Gamechanger Audio Plasma Voice: Prepare for High Voltage Discharge
4,3 / 5,0 | 
Gamechanger Audio Plasma Voice · Source: Gamechanger Audio
Gamechanger Audio Plasma Voice · Source: Gamechanger Audio
The Superbooth prototype becomes a dazzling reality in the Plasma Voice, a strange and complex hybrid sound generator.
Plasma Voice
This is dramatically different from the barely feasible sparking noise module of Superbooth 2023. It looks like it’s undergone several reworkings and ended up complicated but no less thrilling. Gamechanger Audio appear to have worked hard to force the burning tube of xenon gas into something resembling a melodic output.
Is it all fizz and fuzz, or is there something usable in here? I’m not entirely sure, but the video (below) is a riot of fascinating eruptions that spit and froth at you to the point that it feels like a dangerous thing to play with.
Gamechanger Audio Plasma Voice · Source: Gamechanger Audio
Gamechanger Audio has tuned the current transformer and tube driver circuit to somehow pull interesting sound from precisely controlled electrical discharges. The discharge is forged into sound through a specially designed inductor and audio rectifier circuit. The Plasma Voice also harbours an analogue VCA, filter, EQ and Drive section, as if it needs more drive.
But are we actually hearing the discharge? I think there’s more going on than meets the eye.
Sounds
The website talks about how this is the first Plasma product that doesn’t require any external audio. The other plasma products were essentially distortion effects. Instead, the Plasma Voice already contains a number (49, in fact) of “Sounds” that are used to modulate the oscillator. The oscillator is an ultrasound pulse-width oscillator driven by the electric discharge. The Sounds are samples and envelope shapes that you can trigger, shape and modulate via the sliders on the front.
So, I think we’re looking at a digital oscillator that uses the discharging tube as a jump-off point into distorted modulated samples with PWM, FM, pitch modulation, time stretching, wavefolding, cross modulation and suboctave modulation. Which then runs into a regular analogue synth voice architecture. Sounds like fun!
In many ways, the plasma tube is a distraction, but it’s a very effective one. And what Gamechanger Audio has done is come up with a unique and exciting module that has a very different feel from anything else out there.
So, the Plasma Voice. It’s probably not what you think, but it’s fun anyway.
Availability
Gamechanger are running off 100 modules and are now taking preorders for €412. And if you order one now, you should expect delivery in November.
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