5 Minutes With Boss RV-200 Reverb

video upload by sonicstate

"Support us on https://patreon.com/sonicstate
The Boss RV-200 is Boss's latest algorithmic reverb pedal - indeed it can be battery powered (3 AA) though not sure quite how long that would last, given that the unit features 32-bit Float DSP and 32-bit AD/DA 96kHz and Stereo in and Out.

Paulee Bow takes a look in this FIVE MINUTES WITH
With 12 algorithms mostly offering what one would class as atmospheric or ambient processing, it excels at just that."

NAMM 22: Artiphon - Orba 2

video upload by sonicstate

"Orba 2’s comes with synthesized and acoustic sounds like upright pianos, guitars, found sounds, and more, and can work with no wires or screens attached.

Adam demonstrated it responding to bump, tilt and finger position giving control over timbre and velocity, and told us it can send all this control data over USB or bluetooth. There's a built in sampler with 4 gig of memory so you're not limited to the on board sounds, and it can loop up to 128 bars or up to 5 minutes of overdubbable audio. Orba 2 Available to preorder now. Price 149 USD Shipping: Summer 2022"



Onboard sample engine and synthesizer and built-in speaker offer an immediate playing experience

Eight capacitive-sensing pads respond to the lightest velocities

Accelerometer and gyroscope capture a range of multi-dimensional gestures

Use the built-in looper to layer Drum, Bass, Chord, and Lead parts

Connect to the cross-platform Orba app for more sounds, songs, and settings

Connect via MIDI over Bluetooth or USB-C, and use MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) to play your sounds in dynamic new ways

Use the 1/8" (3.5mm) output to listen on headphones, speakers, and amps

Multicolor LEDs respond to the way you play

Embedded haptic engine offers vibration feedback

USB rechargeable battery

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5 MINUTES WITH Analogue Solutions Fusebox

video by

"Chris from Battery Operated Orchestra spends some quality time with the Analogue Solutions Fusebox, a highly configurable semi modular desktop synthesizer.
Incedelntally Chris also posted a long form video on our patreon covering options and features in more detail. You can grab that exclusive content here: https://patreon.com/sonicstate"

FIVE MINUTES WITH 42HP - MCO, VCF Milton and ZVERB

video by sonicstate

"Another in our 5 Minutes with 42HP series, in which Edd Butterworth takes a small case and populates it with a selection of modules to create music.
This episode is ALM heavy with the innevitable Pam's New Workout plus the MCO oscillator, VCF, Milton, Tangle Quartet and the Tip Top Audio ZVerb."

5 MINUTES WITH - Teisco 110F Synthesizer

sonicstate sonicstate

"Battery Operated Orchestra (BOO) have a nice collection of instruments, we had a glimpse when we shot an interview with them for the launch of their album 'Yesterday, Tomorrow and You'

Chris from the band kindly recorded this session to give us all a flavour of what it can sound like - which as it happens is pretty tasty.

The Teisco 110F is a two oscillator instrument with lovely Low Pass resonant filter that keeps the low end with high resonance, a fixed filter bank and an interesting architecture.

Its capable of some pretty tasty sounds, we think you'll agree."

Also see Teisco 110F is it really an ARP? A rare and amazing Japanese classic synthesizer; Moog Filter??

And additional Teisco 110F posts here.

FIVE MINUTES WITH - XAOC Devices Odessa

Published on Feb 28, 2020 sonicstate

"XAOC Devices Odessa is a - wait for it - Variable Spectrum Harmonic Cluster Oscillator. An interesting FPGA based module. Edd takes us on a 5 Minute journey through it's sonic landscape.

It uses the principle of additive synthesis controlled by a set of carefully tailored macro parameters to harness thousands of sinusoidal partials that altogether form the resulting sound. The series of harmonics can be squeezed or spread apart, tilted, and pruned by a comb-like frequency response, resulting in a variety of unearthly sounds. Furthermore the VCO provides Through-zero linear FM and detuneable clusters of up to five voices."

FIVE MINUTES WITH - 5 Filters

Published on Nov 29, 2019 sonicstate

"We ping 5 Eurorack filters with a simple trigger, to create different tones and rhythms using resonance, and modulation.

Filters used: Malekko WIARD Borg Filter, AJH Synth Sonic XV Diode Ladder, MakeNoise QPAS, Intellijel Polaris and Endorphin.es SQWK Dirty."

FIVE MINUTES WITH - The Schmidt Synthesizer

Published on Nov 15, 2019 sonicstate

"The Schmidt is the stuff of legends, a rarity, under 100 made so far, the brainchild of a single enthusiast, it was first made as a labour of love and previewed a Musik Messe (remember that show?) 2011 by its builder Stefan Schmidt after which it was supported by E:M:C and made into a thing you can buy.

Made in batches of 25, the fourth and possibly last production run is happening now, due to the availability of certain parts. It is still hand built in Germany.

It features four oscillators per voice, with the first three being analog, the fourth a specialized digital one. Three VCF's and 8 part multi-mode.

We know its not cheap, priced at around €18,174 its certainly an investment, but we're glad it exists.
Fortunately for us, there was one at the recent SoundMIT show in Turin, so we got to spend a few precious moments with it. Around 5 as it happens."

