I went to Superbooth and THIS happened (I saw synths that were good, here are some of them)

Hello. Oscilloscope here. Another Superbooth is over. I'm back in the UK now, which means as per usual, I'm going to walk around and talk about what I saw and what I liked. This video isn't going to have any like sound clips in of any of the instruments or anything. So, if you're specifically looking for demos, then sorry. Um I just don't feel like Superbooth is the right environment for me to be doing it, but uh if you just want to know what I thought was cool and uh if you're into my kind of sensibilities, what I think you should check out as well, then uh hopefully you can stick around and watch on. Maybe we'll see some cows or something on this walk as well, actually, which is nice. Not synth-related, but yeah, cows are nice. So, let's start with my top picks for the show. And right at the top is the Sima Forma Rand button, R&D button. Am I saying that for the rage bait so that people will engage in the comments? Uh a little bit, but genuinely uh if you look at what it actually is, I think it's kind of genius. So, for those of you unaware, it's a little orange button. You press it, it generates four sounds, and it starts playing some randomized music. There are eight different uh types of synthesis engines, including some stuff from Plaits. Uh and the music is randomly generated. Now, this sounds like one of the most dystopian things in the world, and actually, when I was uh walking around and I saw it, uh there were three people in a row basically doom pushing the button, which was kind of hilarious, uh but also what you actually have there is once you have found four sounds that you like, over USB MIDI, you can take control of those sounds and play what you want to play. And uh you get audio streamed uh over USB audio as well on four different channels. So, what this actually is is a four-part multi-timbral synth. Uh it's going to be I think it's about 130 euros, which is a fantastic price for that, frankly. Yeah, you can't edit the sounds. You get the sounds that you like. But, hey. It saves on kind of a patch paralysis a little bit, I think. So, I'm all for it, actually. Hey. Hello. Hi. Not food. It's my script. So, my next uh pick of the show, I was one of the first things I looked at, actually, is the Body Synth Laboratory, uh which is uh Body Synth they made the uh Metal Fetishist drum machine. The Laboratory is something quite different. It's a stereo effects unit which combines uh distortion and filtering and delay all in one box. It can be subtle, but it can also be extremely filthy. Uh you've got the sort of PT-style delay chips there, so they're noisy and gritty and they have that sort of classic sort of slight ring modulation when you push the time a little bit too far. Um the gain and the delay time and the filter cut-off are all CV controllable separately on the two channels, and it sounds really great. I had a absolute blast on it. Um I can see totally how you would be able to use it to take mono sources and sort of spread them out in a really cool, dirty way. Um you know, Yeah, is some competition sort of for the stereo filter side of it with something like the Stylophone DF8, but in terms of the grit and the stereo delay which you have control over separately, I think it's a really neat unit and it's definitely going to be one that's worth checking out. Next, I want to mention the Koma Polaplane which if you've seen the Chromaplane, it was a instrument where the oscillators generated magnetic fields and you picked up those magnetic fields with some pickups. That was an entirely analog instrument. The Polaplane, although it looks somewhat similar, is actually the difference being that the the thing that's being generated is digital, which means it can be a range of different things from a wave table synth to sending out samples and it completely changes what that instrument can do. You might look at it and think it looks very very similar, but it's similar in the same way that like a Minimoog and like a Korg M1 would be similar. Just because they have keyboards doesn't mean that they are in any way actually kind of the same instrument. Um I think you need one of each cuz I still think the Chromaplane sounds amazing. Um but I can certainly see how the Polaplane allows you a lot more freedom to create complete um performances. So, I want to mention two instruments which are kind of similar in a way in that they're both sort of based around uh looping and delay kind of ideas, but are quite different in vibe. The first one I want to mention is the Enjoy Electronics Memento. So, this was a surprise. I didn't know that they were bringing out a dedicated effects unit, Um, what they've got here is a effects unit which combines uh delay and sort of texturizing granular um multi-looper uh ideas. Um but it has a ton of hands-on control and configurability. The entire low part of the instrument uh what looks like a kind of wrist rest from a fancy mixing desk is actually a I think two-point touch control and you can do things like choose which part of the uh sample that you are granularizing. It also introduces this really sort of cool idea where it's got a