Herbs & Stones Pathways: 4x4 modular matrix mixer that self-oscillates

21 Jun 2022 by Robin Vincent |

5,0 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Herbs & Stones Pathways · Source: Herbs & Stones

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Pathways is about modulation, manipulation, feedback, creative routing and weird synthesis. All in a good looking desktop box with room to patch, tweak and fiddle.

Update 21st June 2020: Herbs & Stones are now taking orders for €499 including shipping.

Pathways

Herbs & Stones are not at Superbooth but it’s always a good time to announce something new. Pathways is a modular matrix mixer designed to route signals into interesting places.

It features four quarter-inch inputs with gain and drive control and four quarter-inch outputs. While that’s not very Eurorack friendly, each parameter also has a 3.5mm input jack for modulation. You can control each of the 16 intersections manually on the knobs or via CV. A handy LED gives some visual feedback.

From there, things get even more interesting. There’s an envelope follower on input four. You feed the extracted signal through a clock divider with three cascaded outputs. There are two internal LFOs that are voltage controlled and open to all sorts of weirdness. Each channel can also be patched into itself to punish them into self-oscillation. This transforms Pathways into a polyphonic CV controllable drone synthesizer, which is nice.

It sounds completely nuts. In these Instagram clips, there’s no sound source other than Pathways.

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Herbs & Stones make interesting boxes that have an earthy and experimental vibe about them. Pathways fits right into that scene and is going to pair up with the Liquid Foam and Gentle Wham nicely.

Available as of the 21st June for €499.