Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
My OBNE x Emily Hopkins x B's Music Purr-ting is finally purring on all cylinders!
I first featured the Old Blood Noise x Emily Hopkings Parting back on January 21st. All the demos were great, but I was massively put off by the overly cluttered nature of the artwork. Even in the early monochrome edition - that ultra busy design made it really hard to even look in the direction of the pedal - I imagine anyone on the spectrum would not have reacted well to that design. It kind of drowned out the functional ability of the pedal - and made it look far tricker to deploy than it ...
2026 June Pedal-Chain Update - Episode VI - Verb-a-thon
A super busy month - with plenty of highlights and heatwaves.
My house is finally cooling down as I write these last few observations - we’ve had around 10 days of oppressive heat now, and there’s another wave on the way at the end of this week - which makes for very difficult conditions to have sessions with said pedals.
We’re in the final consequence of global climate change now - with increasingly more extreme weather patterns occurring - alternately cold snaps, heatwaves, and torrential ...
Meris Evolves and Super-Sizes its Bitcrusher / Sequencer / Texturizer - now the Ottobit X Modular Degradation and Texture Engine / Workstation
I’m a little late with this as Meris held back the press release until launch - so I was only provided with the details at the same time as everyone else - which is really rather unusual. I had a number of other projects already on the go - and so I’m a couple days late with this!
As always - each Meris device delivers way beyond its specific core category, its Enzo X for instance is almost as much a multi-modulator as it is a synth - and here we have lots of extras thrown into the mix - ...
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
JHS adds 3 edgy new pedals to its 3 Series Range - Bit Crusher, Glitch Delay, Ring Modulator
These 3 new pedals bring the JHS 3 Series roster to a very versatile 19 units. These 3 are a little more left-field and adventurous than the rest - and largely an acquired taste. I have a lot of time for Bitcrushers and Glitch Delays - and own a few of those varieties, while I’m a little less au-fait with Ring Modulators. Ringmods for me are often tremolos or vibratos gone wrong - but there are some handy examples of those which blend in gain and other complementary sounds to make more musical ...
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 ...
Glitch Cloud's Haze is a cool Stereo Lo-Fi Looping Tape Machine, Glitched Digital Buffer and Sample Juggler
I’ve featured a number of sample-repeaters / micro-loopers of late - while I really like the sound and look of this one from Glitch Cloud Audio.
"Haze is a generative composer that transforms sound into texture. Skips, stutters, and fluid time become rhythm and motion. Feed it a loop. Plug in an instrument. Let it mutate for hours."
I recently covered the Puremagnetik JOTS - which I likened to pedals from Chase Bliss, Discomfort Designs and Kinotone. And this is another of that ilk, and...
Puremagnetik unleashes JOTS Dual Track Wanderer : Twin Sample-Repeater-Manipulator
This is my first exposure to Puremagnetik - where this is actually their second pedal, preceded by the LAPS Multitrack Collage Machine.
Puremagnetik seemingly mines sort of similar territory to Chase Bliss, Discomfort Designs and Kinotone - creating micro-looper style manipulators and multi-track layering and effects shaping.
The JOTS consists of 2 x 30 second Samples / Buffers / Tracks which you manipulate in various ways. There are 2 x toggle-switches, one sets which Track you are ...
Alexander Pedals further evolves and perfects its Syntax Error Computer Audio System - now in V3 XP compact Leap Series Edition
In the visual you can see the Three Versions of the Syntax Error. The Original compact came out during Summer NAMM back in 2017. I did a number of features that included that pedal - and it was a target for me for the longest time - but for whatever reason - I never quite managed to acquire one of those.
Then in 2021 we got the larger V2 edition with Screen - which I considered a little large for my need - for such a niche pedal.
And now in 2026 Alexander has finally delivered the perfect ...