buffer uh which is where you stick the stuff which you are granularizing for example and that will just sort of stay there but you can with a button press inject something else at the playhead at any point. So it means that you can have an idea sitting inside of the looping part of the instrument and then drop in other musical ideas as you're playing sort of in real time. Uh so yeah, it looks and feels really good. It's not out quite yet but I think they are uh looking at September release. It's definitely something I would like to look at. So similar to the Momento but sort of different in its vibe is the uh Synthax Academy Sport of Ketchum. Sorry if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. I forgot to ask. It's not new at this year's show. It was there last year as well. I somehow missed it uh and it's fantastic. So it's an instrument based around two virtual tape reels and whereas you record onto those tape reels you can do stuff like hone in on certain parts of it to loop or sort of granularize it or make things so tight that it becomes a wave table that you can then control uh with CV to to play it as a as just a straight-up instrument. You can bounce from one side to another. There's really nice built-in effects that make everything sound here wonderfully ambient and beautiful, but it can also be quite crisp as well. I spent ages with it and really, really enjoyed it. Um it's definitely more of an instrument, whereas Memento feels more like an effect that you add on to an instrument. Neither of those things are necessarily better than the other, but that's kind of the vibe I got from them. The other thing from Synthrotek I played with a lot was the Audrey, which is their drone synth, which is kind of based around um Karplus-Strong kind of idea using sort of delay feedback. By the way it's implemented and the effects that are built into it as well make it sound I know it's stupid to say it's physical modeling and it sounds really physical, but it sounds really physical in that it feels like it's something in a room genuinely feeding back in a way that Karplus-Strong sometimes doesn't. Um and it's it it's kind of a specific sound and it's kind of the one sound that you get from it, but if you want that kind of horror sound or sort of strings rattling and feedback and clattering and groaning and droning, it's really, really good. Definitely check it out. On the subject of Karplus-Strong, I had a really good time with the More 4 Econ-6. This thing is incredible and novel. It is a six voice polyphonic synth that is analog but Karplus-Strong, so it's using BBD chips rather than any sort of digital emulation and it sounds amazing. Um and quite unlike anything else, it has really, really fantastic modulation options, really quick UI to set up patches. And because it's again all about feedback, like it can get really dangerous or can be really plucky and sort of physical stringy type things. You can run noise into it for like bowed effects or you can really just make it howl. Uh it's in stereo so you have control over the panning of the different voices. Um so yeah, it really really amazing sounding synth. Something genuinely novel, not something that I've ever seen before. A polyphonic analog Karplus-Strong bass synth with so much control and sound design potential. Definitely check that out if you haven't. I got over to the Soma Labs booth and I managed to spend a significant amount of time with the new Enigma. If you don't know it, it is a flat surface and you put metallic objects on that surface and depending on where those metallic objects are and some unlabeled settings, uh it will make sounds, it will introduce effects, it will change pitches, delay times, distortion. You kind of don't know what it's going to do. Perhaps if you had the manual like, but it's kind of fun to not know. It's a drone instrument, I think, and or noise instrument primarily, but you know, without explaining it further, I don't know for sure. But it sounds really really great as you would expect. And the interaction with it is just fascinating. Even placing something in the same spot but a different metal changes the sound in some way. Um I don't know what technology is set behind it, but yeah, um just a really fascinating instrument and definitely one that's on my list now. I managed to have some proper hands-on time with the Whimsical Wraps Atrium. That's an instrument that I had kind of seen, hadn't dug into that much when it got released, but from what I saw, I thought that it was an instrument that I was happy that it existed, but I wasn't sure if it was for me. But now I've had some hands-on time with it, it is definitely for me. It sounds really great, and it allows you to set up musical environments in quite novel ways, and with a an interface that's, you know, definitely not normal, but also not difficult. Um, it it all makes sense, and it's very tactile, and the sounds it comes up with are really compelling. It can do that kind of plucky, almost twee omnichord stuff, but it can do much more than that. On top of that, um, so I'm really excited to maybe have a a look at that in some more detail at some point. Speaking of Whimsical Wraps, uh, last year they were there