 PCBWay https://pcbway.com/g/4nkLCf
01:49 parts needed / costs
02:13 building the thing
06:30 installing the software
06:56 UI overview
07:15 using the thing
11:09 conclusion, and call for papers (coders and designers)
12:10 if you find my videos useful, please consider supporting this channel (building DIY devices and learning how they work and then making a video is expensive and time consuming)