5 MINUTES WITH - Memorymoog

Published on Sep 13, 2019 sonicstate

"YES! We finally got to play one, the Memorymoog is a classic, almost mythical, its a 6 voice (yeah we thought 8 too) analogue poly with the Moog filter. Almost a polyphonic Minimoog, but with a few differences. We only had limited time with it, but boy does it sound huge. Thanks to Ham Plaza for the borrow"

5 MINUTES WITH - EMS VCS3 Synthesizer

Published on Aug 27, 2019 sonicstate

"Episode two in our 5-MINUTES-WITH series, and this time its the EMS/Putney VCS-3. An unusual synthesizer from the late 1960's with a truly scientific vibe to it. Peter Zinovieff started building these instruments to fund his burgeoning obsession with electronic music. It went on to become a quirky classic.

Yes the VCS-3 is a rare beast, rumour has it that there is a waiting list for modern builds of this directly from EMS, but the timescale appears to be rather variable."

5 MINUTES WITH sonicstate

5 MINUTES WITH - OTO Machines BISCUIT - Save 50% On Plugin!

Published on Aug 15, 2019 sonicstate

"Welcome to our new series: 5 Minutes With - where we spend 5 minutes exploring a pice of gear. No talking.

By using 8-bit converters, digital processing and analog resonant filters, BISCUIT opens up a wide range of sounds from harsh distortion, digital and aliasing artefacts to warm and fat 8-bit sounds.

Sadly Biscuit is discontinued, but we've managed to snaffle an 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟱𝟬% 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘂𝗯𝗲 on the official plug-in version of Biscuit -
simply follow this link: http://bit.ly/otofive
and use the code 𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗧𝗘𝗦 at checkout
(offer runs till end of August 2019)"

Superbooth 2018: XAOC Devices Odessa & Zadar - Mad Additive Oscillator & Quad Envelope

Published on May 4, 2018 sonicstate

"The guys from XAOC take us through their two new wild modules."

1975 Variable Spectrum Harmonic Cluster Oscillator

· Additive synthesis engine
· 2500 harmonic partials generated
· Straightforward user interface
· Through-zero linear frequency modulation
· Detuneable clusters of up to 5 voices

Odessa implements the principle of additive synthesis controlled by a set of carefully tailored marco parameters to harness thousands of sinusoidal partials that altogether form the resulting sound.

The interface is kept simple and accessible, so you can easily build rich and full, great sounding timbres of very complex spectra, that can be either harmonic or inharmonic. Even though inharmonic spectra yield non-periodic waveforms, all partials are frequency related to the common fundamental controlled by a V/oct input. The series of harmonics can be squeezed or spread apart, tilt, and pruned by a comb-like frequency response, resulting in a variety of unearthy sounds. Animating the comb response yields radical effects similar to flanging and phasing. Additional, often sought after features are implemented: through-zero linear frequency modulation, and unison detune: up to 5 copies of the sound can be spread apart for a fat and dense cluster of voices.

There are nine parameters, each controlled by a dedicated knob, so the workflow is as smooth and immediate as possible. Furthermore, every parameter has a dedicated CV input, allowing live animation for organic audio effects. Odessa sports two main outputs for banks of harmonic partials that can be further scaled in frequency, as well as an additional output that can either spit out a square wave or a a single sinusoid of the fundamental frequency. Interesting spatial effects, crazy modulation feedbacks as well as synchronisation is possible that way.

The hardware is based on a powerful FPGA chip offering massive parallel computing. The synthesized signal is devoid of aliasing through the entire audio range thanks to intrinsically bandlimited algorithm. A simplified spectral analyzer helps you to keep a visual track of what is actually happening to the harmonics.

For even more control over Odessa, you can use our Leibniz subsystem (or just the Lipsk) that can be connected to a header at the back of the module."

1973 Quadruple Envelope Generator

· Four indepenent channels
· More than 200 unique shapes
· Cycle time range: 0,08ms to 20 sec.
· Shapes can be radically modified in two dimensions
· Complex envelope looping and chaining features
· Assignable CV inputs to cotrol almost every parameter
· Preset slots

Based on the general idea of synthesis by deformable vector shapes, Zadar allows you to choose from a wide variety of envelope functions, designed to suit pretty much any possible usage scenario. From basic and simple to complex transients, from looped modulation cycles to rhythmical patterns, from quasi-randoms to perfectly regular functions, natural envelopes extracted from various acoustic and electronic instruments, abstract fractals and physical models, etc. — they all work great as envelopes but also as stepped sequences, LFOs, resonator exciters and so on.

Starting with one of (literally) hundreds of shapes defined by freely scalable vectors of breakpoints stored in the memory, envelopes can be tweaked and adjusted to the heart’s content. Each shape consists of up to a thousand of segments, and it may be warped in time and amplitude, reversed, stretched from a fraction of milisecond to about 20 minutes, and of course attenuated. By manipulating these parameters you can easily obtain a plethora of new shapes, but it doesn’t end here.
Envelopes can be repeated, looped, chained and each channel sports a freely assignable CV input, allowing for most of the above mentioned transformations to be externally controlled as well.

Operating Zadar is quick and straightforward thanks to the set of four “endless” encoders. Menu diving has been reduced to minimum, and is actually only needed for the advanced settings. A crisp OLED screen provides the necessary visual feedback in real time. All the settings can be stored and organised in preset slots.

There are plans for even more functions to be added in later firmware revisions. Also, a small but very useful Nin expander module is planned, sporting yet another set of individual, assignable CV inputs and manual trigs for each channel for better tweaking comfort."