Secrets of the JP-8000 Supersaw Revealed: Synth Journal
The best of the rest of this week’s synth news.
4,8 / 5,0 | 
The Usual Suspects have figured out the Roland supersaw, the prettiest modular system you’ve ever seen, and more.
Synth Journal
Shmøergh Moduleur
Well, if this isn’t the cutest little thing. Shmøergh Moduleur is an intriguing and possibly not even available open source modular system. I say possibly not available because it’s not actually a product yet. The website says that the company might make a small batch if enough people want one. Do you want one? I sure do.
The Shmøergh Moduleur is a very Teenage Engineering-esque modular system that uses 12V power, so it’s compatible with Eurorack. In fact, you can even break out the individual modules and drop them into your Eurorack rig. Assuming it eventually exists.
And speaking of modules, the Shmøergh Moduleur, as it currently stand,s gives you two oscillators, a diode filter, a mixer with sidechain, two envelope + VCA modules, a utilities and output block, and a Brain, the latter being the only digital part with a hackable Raspberry Pi Pico core.
As it’s open source, you could conceivably build the whole thing yourself. Or just get on the waiting list and have Shmøergh make you one. The team promises that every panel will be unique. No mention of price or delivery date, though.
- Shmøergh Moduleur product page
Dawned Instruments Acadie
Two years ago, you went crazy over news that Suzuki was making a new Omnichord. I visited Suzuki to try out the OM-108 myself and was suitably impressed, although I did find the price tag surprisingly high. I guess I wasn’t the only one, as we’ve since seen alternatives like the Minichord drop. Now there’s Acadie from developer Dawned Instruments.
Acadie does away with the teardrop shape of the Omnichord, although it does act like Suzuki’s instrument in other ways. A polyphonic synth and MIDI controller, it gives you a chord button section, a bass sound, plus a touchbar for generating magical, Omnichord-like strums. There’s a sequencer, plus two arpeggiators and MIDI out via USB or TRS Type A. It takes power via USB-C or a 9V adapter. If you’d rather have it in your Eurorack rig, you can take it out of the case and mount it in your skiff.
Acadie costs €340 and is available directly from the manufacturer.
- Dawned Instruments Acadie product page
Blue Nautilus Acidus Versio
Noise Engineering recently released Granulita Versio, the latest firmware version of its shape-shifting effects module. Although Granulita has its own faceplate (limited to 100 units), the hardware itself is programmable, and you can swap out the firmware for any of Noise Engineering’s official 11 algorithms, or any of the third-party-made ones as well.
Tom at Synth Anatomy reminded us all that one of those free homemade firmwares is Acidus Versio from programmer Blue Nautilus. Based on the open303 code from Robin Schmid, it turns your Versio module into a Roland TB-303 clone, complete with square and sawtooth waveforms, filter cutoff and resonance, envelope decay and depth, accents, and more. You can even print your own custom faceplate for permanent acid action.
- Blue Nautilus Acidus Versio product page
Gotharman’s TuuL
The latest from Gotharman is a multi-FX Eurorack module called TuuL. The 12HP module has four channels, each capable of being an eight-step modulator, oscillator/LFO, dual filter/vowel filter, or effects processor.
Let’s look at each section in turn.
- Modulators: Each step has a rise/fall time and curve and hold time, with a settable level and ripples, and can be triggered or free-running.
- Oscillators: Offers sine, triangle, saw, square, feedwave, FOF, and cymbal types, plus LFO modes.
- Filters: Can handle two bandpass, lowpass and highpass in parallel, highpass into lowpass, and vowel filter types.
- Effects: Features a wide variety of digital effects, including chorus, distortion, compressor, pitch shifters, and many more.
TuuL will be available in February 2026 from Gotharman for €439, but if you pre-order now, you can get it for €395.
- Gotharman TuuL product page
The Usual Suspects JE-8086 Talk: What Is the Supersaw?
If you hadn’t already heard, the programming team known as The Usual Suspects has released an emulation of Roland’s JP-8000 synthesizer. Called JE-8086, you can read more about that in our news story. Programmer giulioz recently gave a talk on how they did this (video below), and if you’re into computers and programming, it’s probably really fascinating. I’m not, but what I did like was the part about the supersaw.
The JP-8000 (and its rackmount counterpart, JP-8080) was famous for its supersaw oscillator, which Roland described as the “sonic result of seven sawtooth waveforms used simultaneously.” People have argued for years over what exactly is happening under the hood, but The Usual Suspects have figured it out. It is indeed seven stacked sawtooth waves, but run through a highpass filter with a doubled sample rate of 88.2kHz to reduce aliasing. And that’s it. As giulioz says in his talk, “No modulation, no phase tricks, no chorus, no magic.” Amazing.
- The Usual Suspects homepage
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