Signal Flow

Superbooth Special! New Buchla, Make Noise, Xaoc & much, much more

• Signal Sounds • Season 1 • Episode 4

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0:00 | 39:57

In this special episode recorded on location at Superbooth 2026 in Berlin, Tom and Luke discuss some of the new gear they checked out at the show, including the Buchla Ziggy, Make Noise Plexiphon, Xaoc Devices Budapeszt, Body Synths Laboratory, and Befaco/Mylar Melodies Random8, to name just a tiny handful. Apologies to anyone we left out - there’s simply too much to cover in a single episode!

Some of the gear discussed:


Get in touch with questions, feedback and suggestions via signalflow@signalsounds.com

Find out more about the gear discussed: https://www.signalsounds.com

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to this Superbooth special edition of the Signal Flow podcast with me, Tom Churchill. And me, Luke Palmer. And we are on site, on location, at Superbooth 2026 in Berlin. Having a good time.

SPEAKER_02

It's been a good festival so far.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, as we record this, we are on uh day two, which is the Friday, and we've spent a day looking at everything that is new and exciting in the world of synthesizers and electronic musical instruments.

SPEAKER_02

There's been lots of synthesizers.

SPEAKER_00

There have been a lot of synthesizers, lots to take in. And yeah, in the pod we're just going to talk about some of the stuff we've seen, what the highlights of the show are, anything that's caught our eye.

SPEAKER_02

And then a little bit about just some of the trends that we're kind of noticing as we've kind of been around and seen all the sands. So I guess the first thing I want to know is what's what's been your number one? Any particular big highlights?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you put me on the spot there straight away for the number one. People ask me this all the time at Superbooth, you know, like when you're walking around. So what's the coolest thing you've seen or what's the best thing you've seen? And I can never narrow it down to one thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But I'll try.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I suppose probably for my personal um interest, uh the most exciting thing is probably the Chaos Devices Budapest prototype.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I was waiting for you to say that one. I was like, he's he's being coy here, but yeah, I know I know which one is favourite.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean I'm I'm it's no secret, I'm a bit of a fanboy of theirs anyway. Um and the Budapest is an exploratory stereophonic spectral lattice network, I think is how they describe it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and if you've glazed over, don't worry, it is actually quite exciting. Um the name is is a little incomprehensible. I I've I was like, I wasn't really sure what you know, when someone's like MS20 filter, I know where I'm at, but when someone hits me with the stereo lattice uh network, I'm a little bit unsure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's kind of um again, I'm probably not going to be able to describe it very simply because I'm not entirely sure about it myself. But it's basically a pair of all pass filter networks and which can also be switched into workers band pass filters. Yeah. There are two of them and they can interact and feedback on each other in various ways, and the same inbuilt modulation.

SPEAKER_02

So it's it's sort of adjacent to the smoothie audio smear, or like you know, it's a similar kind of sounds and territories, but the the interaction of the two sides and the sort of feedback network seems to put it into a different area.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um yeah, it's got that kind of comb filter. I mean, comb filtering is kind of it's the main heart of it, I guess, and it's about how those two sides of comb filtering interact with each other.

SPEAKER_02

I I also had a shot of it and I thought it was it was really nice, really interesting. I was kind of getting some quite weird tones that I kind of couldn't imagine other ways of getting. I think it would be quite difficult to kind of like do that sort of stuff. There feels like a bit of a unique take, or certainly within the Euroact space of that sort of.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's quite hard to find truly unique tone-shaping things these days, but it seems to be one of them. Uh, we've recorded a little bit of uh audio from it that Lucas was kind enough to set up earlier, so we'll drop that in here so you can have a listen. Yeah. So I'm gonna turn the tables back on you. Now, what's the best thing you've seen so far?

SPEAKER_02

The best new thing, um I feel like the best new thing that I saw was I I I think the Bucla Ziggy is very good. Um I we we kind of we knew about it a couple of days beforehand coming over. Um but some of the sort of sound examples that we'd seen in like the teaser videos that we had access to, I wasn't all that impressed with, and I was a little bit like the I was just not a hundred percent sure. I kind of thought this sounds a little bit weird. Not weird in like an explorative way, just sort of like a little bit weak, and I was like, not not so sure about that. But when I actually got into having a play with it, I was like, oh cool, this this sounds like a bookler. It's kind of a bit of a weird interaction, there's no patching on it, so it's uh just to kind of give a brief description of what you'd be looking at. It's kind of like a standalone mono synth um with some inbuilt effects. I I've kind of uh likened it a little bit to like the Instro Seashell. Um small, compact, with the idea. Not as small and compact as the Instroom. Um but I think the the thing for me that is interesting about it is it's sort of like complex oscillator tones and like bigger than its form factor implies uh levels of tone, uh, but in a slightly easier form factor with presets and that kind of thing. So it's sort of like a whole music easel is a bit rich for my blood, but um a sub-1,000 pound bookla might tickle my fancy kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's kind of aimed at people that want a bit of that bookla heritage and that classic complex oscillator and LPG sound, but don't want to necessarily remortgage their house to get into modular.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, because the the bookla modular which they did have at the the booth was delightful. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this is great. And then I remember how expensive it is. Yeah. Because it's in the you know, the five figures.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, yeah, for a big system, you're easily looking at that. And um one thing they did have there as well, which is quite nice to see, which is a little bit more affordable if you're into DIY, is the MEMS project reissues of the 200 series stuff. We were looking at that as well, I think, in the in the back part of that room.