showing their collaboration with Meng Qi, the Horizon. Uh, wasn't there this year, but apparently it is still on its way. Um, but speaking of Meng Qi, uh, surprise, surprise, suddenly there is a Wing Pinger version two, and it is completely different to the original. The interface, uh, is now currently screen-based, and the possibilities for modulation and more complex sequencing and sounds is vastly expanded. Uh, it was kind of hard to get a real grip on what was going on with the prototype, especially with no one uh, around to kind of expand on anything, but it's definitely going to be something to watch if you are into those more esoteric instruments. Um, I don't know whether the interface is going to continue to be so screen-based. I I really don't know. I have no insights. But, um I'm very interested to see where that goes. I've been really interested in the Maneco Labs instruments for ages. And luckily they were there this year, so I got some hands-on time with the Grown 2, a fascinating drone synth. Although, it can also sort of do melodic It can sequence itself. It can be quite rhythmic in some settings. The idea is you can choose one of eight different equations. And from those equations you put in three different parameters, the A controls, three different knobs. And then something happens. And that might be just straight-up drone. It might be something very noisy. It might do something quite rhythmic or sequence. I got it doing a really fun sort of almost kick drum and bassline. You've got a delay on there as well, so you can sort of make more of those rhythmic things if you want or just create great big washes. Really, really fascinating. I'm Yeah, fascinated by the idea of the equations and the parameters and and what that actually means and definitely one that I would like to explore some more. One real surprise was over in the Bungalow D'Or at Lavoie du Luthiers. I'm so sorry about the pronunciation there. They're the folks that make the wooden speakers, the Ondes and the like. They have been experimenting with the idea of physical filters. So, essentially a system where you have a driver and a transducer where you can place them at either end or anywhere actually on a physical thing. So, wood, metal, another instrument. And it induces a feedback loop through that material that you could also then run other audio through or not actually. What they had set up in the room was a sort of no-input mixer type noise patch. Um and it is a really tactile experience. Like, you don't really realize from looking at it just how much the feedback loop makes this physical object want to move. >> Depending on where I put the pressure, the constraints, if I bend it a little bit, uh the frequency um completely changes. It's very Each little change, each tiny movement Actually, even the angle the angle of the the wood changes the sound. And there's no gyroscope in it. I promise, it's just wood. >> I've been over to the Korg Berlin booth to check out what was going on if anything with Phase Eight the acoustic synthesizer. And there is some stuff going on. Uh the first thing um that I'm really interested in straight off the bat is that there is going to be a set of bass resonators released. So, basically an octave below the ones that it shipped with. Uh that's a big deal for me because I think these are the resonators that it should have shipped with in the first place. Um the sound of them is a lot more rich. The opportunity to do interesting things with the sustaining, I think, is a lot higher as well. Um there is also a editor app uh for the Phase Eight so you can get into the sequences, get into the effects a bit more. Um probably the most interesting thing I was shown was a prototype of this idea of physical plugins. So, this is basically a rack that goes over the top of the Phase Eight's resonators. And then we have some 3D printed uh devices with knobs and sliders on which physically do something to the resonator. So, uh for example, um there was one with a magnet with a knob which brought the magnet closer to the resonator and that would bend the resonator's pitch and adjust the timbre as you wanted it closer or there was one with a ball bearing and a slider which moved at the ball bearing closer or further away and you had different levels of dampening. Um that at the moment these are going to be open sourced, I think. That's the plan so that other people can print them. Um I would really like to see them productized one way or another even if it turns out to be like an Etsy cottage industry kind of thing. Um this is the weird stuff uh that I really wanted to see from Phase Eight to begin with, I think. So, it's great to kind of see that Korg are thinking of that as well. A few quick mentions of things which aren't really for me but I thought were really interesting. Uh first of all, there was the VM-1 which is an open-source video mixer. It's on a Raspberry Pi. Uh there is like a version that you can have with like a built-in screen or you can just run it on a Raspberry Pi and then hook it up to the monitors. Um it looks really smooth and it's open source which is great and if you can just do it all on a Raspberry Pi, I don't think for the basic version