Extremely Limited Edition PPG 1002 Black, EML ElectroComp 101 Plugin, the Latest Eurorack Modules and More: Synth Journal
The PPG 1002 Black Edition is limited to just how many units?! That plus a VST version of the EML ElectroComp 101 and more.
Synth Journal
Squarp Instruments Core
Squarp Instruments manufactures a variety of Eurorack and sequencer solutions, including the Hapax Sequencer and Hermod+ modular brain. Now the company has launched Core, a slim MIDI to CV/Gate interface that does more than what that descriptor may suggest.
Although it’s only 6 HP wide, Core packs a lot of power into a tiny footprint. This is because it’s meant to pair with Squarp’s xp32 expander module, itself originally designed for the Hermod+. With both TRS and USB MIDI onboard, you can take in MIDI signals from your computer or hardware devices and turn it into CV and gate to use in your Eurorack rig, splitting it into up to 64 clocks with two xp32 units. Cleverly, Core can tweak MIDI like it would any other electrical signal, with engines for playing with modulation, loops, Euclidean rhythms and more, along with your usual pitch, gate, velocity and aftertouch.
Core is available on its own or in a bundle with xp32.
Heavylight Industries Capicola for Alchemy Lab
Back in July, we told you about Hermetic Modular’s Alchemy Lab, an open-source DSP-based module with swappable firmwares. Capicola is the latest for the 12 HP module, and it’s a doozy.
Employing real-time time stretching, the DSP from Heavylight Industries lets you stretch and compress incoming audio while conforming to a tempo. It sounds like Akai time stretching of yore – but live and in real time. You get controls over pitch, stretch, slice threshold, grain size, quality and feedback, with each parameter fully modulatable from either the internal envelope followers or external CV. There are also dedicated attenuverters for each control.
Capicola sounds pretty cool and is grist for all kinds of sonic experiments. You can get a dedicated front panel for it when you buy Alchemy Lab from Hermetic for an additional $10.99.
Kaona B.A.C.H.
What a lovely discovery. B.A.C.H. is a new sequencer module from Kaona that generates melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structures across four tracks in real time, changing at every clock pulse. It offers gate, pitch and mod outputs, and can command external MIDI gear, with a separate MIDI channel control for each track.
Here’s where things get interesting though. B.A.C.H. includes 12 compositional languages, from Fugue to Canon, Tintinnabuli to Minimal, and Cellular, Tree, Motif and Groove. You additionally get eight musical controls that vary from Material and Memory, Morph and Density, Tension and Interaction. Each of these controls has its own CV input for additional tweaking, with musical parameters like access to 14 scales, selectable root note, note duration and more also available. You can also create harmonic progressions, set breaks and transformations, and more.
B.A.C.H. costs €594 but Kaona is currently offering 15% off. Shipping is planned to start later this month.
PPG 1002 Black Edition
Before Wolfgang Palm changed synthesizers with the largely digital Wave, he made analog synths. One of them, the monophonic and very rare 1002, is highly revered. Recently, he partnered with composer Cornel Hecht to create a new version of the instrument. The now keyboardless PPG 1002 includes MIDI and velocity response (and a square wave on oscillator 2) but in every other way it’s the same as the original.
Not familiar with the 1002? It included two analog oscillators with mixable waveforms from triangle to saw, a noise generator, ring modulator, 24dB lowpass filter with resonance, LFO, two envelopes, CV/gate control, and more.
Handmade, the 1002 is limited to only 102 units. As if that wasn’t exclusive enough, PPG has just announced a new, even more limited version, PPG 1002 Black Edition. “Finished entirely in black, with black anodized 3D side panels featuring the PPG logo and larger control knobs, the PPG 1002 reveals a new side of its personality,” says PPG. “Clean, striking, and carefully considered down to the last detail.”
The all-black colorway PPG 1002 Black is restricted to only three machines worldwide. Although the controls are the same, PPG says the analog oscillators have been optimized to “bring out the authentic PPG sonic character.”
To secure one of the PPG 1002 Black Editions, contact the company via email at the link below. There’s no price listed but as the standard edition is $9999, it won’t be cheap. The standard is still available at Thomann*.
Denver Synth Labs Electrocomp 101
With so many plugins out now, it feels like every classic synth has already been emulated – many times over. So imagine my surprise when I saw that indie developer Denver Synth Labs had done the EML ElectroComp 101, a fairly rare (and fairly punk) American synth from 1972. Legendary synthesist Drew Schlesignger apparently did some consulting for it, and mentioned it favorably on his Instagram.
Electrocomp 101, as the plugin is called, has four oscillators, a state-variable filter with an input drive stage that distorts inside its own resonant loop, a duophonic voice architecture, a patchbay and lots and lots of attitude. There’s a reason it was the synth of choice for Pere Ubu keyboardist Allen Ravenstine, after all.
Drew says: “I was immediately taken by the organic quality of the tone and it can make some totally strange and highly cross modulated sounds that morph and change in very cool ways.”
Check it out. It’s on intro price for $50 “while supplies last.”
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