SPEAKER_02

So a bit more details on that, like what what because I I'm actually quite a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the boot club modular side of things.

SPEAKER_00

So the MEMS project is a team that have been looking at original 200 series modules and recreating them and kind of documenting it all properly. So there's there's an online sort of resource where they've looked at the original PCBs and they've kind of very, very, very faithfully recreated them in the original style with the kind of hand-drawn etching on the PCB and stuff. So they are now available as kits with panels and PCBs if you want to build build your own.

SPEAKER_02

And is that is that actually direct from Booker or is it like a sort of third-party?

SPEAKER_00

It's through a Booker affiliated separate website, the electric music store. So that's quite cool. Yeah, yeah. Um, so that's my next probably inevitable uh for 4U DIY rabbit hole to go down when I've I always say you don't have enough for you.

SPEAKER_02

I'm just just not enough. You need more.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's um I'm I'm disbracing myself for for that, but that's that's that's probably gonna happen at some point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, maybe after you've moved house, you can treat yourself to a new DIY project.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but yeah, I was quite impressed with the Ziggy as well, actually, because I think um I was quite impressed with the range of tones and the you know the the presets were quite good. Yeah. Um and the effects are good.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, the effects were good. Um I all of the effects um he did mention were sort of going to change or going to be tweaked. There's gonna be more effects in there, and um uh it was the the we've got a sound clip that will pop in just here, um, so you can have a little listen, but it's not a finalized product.

SPEAKER_00

They were they're pretty keen to let us know whether it's gonna be between the two algorithms, but yeah, have a listen to this.

SPEAKER_02

What would you say has been your the most surprising release? What was the one that took you by surprise the most?

SPEAKER_00

It's funny this because working in the shop we tend to get advanced notice of most things. So there weren't there weren't many things I didn't know about, but the one that I didn't know about until I arrived, and maybe just because I hadn't been looking online that day either was the polyendrum machine.

SPEAKER_02

That was that was gonna be my answer as well. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I've stolen you. No, no, it's good it's it's good. Uh so uh it quite a big, bold move.

SPEAKER_00

Does it have an does it have a name? I've forgotten. Is it just called drum or drum?

SPEAKER_02

I think it's just drum. I mean it's kind of in line with their sort of like four-letter name maybe convention.

SPEAKER_03

Um does what it says on the tin.

SPEAKER_02

Does what it says on the tin. But I really I like the look. I thought it was nice and sleek. Um I am a big fan of drum machines being big. Yeah. Like, don't give me a small drum machine. Like, I want I want it to be absolutely massive and I want to kind of be able to interact with it. Um Ala, Pulsar 23, uh, Erica Perkons, they're all really fantastic for just being like quite hands-on and very large and immediate. Um it is analog as well, it's like an analogue digital hybrid, which is Yeah, so there's four analog voices which are all based on 2130 VCO chips and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

So it's yeah, it's got a good quality analogue signal path and and then it's digital voices too. But yeah, it looks looks good. I mean it's in the same price bracket as the TR1000. Which is a tough sell, I think. I think that's maybe the only thing is just sort of like is there is there room for two two and a half grand drum machines?

SPEAKER_02

Especially when one's like has the the rich history of like an 808 and a 909 analogue circuits being in there. It's it's it's gonna be tough to prize those hands away from the TR1000.

SPEAKER_00

Although I guess if you're they're going for people that maybe aren't quite so uh conscious of the heritage or looking, you know, don't necessarily care about those classic, you know, or having faithful recreations of those classics. Maybe they've been over overused.

SPEAKER_02

And the other thing I guess would be that the sequencer will be very poly-end as well. It's a very different way of working than say the the Roland um style. Yeah. Um so yeah, that that was also probably one of the biggest surprises for me, I think, as well, because I I I wasn't really expecting a sort of big massive flagship drum machine. Yeah. But we're always we're always a fan of drum machines.

SPEAKER_00

Full of surprises. Um I mean, yeah, what else has caught your eye then? Anything else you want to flag up? There's the make noise um, yeah, the complexophone, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um which it always feels like a recipe success for success when you have uh Tom Herb and Make Noise do a collab because they just don't really miss who makes very interesting sounding stuff. So it's a delay network or delay feedback network that can enter into reverb territory, enter into delay territory.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um which uh we we didn't really get a chance to have like a bit of a closer demo, funnily enough, because uh the make noise booth was quite small and constantly round the entire time.