you need any like other hardware with it. It looks like a really cool little video mixer. So, if you're doing live shows and you want to integrate that kind of stuff, they're looking at getting like OSC and MIDI control over it as well which will be sick, obviously. Next there is Flowful which is a system which allows you to take phones or smartwatches, Android in both cases, I think, and use them as motion controls which can then spit out MIDI, OSC, that kind of things. Uh they were demonstrating it controlling pigments and other stuff in Ableton and also um visuals as well at the same time. So, spitting out in both directions, so you had interactive motion controlled visuals and sound. Currently, that's just sort of MIDI OSC digital control. There's no sort of um current plans for like CV and you need at the moment to have a computer running. It's currently based on a um Max Live or Max MSP patch, but I think they're planning on doing a standalone bridge as well. Um but if you're into that sort of hands-on stuff, especially on the live side of things, um I think that it could be a really, really interesting project to keep an eye on. Pretty much right next to the Flow Fol, there was Quad Track, which is kind of a neo retro tracker sequencer for the Amiga. So, it's neo retro, but also retro, so it's neo retro retro retro neo retro. But anyway, uh it sounds really good and it looks fantastic and people were having a blast playing with it. And you can also just get it running on an emulator, uh although, you know, if you're hardcore, you can get it running on real hardware as well. And you can just put it on a disk and get it running on real hardware. It looked really good fun. I'm not going to buy an Amiga for it, but if you are into that kind of chiptune tracker world, you should definitely, definitely check out Quad Track. For whatever reason this year, I didn't dig into that much Eurorack stuff. Um uh two of the things I really liked though were all about control rather than sound generation. So, first of all, there was the Beela IO Trails. So, these are the guys that make the Gliss Touch Controller CV Recorder thing. Uh this is like a massively, massively expanded uh version of that idea. You have four channels of XY, so 2D CV that you can draw in and have run concurrently. And then you can do lots of interesting things with that CV, uh like quantize it uh both in terms of time and pitch. So, you can kind of control it in two different dimensions. There, you can do things like scale and offset in 2D. So, you sort of pinch zoom like you would with your photos on your phone to move that CV around. You have other hands-on control for it as well. It's not cheap, but I think it is good value for what you get from it. And the interface looks um quite a lot improved from Gliss, which necessarily being a more minimal module was kind of a little harder to really dig into. This one, you can kind of move around really, really quickly. The next module I want to mention is the Cross Patch Trigger Pad, which is a dynamic trigger module, which is kind of hard to make sound exciting, but it's really, really good. The idea here is that you plug in a USB MIDI device. Now, it'll work with any USB MIDI, but if you plug in something that's particularly compatible or that you can get like a overlay or patch for, so anything that has like an 8x8 grid or more, so things like the Launchpad, it will actually present you with a full sequencing beat making workstation. And you have control over the beats, you the sequences, you have things like Euclidean stuff. I think it even would give you probability and the velocity, which can translate either to the amplitude of the triggers, which would be incredible for like pinging filters, or to the gate length, which a lot of other drum modules respond to in lieu of velocity. So, um it is a great way to get more out of maybe a piece of equipment that has sat in the cupboard that you're not necessarily making use of. Um it's small, it's really, really neat. Um, and if you're not a complete purist when it comes to not having anything else near to your rack, it's definitely something to take a look at, for sure. If there's one really positive thing to come out gear-wise from Superbooth this year, is that it's managed to restore my faith in mono synths. I was kind of burnt out on mono synths because there's only so many sort of MS-20 or SH-101 type synths that I can kind of deal with, but there were some really interesting instruments that were on show this year. The first one that I want to talk about is the Magella Compact. Magella made the Implexus, which is a sort of West Coast leaning synth, which is very sort of luxurious. Um, really, really great sounding, but quite expensive. The Compact is going to be a lot more uh, on on the affordable side of things. Still sort of hailing from that sort of West Coast wave foldery modulation, very sort of plucky um, sounding uh, side of things. It sounds really, really great. It feels a bit more naughty than the Implexus, like it wants to be, you know, a bit naughty. Uh, it's got a really good, simple uh, sequencer implementation, where you've got uh, eight step sequencer, you've got one lane of CV