Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope Generative Synth, Free Online TR-808, More: Synth Journal
The best of the rest of this week’s synth news.
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This week’s synth news roundup includes Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope, a hardware sequencer and drum machine from Tato Audio, a free online TR-808, and more.
Synth Journal
Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope
Well, looky here. You may know the developer Vadim Minkin from his work with Soma. Now he’s set out on his own and his first product is now available. Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope is a generative digital synthesizer with four voices of polyphony. You can play it as a regular polyphonic synth via MIDI but that would sort of defeat the purpose of it, as it’s intended to be used with the onboard sequencer.
First, the synth engines. Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope features four kinds of digital synthesis: subtractive, additive, physical modeling and FM. You get four monophonic tracks, each with a complex oscillator, wavefolder, filter and comb filter, overdrive, FM mixer-router and audio mixer-router. The fun starts when you engage the sequencer, which is based on functional methods for creating control signals and triggers.
Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope is a complex thing and much more powerful than it looks from the outside. Check out the video demo to hear it in action. It’s pretty wild.
Vadim Minkin Kaleidoscope is now available for €600 from Vadim’s website. Scroll to the bottom and enter your information and he’ll get in touch.
Tato Audio Aline and ARA
New Brazilian company Tato Audio is currently working on two sequencers, one for notes and the other for drums. They’re calling them performance sequencers, and while they’re not available yet, they’re definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Aline features 16 tracks (or ‘layers’) and eight different sequencer engines, the latter of which includes four parametric and four imperative engines. These include grid, line, 303, arp, euclidean, call n response, play, and progress. You can affect layers with more than one sequencer engine at a time and also have different pattern lengths. It has CV out, MIDI and sync in and out, plus USB.
Tato Audio is calling ARA a drum machine, although it seems to be a drum sequencer. You can create rhythms for up to eight instruments, each with 64 steps. Each lane has independent accents, volume and mute controls, and you can set each instrument length to a different number for polyrhythms. It features MIDI, USB and CV outputs.
Both sequencers are forthcoming. Aline has a listed price of €499 but the cost of ARA is TBD. Get on the wait list at the Tato Audio website.
tilde~instruments TouchDog
The world of hardware synthesizers is wide and deep. On the one hand, you’ve got mass-market instruments with traditional interfaces. On the other, you’ve got more experimental affair, such as TouchDog from tilde~instruments.
A made-to-order boutique synth, TouchDog is a touch-plate instrument based on designs from Peter Blasser, aka Ciat-Lonbarde, specifically dogvoice and piezo preamp circuits. It’s got six touch plates for controlling the sound, plus a number of knobs and patch points, all unmarked. Exploration and experimentation are the order of the day.
As for the sound, TouchDog is both beautiful and banshee-like, and should appeal to noise musicians and other experimental types. There’s no price listed but if you’re interested, get in touch with tilde~instruments at the below link.
Lloyd’s Online TR-808
Nothing sounds quite like an 808, and that’s as true for the original hardware as it is for Lloyd’s Online TR-808, a free web-based recreation of the iconic drum machine.
Based around samples, Lloyd’s Online TR-808 features a step sequencer with 16, 32 and 64-step variations available. There are multiple samples for each drum instrument, letting you change the sound up. You also get controls for tempo, swing and per-sound volume plus saturation settings. Interestingly, you can also record your patterns as 24-bit WAVs or even export MIDI files.
This is a great resource and a fun way to pass the time. It was created by Lloyd Stellar, a Dutch electro producer, “to provide musicians, producers, and music enthusiasts with a free, accessible tool to create drum patterns in the style of the iconic 808.”
Check out Lloyd’s Online TR-808 at the link below.
Ult-Sound DS-4M ProMuzer
Ult-Sound is a Japan-based manufacturer best known for its recreations of the Toyo Gakki DS-4 from 1978, an exceedingly rare drum synthesizer favored by Yellow Magic Orchestra. Along with the company’s original DS-4M and DS-1 Eurorack module, it now offers the DS-4M ProMuzer, a limited-edition version of the DS-4M.
New to the ProMuzer is its white panel, and the feature-set is based on the second edition of the Toyo Gakki DS-4, including new sustain and attack controls, plus a beat sustain switch, which activates velocity sensitivity, enabling dynamic response to trigger inputs for expressive playability.
It also offers a number of MIDI settings, including separate channels for each of the four voices, a unified MIDI mode, a polyphonic mode, MIDI velocity control and dynamic gate inputs.
The new Ult-Sound DS-4M ProMuzer is $1999 and will ship in June 2025. It is limited to just 50 units. Head over to the website for more information.
Todd Rundgren Was Born to Synthesize
Lastly, let’s finish off this edition of Synth Journal with a little music from Todd Rundgren. “Born to Synthesize” is a track from Todd’s 1975 album, Initiation. The album is synthesizer-heavy but, ironically, “Born to Synthesize” is an acappella. It’s not completely synthesizer-free though, as the credits indicate that it features ‘synthesizer treatments’ from Roger Powell of Utopia.
Also, check out this take from Midnight Special in 1975.
What’s your favorite Todd Rundgren song? Let me know in the comments.
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