SPEAKER_00

Always full of people and poor poor walkers there fighting. I don't think I saw him take a break the entire time.

SPEAKER_02

Every time I walk past, he was there. He looked he looked like a bit of a shell of a man by the way. I've got to say at 6 p.m. It's always impressive.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I've got to say as a general thing, anyone running these um stands here at Superbook, they've got to say props because it is a it's a a long day of standing up and talking. Yeah, I have a I get I get exhausted just walking around talking to people and you know literally about to say the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_02

Like I get exhausted choosing the conversations, let alone sort of being like stuck in a place and like you know, going into demo mode and going back over. It's it it's pretty tough going.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so they should all get some kind of special prize at the end. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Especially on day three. Three days of that is quite intense. Yeah. Um so yeah, that that sounded really good. Um, and there's kind of no surprise there uh that it will sound really good. Uh pretty excited to get that in um a personal favourite of mine that wasn't something that was new this show, but I haven't seen it because of the availability. It's just like at the um at last year when it was launched, they were just selling direct, is the uh Whimsical Raps Atrium.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, yeah. You're you you love this thing.

SPEAKER_02

I do love this thing. Yeah, uh it's uh quite a uh weird looking device. We'll put up a pop a photo up for you to have a little look at if you're watching the pod. Um it's an odd shape, but it's sort of a little bit uh omnicord adjacent in that you have gestural controls and you're kind of the whole point is that you're touching and interacting with it. And there's choices for notes and chords, so you can stick to things being musically relevant. Um but where it differs is it's almost like an omnicord that's taken acid because it's very weird, it's very odd in the way that you can interact, and it's sort of a little bit like the gestural aspect is how you interact with the instrument, but the sound engine is almost like the greatest hits of all the whimsical rap stuff. So it's like kind of got a mangrove oscillator in there, it's kind of got the just friends envelope thing that you can do. Um and so I was in the Three Sisters filter. It just it just sounded really, really good. Um, and I found it very compelling to interact with, and the gesture recording was so easy to do. Um so yeah, I I was like quite annoyed at how much I liked it because I really I don't need another thing, but I I need that now. That's that's the of all the things I tried, that was the one that spoke to me most where I was like, oh, I would actually definitely put my money where my mouth was on that one.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to see that like production's ramped up and that's you know, all that stuff's all the mannequins whimsical raps stuff is going to be more readily available in the not too distant future as well, so that's great. Um yeah, I could see that you were uh your your little face was lighting up when you were playing with that. Yeah. Which is good.

SPEAKER_02

There was a couple of moments where I was like, oh no. You know when you let play you might be watching a demo video or you're like playing with something in a store.

SPEAKER_00

I must own this.

SPEAKER_02

No, I really didn't want this to happen.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um so yeah, that was that was really good. I I really like the body instruments uh laboratory as well. Oh yeah, yeah, that's great. That's a noisy, noisy bit of kit. That's that's really fun. So feedback.

SPEAKER_00

It's like, yeah, it's kind of two sort of filters and delays, isn't it, with with feedback, cross feedback between them, you can sort of mix, and there's a function generator in the middle that you can kind of loop and use for modulation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we actually got a clip of this one as well. So you can pop a little clip of some absolutely noisy bollocks that's happening. It does have two audio inputs. He was sort of explaining that you can use uh, you know, essentially create another feedback loop with the fact that you've got two ins and two outs and you can feedback stuff, put a pedal in between the chains and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Um and yeah, his his stuff is excellent. Uh he made the metal fetishist, which uh a lot of people know as the sort of crazy accompaniment to any drum machine.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's a mad percussion box. Instant fun. And we've yeah, that's been a big hit, hasn't it? Yeah. Since since then. And um yeah, great to see that. Looking forward, I'm looking forward to actually playing with that um laboratory with external sources. Yeah. Because I think it's a really fun, hands-on kind of way to get into you know, some interesting feedback-y kind of territory.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So other modules that I thought were really good, because I feel like there's almost like been quite a lot of module releases this year. Yeah. Um I really like the random eight, um the Mylar Melodies and the fact that Mylar. Um he has made uh a clever little device which uh takes the ethos of Turing machine workflows of random that can be locked uh and given it uh a very easy instant workflow of you putting your your uh signal in and then anything below can cascade down. So you've got eight channels of random that can then be scaled and quantized, locked and unlocked with it just pressing buttons.

SPEAKER_00

And and slowly iterated, but you could you can kind of re-randomize once you've locked it gradually and iterate on stuff. So it's like having yeah, eight powerful Jura machines in one small compact thing. Great for live cases, I think.