and two lanes of triggers for the two different envelopes there. But then you have CV modulatable length, which allows you to do all sorts of things uh, with getting more out of those eight steps, or just, you know, getting five step sequences, which are good as well. It sounded really, really fantastic, and I had an absolute blast playing and jamming on it, cuz there's also a drum machine on the booth, which is always nice when you've got a mono synth like that. The next faith restoring uh, mono synth was the Analog Sweden uh, Sven 2. So, uh, Analog Sweden had uh, uh, a synth called the Swellnagizer, which was a clone of a very niche rare synth called the Energizer. Uh which was also expensive, both the clone and the original, even more so. The Swen Two is based on those ideas, but sort of taken in uh their own sort of direction. So, it's not an exact same clone of the Energizer. So, it's made up of sort of a analog VCO and then a digital voice uh with noise. And then the architecture for it is really, really interesting. The different ways that you can route the filters, the way that you can overdrive it at multiple different levels. The idea that the sub bypasses the filter, which is really cool when you've got a high-pass filter. The filter's got a wet-dry control. Uh which is also killer. Um and it too has a really cool uh easy-to-use uh but interesting sequencer implementation, uh which is more sort of based around uh seeding something random and then sort of setting the parameters around uh how much things are going to trigger, how wide the CV range is for the pitch, that kind of thing. Very, very quick to iterate on and iterate on only bits of the sequencer as well. Um so, yeah. Really, really good fun. The two of those together and a drum machine would be a killer, killer techno setup if you wanted something analog. There was, of course, also the Buchla Ziggy, the Buchla sound, but not sort of Buchla interface. So, patch recall. Uh no patch cables, although you do have sort of virtual patching behind the scenes, which is how you kind of get everything working. Built-in effects. Um it was hard to get any real time with that. I did manage to have um a few minutes play with it, and I can confirm it sounds like a Buchla without necessarily uh feeling like you're having to patch a Buchla all of the way folder clangy alien sounds are present and correct as they should be. But, we don't really need to have some proper time with it to learn how it actually works. But, you can I'm sure find loads of demos of it by now. So, you should definitely check that out. But, yeah. So, three mono synths that all tickled my fancy. We are so back as far as mono synths go. Just a few more things I want to mention before it gets too dark to record this video. I've never touched any of the Plinky instruments, but I had some really good hands-on time and a really fantastic demo of the Plinky Chord 12. Um it is a ridiculously deep instrument actually. When you start like understanding all of the things it can do and all of the ways that you can interact with the stuff that you're making. It's kind of like the ultimate sort of accompaniment machine that you can also definitely play like super live as well on a very very tactile surface. Um I definitely want to take a closer look at the Plinky stuff off the back of this. I know they also had two other instruments um this year that I didn't have chance to play with cuz they were really really busy on their stand. So, good for them. But, yeah. The Plinky Chord 12 is kind of mad with how much stuff it can do and how it allows you to move through sort of harmonic structures in so many different ways. Um so, definitely want to look at especially if you like chords. Now for a synth that I'm never going to own, so I definitely wanted the opportunity to play with it. That's the Katla. The one with the volcanic rock on the side. So, it's all based around sort of introducing random movement or different types of movement to the patch. And it's it sounds really really great. And that kind of sort of generative approach of introducing lots of different layers of movement to a patch is definitely something that I really, really enjoy. It's something like 4 grand, so I'm never going to own it, but it was a honor to have the opportunity to actually uh sit and play with it. Well, thanks so much for watching, guys. It's getting dark, so I should probably go home and edit this video. Uh I hope I was able to point you in the direction of some cool stuff maybe that you hadn't seen or considered previously. As always, the like and subscribe on the video is massively appreciated. Superbooth is such a wonderful, wonderful event, and if you are into this world and you can afford to make the trip, I would highly recommend it because although I've only really spoken about the gear in this video, the sense of community and just everyone is so lovely at at Superbooth, and I can really recommend, yeah, making that trip and experiencing it for yourself. I'm very, very lucky that I've managed to go for the last 3 years, and hopefully will continue to go most years in the future cuz it really is kind of my happy place. Anyway, until next time. Take care. Bye-bye.