Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Chase Bliss announces August Order Window for Small Batch Release of new Bad Mood variant, and new Lost + Found Colourway variety
This month has had a plethora of interesting releases - where there are just too many worthy pedals to get them all - you need to prioritise and make your choices therefore. I’m still waiting for my Big Time to land - I’m hoping sometime during August, there’s a few Kickstarter projects I’m involved in that should be landing then too - but you never really know until those actually cross your threshold.
I already have the original Green Colourway Lost + Found, where Chase Bliss is making ...
MXR unleashes its excellent Textures Granular / Glitchy Synth Texturizer Engine with 3 Modes onboard - Delay, Auto Freeze, and Layers
I thought this was the 4th or 5th pedal that MXR had released in this format, while this exact format including the Presets only came in with last year’s Bass Synth! There were two pedals before that with the two colour-changing top push-buttons and 6 knobs - the first was the Poly Blue Octave in 2022, then the Joshua Ambient Echo in 2024. I though the Layers was similar - but that has quite a different topology,
I have a feeling that the Joshua will eventually be updated to include the ...
Klowra's 4th Budding Bloom Series pedal is the Pico POG Killer - Leap Polyphonic Octaver
It’s quite evident that Klowra had one eye on the EHX Pico POG when it designed its Leap Polyphonic Octaver. The Leap has all the same controls as the Pico POG including the same tone options - Low Pass, High Pass, and Tilt EQ, but then adds in those super smart 3 x Detune modulation options on top.
For me those 3 Detune options can deliver similar voices to some of EHX’s 9 Series Guitar Synth Pedals. So alas it’s a double hit on EHX!
You can of course just go for the basic Upper and ...
Third of the Klowra Budding Bloom Series is the very left-field and quirky South Zoo Animal Voice Synth
I have to say that I’m a little mystified as to exactly who this pedal is aimed at. It doesn’t have that unbridled joy that the Korg Miku pedal delivers in spades, and in truth none of the Animal voicings are particularly close to those actual source sounds. The Frog voice is the most versatile - and gets the closets to a ’Ribbit’ and even some ’Frog Chorus’ type sounds. The Cat voice is very faintly a mewing / miaow sound - the B’s Music Meowdulator is more convincing - while I feel that is a ...
My Gamechanger Audio RECODER Spectral Morphing Workstation has landed - a really interesting digital phrase recorder, modulator, modifier and looper!
WHAT is the RECODER?
’A SPECTRAL MORPHING WORKSTATION’
- a signal cross-pollinator
- a dynamic filter
- a moving audio prism
- a ghostly vocoder
- a formant resonator
- a granular echo creator
- a sound-imprint machine
Bastl Instruments reinvents the Kalimba as an evolved multi-mode Synthesizer
This has been all over social media as of late, and I do generally enjoy the Kalimba format - I use mine quite a lot with my Boss RC-600 Loop Station - it’s a great instrument for looping and tweaking on-the-fly. And I had long considered the £275 Lottie Canto Colour Palette take on the Kalimba - which adds 8 effects to the core Kalimba - mine just has the output jack - which works very nicely with my wireless system. While Bastl Instruments’ take is a whole other category. Essentially the ...
A first impressions dive into Isn'tses Chernobylizer Radioactive Atmospherics Noise-Maker Mini Art Synthesizer
I was somewhat wowed by Isnt’tses Mini Art Synths at the recent Birmingham Noise Maker Market Show. These are intricately designed open circuits - with topological details worked into the surface - in a mix of black, white and gold, and various strategically and topologically placed components - which often represent structures from that landscape.
For the Chernobylizer the art-side is a mix of realism and impressionism - where the 4 large capacitors represent the 4 Chernobyl Nuclear ...
Isn'tses brilliantly combines creative sound generation with electronic arts and design for its series of Experimental Mini Art Synthesisers
At the recent inaugural Birmingham Noise Maker Market Show, one of the highlights for me was London-based Isn’tses - namely duo Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage - who perform highly stylised experimental electronic music with colourful visuals and costumes to match - including Mexican Lucha Libre animal masks.
They make their own instruments too - including this superbly themed quartet / quadfecta of mini noise-maker Art-Synths featured here. Each of those has a highly evocative theme and a ...
Japan's Bananana Effects have finally released the intriguing near-zero-latency Quimera Polyphonic Synthesizer / Sound Designer
While obviously a DSP / digital product - the Quimera (Chimera!) has very analog sensibilities in terms of how you build up those sounds - in the most elemental synthesis component fashion - Oscillators and LFO’s, Resonant Filters, Modifiers and FX. This is for proper synthesizer aficionados who want to bring minimal latency synthesis to their guitar, bass or vocals.
This is in the ballpark of the flagship Boss SY-1000 and Meris Enzo X Synthesizer pedals - which also have a component ...
Chase Bliss releases limited run monochromatic editions of its Brothers AM and Lossy Pedals
There was a ripple of excitement when people first saw the somewhat oblique teasers for 2 ’new’ Chase Bliss pedals - turns out it’s just new colourways! Exciting still possibly for those who favour single tone pedalboards - but I already have these in their original editions. I don’t feel the need to have duplicates of these, and I actually prefer the original colourways. I run a large pedalboard of 52 pedals - which changes every week - it’s essential for me to be able to rapidly identify and ...