SPEAKER_02

I think it's one of those things as well where um I can imagine so many different modules just sort of benefiting from it. So one of the other things that I enjoyed trying was the new algorithms in the VicX.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Um, which I made in a hilarious sound. This is unfortunately I didn't have the direct audio of this, so this is me sandwiching uh the left and the right earphone into my camera and then holding it. So the audio's a little crispy. Um, but I made it sound like a Formula One car with a joystick. And as I was using the joystick with the Vic X, I was like, oh, this is actually like a great way to interact with a VicX because having two dimensions in one. Yeah, so I think it was like I ended up using about six or seven, because it was the Erica joystick with no two outputs. Um and I ended up using that in a sort of just to macro control absolutely everything. Uh because I don't really know what I'm doing with a Vicx anyway. It's kind of interacting with it, and so having like really big broad brush strokes and gestures, it was really fun. The the Formula One sound that you'll hear is is objectively a bit stupid, but that there were other algorithms where it was like I could use the joystick to like uh just get into like a particular drone and a note, and it was actually really musical, it was really good. Yeah, yeah. The random eight, I think, could pair quite nicely as well. Yeah, yeah. Because it's almost like you can lock all of these little gestures around something that's a bit wilder.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's sounding increasingly like I'm gonna need to give the VicX a second chance, isn't it? And uh and and you heard it here first. Heard it here first. Maybe maybe maybe it really is for me.

SPEAKER_02

If I if I can uh shout out to Fletcher from Vicx because we've always been uh nice to hang out with uh Fletcher.

SPEAKER_00

There's there's there's no beef whatsoever after I was maybe gave us give a slightly controversial opinion in the first podcast. But um no, we went out for dinner, we're all friends again. It's all it's all good. We were never we were never not friends.

SPEAKER_03

All smoothied over. All good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I am gonna I I am actually very curious about the new algorithms and what you've just described with a joystick sounds like a fun way to interact with it as well. So I'm gonna I'm gonna revisit when we get one in stock again. Yeah, yeah. Which should be pretty soon. They are they're not too far away. I was speaking to the guys from the Glasgow Synth Guild earlier and they're they're um yeah talking about how how many Vic X's they've made and how it's just like a a real conveyor belt for them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, just never ending.

SPEAKER_00

Um but yeah, um I'm gonna a module I saw that I was quite impressed with or two actually, the two new from um two new ones from Fairy Island modular. Oh yeah. Who make the four C's wavetable oscillator from Finland, um, friends of the store. Um nice to hang out with them again today. And they showed their two new ones. One's called Undertow, uh-huh, and it is a dual um kind of dual oscillator-based uh module with 15 outputs, which is um you can use it as a modulation source or as an oscillator. Yeah. So the idea is you have a wavetable oscillator on each side, and um the the bank of outputs across the middle are differently weighted interpolations of those two waveforms, which you can then tune independently, or you can stick to each other, you have end-of-cycle outputs, um, and you have a modulation control, which can be either like a wave folder or you know various other things. You've got a little bit of audio of this as well, which you can drop in here, which we captured at the booth.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but I think this is a really interesting potential modulation source and oscillator. It can do both you know audio rate stuff and lower rate stuff pretty well. Uh and their other one, which I've temporarily forgotten the name of, is gonna be a stereo BCA slash LPG with very meticulously modelled LPG like vactory emulations in circuit form with a few different response types that you can flip between, and a nice, a really nice distortion um kind of overload with two different modes as well. Yeah. Um, which I think will do really well. It's gonna be really well priced and it's gonna be um I mean it sounded kind of like it's gonna be in the same territory as Natural Gate or something like that.

SPEAKER_02

It's so funny. I was actually I think I was talking to Fletcher about this, but the uh the RRHS compliant vactoral thing is so funny to me because we uh the tip top one that the EU version, they so tip top were doing the Bookler classic low pass gate.

SPEAKER_00

The 292.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and in America they could do the vaccural version, and in the UK and EU you can't sell vaccals, so it had the vaccural-free version. Um, and apparently, as far as we could tell, the the vactoral-free version was deeply unpopular online. Um yet the the one low pass gate that we seemingly could never get enough of is the natural gate, which has no vaccals whatsoever. No one seems to be bothered about that one.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, it's funny. Yeah, yeah, the cult of vaccals is a weird one. Yeah, you know, no two vaccils sound the same, so the double, you know, like my Optimix doesn't sound anything like the one that I've seen Ben use in his DivKid videos, you know. Like my mine rings on for about three seconds, and this is really, really tight and blocky. And it's just the it's just the luck of the drawer with the parts, you know. So um, so yeah. So that yeah, that was a good one. They um looking forward to hearing that.

SPEAKER_02

Any other honourable mentions? Anything else that you caught caught your eye?

