Superbooth 2019: Finegear Arkive_Effects, an analog FX box with a modular twist
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Finegear has announced that it will reveal the Arkive_Effects box at Superbooth 2019. Dubbed the “Dust Collector”, Arkive_Effects is a collection of analog effects designed to spark your creativity. Among its seven FX modules are a spring reverb, a delay, a phaser, saturation, and more.
Finegear made news at last year’s Superbooth, when the French-Romanian company introduced the modular Mixerblocks system. Mixerblocks lets you build your own custom mixing desk using modular input channels and master/bus sections. This year, they’re following up with the Arkive_Effects, which is not part of the Mixerblocks system, but also has a somewhat modular concept.
Finegear says that the Arkive_Effects is “designed for sonic experimentation”. The stand-alone FX box contains seven modules with some interesting ideas and modulation options. Some of the modules can be CV-controlled, which should put the Arkive_Effects on the radar of anyone looking to expand their modular synth with analog effects. However, the “Dust Collector” isn’t aimed at the Eurorack crowd exclusively, as its audio connections seem to be on 1/4” jacks.
Spring reverb and analog delay
To me, the most interesting part of Arkive_Effects is its spring reverb, which has CV-controllable VCAs at the input and output, as well as tone and mix controls. The acrylic cover is easily removable with four thumb screws, so you can fiddle with the spring using your fingers or anything you’d like. I’m excited to hear what the reverb sounds like!
The “Dust Collector” also has an analog delay. There’s a CV input for the delay time and a knob to adjust the feedback. They’ve also included a momentary switch to create infinite feedback loops on the fly.
Finegear Arkive_Effects
Phaser and saturation
The phaser has controls for feedback and depth, and a CV input. It can use either of the internal LFOs as a modulation source, or you can control it manually. There are also two independent tape saturation modules, which Finegear says can add warmth or heavier distortion.
The Arkive_Effects includes two LFOs, whose speed can be modulated via CV inputs. They produce sine, triangle, and square waveforms. Each of the LFOs has two normal outputs and one inverted output. The LFOs can modulate the internal effects, or you can of course use them as additional modulation sources for your modular synth or other gear.
Price and availability
As of now, we don’t have a release date yet, nor can we tell you the price. But Superbooth is only a few days away, so we’ll know more very soon.
More information
- Manufacturer’s page (It doesn’t have anything on the Arkive_Effects yet, but that should change soon.)
- Finegear Arkive_Effects: Finegear
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