SPEAKER_00

Um off the top of my head, oh Vostok um Jose showed a prototype of a new thing that he's working on, which is at the booth, um, which I think it's okay to talk about. He had it out on display. Yeah. So I'm just gonna talk about it. We could edit it out if it doesn't want to do it. Um but he's got he's got his new module Halo, which is the uh the sort of multi-output LFO with logic stuff built in, and the new module, which I don't think it does have a name, but I'm not gonna mention the name yet because it's it's quite early. Yeah. But it's um it's a four-input kind of uh uh trigger to gate processor with logic outputs, and you can basically use it to turn four uh triggers into it's got twenty-three outputs basically, so for creating rhythmically related events from it's sort of almost like a little bit like Halo, but for gate like processing gates, because the logic circuit is almost like where all of the magic happens.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. You've almost got like the you can take an incoming trigger. And then decide how long that gate signal will be. But the interesting stuff is when you have multiple triggers and then all of the logic stuff at the bottom will then generate much more interesting rhythms. And it's similar to the Halo. It's like an LFO is not tremendously interesting, but get four and then apply some logic and you get some really cool shapes. It's quite a nice way of doing minimal input, quite interesting output.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and the real magic of it is that you can edit, you can adjust and modulate the gate length that's generated from the trigger, and that's when you start getting interesting rhythmic stuff happening as some gates end, and that causes a logic gate to switch down below. So you can start getting really interesting kind of shuffle-y off-grid rhythms and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02

And with some self-patching as well, I think it could get pretty uh pretty fun as well. Certain modules, I think I'm just immediately like my first instinct is to just start patching it with itself. And that one was like, oh, this this could be quite fun, I think.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um another thing that we both enjoyed yesterday, I think, which is not super new and it was it was announced last year in prototype form but is now shipping, is the Frap Tools Magnolia PolySynth. You were loving that.

SPEAKER_02

I I was I didn't really know what to expect because I've like the Frap Tools modules are are one of those brands where it's never quite I don't really love the the cryptic displays. Like it's it's quite iconographic. Like it's like there's little icons that mean certain things and there's quite colour coordination. And if you're into that and you kind of know what you're doing, I think it's excellent. But as someone who sometimes just gets a module and I have to like someone wants a demo of something and I've not used it before, I'm in the showroom and it's like, yeah, can I try it? I'm like looking at this thing being like nothing is labelled. I don't really know what it does. Um so I didn't really have like any major or high expectations, given that it's also a total curveball. It's a polysynth, an eight voice through zero FM polysynth from a company who've historically only made like quite noisy, slightly weird Eurorack modules with quite in-depth, you know, they've got massive sequences and quite complicated. The CGM mixer is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00

It's all quite high-end stuff though, isn't it? So yeah, they've they've got a real attention to detail and high build quality and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02

But as soon as I played like the first notes on the preset, I was like, oh god, this sounds good. And then I went to the next preset, I was like, this sounds amazing. And it was part of that is probably also just some fantastic sound design, but it's also that you know it can only sound as good as the synth. But yeah, I I I think sometimes synths uh synth manufacturers actually forget how important it is to make presets sound really good. Yeah, yeah. Uh because the first interaction needs to be like, whoa, whoa.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it needs to blow you away straight away, doesn't it? Yeah, and I think one thing I thought compared to how it the form it was in last year, where the sounds were much more the sounds I was hearing anyway, and you know, from from the booth when I played with it, they were they were a bit more uh about the um through zero FM capabilities and the wavefolding and that that kind of stuff, that kind of West Coast stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Which when you actually play those tones polyphonically can be a bit much.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it feels like they've kind of leaned a bit more into the the low pass filtering and stuff, so you can it's got that real nice mix of it sounded like a beautiful classic, like a profit vibe or something.

SPEAKER_02

It was it reminded me.

SPEAKER_00

But then you can also get into that more West Coast weird booklery territory with the the FM and the you know the wavefolding.

SPEAKER_02

It actually sort of almost reminded me a little bit of um my first interaction with like the Udo stuff. Um because every time I've ever played like a new a new Udo thing like the Super Six or the Gemini or the the Domino, um it's very high-end, it sounds excellent, it's like really, really good, and it just kind of reminded me of that. I was just like immediately drawn in by the sound and thought it just sounded amazing. So that that and the atrium were my two glad I finally got a chance to see it from last year kind of thing. They were they were really, really good. Um and I another honourable mention, uh is it big time, the Chase Bliss delay? I think it's called Big Time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, um, which is Yeah, that's another one you were quite.

SPEAKER_02

I was really annoyed at how good that sounded. I I don't need an 1100 euro uh delay pedal, but my god, it sounded good. It just had like a really lovely character that there that it's kind of like a bit of a weird one in that the delay is actually digital, but there's quite a lot of analog circuitry that they've put in that r really does a good job of warming that up. And the limiter, it was basically like you could get these like really lovely, crunchy, um quite slightly distorted and warm tones out of it that I don't know, it just it just really had a lot of character, and it was sort of almost like adjacent to other delays that I've heard, but quite unique. I was kind of hoping that it would just be like uh I could sell all of my delay pedals and just get that because it looked really good. But I think it's almost like it doesn't do the things that I like about the Thermay, uh, and so I would still want a BBD delay, so I can't sell that and get the big time, which is annoying.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, but yeah, it did look nice, I've got to say. I mean, I I definitely do not need any more delays. I've got them delayed at my nut. Um so uh but it did look, I mean, I like I love the interface with the big chunky sliders and the motorised stuff.

SPEAKER_03

The chunky, they're so satisfying to push as well.

SPEAKER_00

It's very, very pleasurable to use. Um but yeah, I haven't I don't have any Chase Bliss stuff actually. But um I've always I've been tempted for a while, but I don't think that's gonna be my first one.

SPEAKER_02

Unfortunately, I just can't quite justify dropping a grand on a but look for for the people who have uh that kind of money and want to spend it, it's objectively great. Like it was so good. Uh but I I just yeah, for me personally, it's probably not something I would would be buying anytime soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Anything else catch your eye that you want to flag?

SPEAKER_02

I'm just trying to think if there was anything else.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like there's definitely been uh the new Giranologue filter, um the Flow 3, which is a nice addition to their lineup. Not a not a complete game changer of any kind, I would say. I don't think they're claiming it to be that either. But it's um it's a nice filter with uh um it's pingable and it has a kind of built-in decay envelope, which can also be driven by the input signal as you know, like an envelope follower style. Yeah. So quite good for patching kick drums. You can use it to kind of generate a you can ping a generate little decay envelope which you can then modulate the cutoff with when it's self-oscillating and make make nice. It sounded really good.

SPEAKER_02

It had kind of like quite a bit more of a a pointed and a slightly more aggressive sound than I remember Filter 8 having. It was a little bit narrow.

SPEAKER_00

It's got a bit more resonance kind of character, isn't it? Um but yeah, I think you know it's another another compact winner from them. Yeah. You know, you could I'm I'm definitely a fan of everything they do, and you know, I like I like their stuff as a full system as well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Honourable mention time, um now that I've remembered, the the Doom Scroll synth.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The TikTok button synth.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so the whole concept of this is ridiculous and fun in a way. Uh is it Simon? Sumaforma, um, who make a really beautiful pin matrix synth that we really liked. The the alt that was lovely. Um but their new thing is essentially a single button. Is it called RD? RN I think it's R D, yeah. I think it should have been called Doom Scroll, but like RND is cool. Um and you press a button and it generates a new sequence and a new sound, and it's entirely random, and you have no controls whatsoever once that's happened. Uh you press the button again, a new sound comes up. And having played with some synths that have a sort of a randomized option. Uh I'm feeling lucky button. Um most of the time I spent I'd like, I'll press that button and then be instantly disappointed by the output. I'm like, oh yeah, this is why I don't do this.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, you're not feeling lucky anymore. No, I'm feeling very unlucky.

SPEAKER_02

I'm feeling really unlucky. Um but I was quite surprised at how the thing that m impressed me most was that the sequence would change as well as the sound, and the the pair was always quite complementary. I was like, oh, this isn't this this sound and this sequence go together quite well. I'm almost like impressed that the the parameter choices that they must have allowed into that randomness were quite tight. But it was quite you know dramatically different every time you pressed. But yeah, I must admit, I I'm not sure I actually liked my interaction with it because it did quite literally feel like I was like on TikTok or on Instagram reels and I was just swiping. It was it was a little bit, I'm not sure I actually enjoyed using it, but I was quite impressed how it sounded.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's very yeah, it's impressive. I I can see zero use for it in my music musical uh setup, you know, but I think it's it's kind of it's a bit fun. Yeah. And I think they, you know, by their admission, it's like the polar opposite of their main, you know, kind of serious big desktop synth.

SPEAKER_02

Which is very hands-on, loads of parameters, a pin matrix, that that was good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, a big fan of that alt. Um and it's yeah, it's fun to see, you know, it's a it's kind of a it's a bit of a gimmicky thing, but it's but it actually does sound good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it I was I was quite impressed. And I I could imagine a scenario in which um like I'm almost like I using that as a starting point for a song, maybe through some weird effects pedals, and I'm like, I'm just gonna keep pressing this until something speaks to me, and that's my jumping off point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's not necessarily like maybe I'm a bit a bit hasty to discount it. Maybe it could be useful in that kind of sense, I guess.

SPEAKER_02

I think it depends on how playful you want to be with all that sort of stuff. I'm not very playful. Not playful at all. Very, very serious.

SPEAKER_03

Straight to business. Mr. Business, we're called. Mr.

SPEAKER_02

Business, yeah. Um but yeah, I feel like the only other thing that we wanted to talk about was just sort of general trends in Eurorack, I guess, from coming here and having a little look at the layer of the land.

SPEAKER_00

It's like I thought one more honourable mention. No, too late. No, you can do it. Um which is also maybe a trend. Um the board brain mixer, the Exelon. Oh, yeah, so um tons of mixers now. Yeah, because there's a new there's a new Korg NTS4, small compact performance mixer. And they had a And you spotted a big Korg mixer?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that looked a little bit more closer to like a live sound mixer. The form factor was quite it was like a big as well.

SPEAKER_00

The more traditional deep big one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the uh board brain Exelon SL is um yeah, pretty impressive, I would say. It's um it's built very, very well. It kind of feels just as premium as their Euroite module, if not more so. Yeah. But it's got that extra depth and the you know physicality.

SPEAKER_02

It was very nice.

SPEAKER_00

Everything's really well chosen, everything feels good. You know, the the feel, I mean, this is really nerdy, but like the actual feel of the fader caps is really pleasing.

SPEAKER_02

No, it was good. It was very, very good. I liked it a lot. Um the build on their stuff's always good, but I uh are you alright? It's definitely like a bit more premium. Um they've definitely like gone up a notch for that, which I think is needed because it's like you know, a premium product, it's a higher price point than you would expect for like versus the Eurorack equivalent.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's built with no compromises, you know, and you sort of pay for that, which is you know, but you want something like that for a live use where you're yeah, you don't want anything like that to go wrong to you in a in a sweaty club.

SPEAKER_02

So that yeah, that's a very good honourable mention. I I think that like in terms of that, we have seen a lot more mixers now, which is weird because there was this barren landscape a few years ago where like there wasn't really that many mixer options that were small or relatively compact.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, or just mixers that were geared towards electronic music performance. Because you know, so many mics still uh some so many mixers still just come with mic preamps, yeah, which are never used by electronic musicians at all. They're just a waste, you know. Like I've I've had mixers for years which have had mic preamps built in them. I've I've maybe plugged one mic in to sample something or you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It sort of felt like the Arturia 16 rig was like almost because that's been out for a fair wee while now. It was almost like that was Oh, the audio interface. Yeah, the audio I wonder if that was sort of a bit of an impetus for like some designers to sort of take another look and be like, yeah, what why do we need all these microphone preamps? No one no one is.

SPEAKER_00

They're just used synths. It's like, why are we still making this? It's always because it appeals, you know, appeals to everyone. But there is a yeah, it's taken a little while for the industry to cut on onto the fact that there's maybe a market for electronic music producers to have their own mixer. Yeah, with features, with other features that are more geared to them, like you know, filters on each channel and sidechain compression and you know things like that. But yeah, so the so mixers is one trend, I think. Um well, I don't know if we can call it a trend yet, but certainly one thing there's a few of. Yeah. I would say another one is maybe just stuff that is broadly speaking a kind of spectral processor of some kind.

SPEAKER_02

Spectral is in. Spectral's hot right now.

SPEAKER_00

So whether that's stuff that's based around all-pass filtering and comb filtering um and sort of phase manipulation, or whether it's stuff that's also in that kind of reverb and delay sort of space. There's things like the cosmic debris from WMD, there's the plexifon from Mate Noise, the new chaos devices thing, you know, lots of these things that are kind of interesting stereo effects that aren't reverbs, they're not delays, they're not phases, they're not choruses, but they occupy space somewhere in between all those things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and I quite like I, you know, I all of those sounds are all like I've yet to hear one of those things and kind of as yet be bored with it. Because I feel like I'm a bit granulared out. You know, it feels like granular was probably the big thing for.

SPEAKER_00

Having said that, I need to give an honourable mention to the Zeruin Ahazi granular module from uh SBRK devices.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Who's like uh um from Barcelona, um, friends with Jose from Vostok, and um I met him here last year and he showed me his prototype, and um, I made a little video just before Superbooth of the production model, which will be coming out um later this year. And I have never previously been that interested in granular stuff. Like I've never owned an arbor, I've never owned any kind of dedicated granular hardware. Yeah, um, but he kind of sold it to me pretty well last year, and I've really, really enjoyed playing with it. It's a really powerful machine. He's been showing you, I think the reaction's been really good. It's a big 30 HP silver panel, nicely spacious layout. But there's four layers, right? Because that's like the big thing with it. Yeah, so it's fully polyphonic, you've got four layers which you can trigger independently or you know, um, you know, let play independently. It's got a built-in convolution reverb, which you can also run the input signal through. Uh, it does real-time processing, it does processing samples on a card, you can record into it. Yeah, and the convolution reverb comes with impulse responses for real spaces in Barcelona, but you can also load your own from the SD card.

SPEAKER_02

Which is quite a nice touch as well. So like and ends up with like imparting the sound of the location that it was designed in in amongst everything.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly, it's nice. So um, so that is that is the granular module that has finally made me sit up and take notice of granular, I would say.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but I I could tell that you were really into it because you really excitedly showed me a clip of the video that you'd made, and I was like, alright, I I usually I can tell when Tom's in at something, he's like Look, look, look at look at the thing I made.

SPEAKER_03

We'll put it to this. We'll put it right on the fridge, Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like a toddler that's just uh drawn a house with crayons.

SPEAKER_02

No, it it sounded amazing in that in that clip, and uh I I'm not like a super granular person at this point. I kind of went through like the S4 and I used the.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say you had the torso S4, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02

Um but to be honest, the main thing I loved about the S4 was the uh the essentially the using the filters and then pinging the filters uh and tuning that to like musical resonances. I love that aspect of it. I thought that like I I didn't actually really use the granular aspect all that much. I was kind of mainly just pinging the filter with like weird drum loops and stuff like that. Um but yeah, I I I've I'm not super granular uh in my in my taste.

SPEAKER_00

Just not a granular guy.

SPEAKER_02

I'm just not a granular guy, you know. Um but yeah, spectrals definitely felt like a bit of a an in thing this year.

SPEAKER_00

Um and then I don't know if there's any other it's not like some years where like everyone started doing stereo filters and everyone started, you know, there are there are there are there are certain trends that pop up. Um quite a lot of brands have been releasing stuff that are kind of like what I would call gap fillers in their ranges in a way. So like Insta have a new mic, you know, that they're incorporated I thing, which is you know, a lot they're they're at the point now where their range is so rich and full of interesting stuff that I get the sense that Jason is just filling in the things that he needs for his performance case, which is you know, which is great, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because the thing is like if he needs to use it, there will be other people who will need to use it. And it is, it's got a comparator and an envoy follower. It's a good, it's a it's a nice addition. Yeah. Um, there was the quantizer from Chaos Device.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, they have a new quantizer which is um got a few trucks up its sleeve as well, but it's also just a really great kind of you know, that was something that's missing from their lineup. Yeah, one of the few things that they don't they don't have a dedicated module for. Yeah, um, so I've actually got one of them in my bag to take home in.

SPEAKER_02

And I guess in it just in in the in general, really, the there's been quite a lot of Euro releases. Like it was quite like quite hard to keep up with all of the different new Eurorack modules, um, which is which is good.

SPEAKER_00

It's quite uh, you know, it's nice to see the stuff I've not even had time to check out yet. Like this new 4MS things. Um I noticed they got announced very late in the day, and I've you know we've we've only been here for a day and a half, so we still haven't seen everything. And there's so much to see here.

SPEAKER_02

It is impossible to see it all. Like it's so and everything's quite late, you know, far apart and stuff like that. So yeah, it's been it's been a difficult keeping up with everything.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think who else we should probably shout out um expert sleepers, has a couple of new things as well. Yeah, I mean the the NTX8CV?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, which is uh either an expander for an a disting NT or will work entirely standalone to do eight channels of USB um audio or um B to CV conversion in a tiny little form factor at well well reasonable price. Yeah. He's got forever, which is uh the spectral freeze algorithm from the disting.

SPEAKER_00

Back to the spectral. Back to the spectral thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That ties in with the theme.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Um and that's really good because that's a that's a really good algorithm in the the disting NT, but it's kind of nice to see him sort of break some of those things out and just kind of make something standalone. Um it's a really good um algorithm, and I'm sure people will get a lot of value out of that. And again, he's priced that really well for the kind of feature set that it has and the kind of sounds you'll be able to get out of it. So um a lot too much stuff. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Too much huts. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Uh uh, I think about six o'clock, all of us just turn to each other and start saying, Don't talk to me about synthesizers. And then it gets to six, and we're like, I'd I'd I'm done.

SPEAKER_00

I'm done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Um, well, maybe we'll wrap it up there then. Yeah, don't talk to me about synthesizers. I've had enough synthesizer chat for one day. So we are gonna go and check out um a couple more things this afternoon, then you're flying off to Copenhagen. I'm gonna fly back to sunny Glasgow and get this edited up, and then we'll be back um with a regularly scheduled episode after the Superbooth special at some point in late May, hopefully. Yeah. Um as always, you can send your feedback to signalflow at signalsounds.com.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

And uh we love hearing your comments. It's been one thing actually, it's been really nice. Shout out to everyone that's come up and said hello to us at Superbooth, because we've had a few people run up and say they how much they enjoy the podcast. Yeah, it's been crazy, actually. It's been really lovely. Really made my day. So um, yeah, thanks for that, everyone, for watching. So um yeah, catch you soon. Bye. Cheers.