Midweek Modular: Harmonic Pitch Shifting, Back Patching and Vocoders
4,5 / 5,0 | 
This week we turned mono in poly with four channels of pitch shifting, found our robot voice and built a semi-modular with back panel patching.
The Elta Music SOLAR 42 opened for preorders this week, which is very exciting. It was one of the most impressive things at Superbooth, and I look forward to seeing it out in the wild. Read more about it here.
There was also a leak on a Behringer product. Leaks are rare as Behringer is normally happy to show the world everything well before they are actually available. But we saw a photo of the BQ-10, seemingly a take on the Korg SQ-10. Read more about that here.
Midweek Modular
What else could I pull together for this week’s modular round-up? Read on, dear traveller, read on.
xVox Harmonic Pitch Shifter
From modular maker Greg Burns comes a four-voice real-time pitch shifter that can pull chords out of your monophonic sources.
The xVox offers an internal engine of chord generation, melodic control, progressions and modulation. It takes in audio from your regular oscillator and then has four channels of volt/oct and gate inputs to control the pitch of the generated chord elements. It has internal envelopes and multiple trigger modes, and four additional and assignable CV inputs.
There’s a lot going on in there, which is nicely dealt with via the OLED screen. It’s an interesting way to create polyphony in a monophonic system.
Greg says he plans to release it as a DIY kit in the not-too-distant future and could be one to watch out for.
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- Gregsbrain website.
AS Synthesizers
From Hungary comes a new modular company called AS Synthesizers. It seems to have snuck up on us with a whole range of interesting modules and a unique vibe. All the usual suspects are covered, including an analogue VCO, combined filter and VCA, a dual envelope, modulation tools, utilities and MIDI-to-CV. They have a good design uniformity and jauntily curved edges, which may not be to everyone’s taste.
Behind the scenes is a system of internal patching using jumpers and patch wires. This means you could patch it up like a semi-modular synthesizer and leave the entire front panel free from cables. It’s an exciting approach that could pull people into buying a whole range of modules rather than just the one.
These look great, and it will be interesting to see how they develop.
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- AS Synthesizer website.
Nonlinearcircuits MUN Vocoder
Vocoders are weird filtering machines that leave me cold, but lots of people love them. Nonlinearcircuits have a Eurorack-based vocoder that’s looking for attention. It’s based on the Syntovox 222 and offers 10 channels in a 22HP stripped-back, minimal design.
The Voice section has a proper jack input for a microphone and a line and synth-level input. The Carrier section has a synth-level input only. Noise can be mixed into channels 9 and 10. You get outputs for every frequency band and corresponding envelope. The LEDs give a really good indication of how your audio is flowing through the module. Sounds great if you like that sort of thing.
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The MUN Vocoder is only available as a PCB and Panel kit from Nonlinearcircuits, but there are people who will build it for you. Check out the website for more details.
- Nonlinearcircuits website.
Eowave Supamix
Supamix is a nicely compact mixer for line-level sources that we first saw at Superbooth and is now available. It has 6 channels in total. The first two are mono with panning knobs, the second two are mono with CV-controlled panning, and channels 5 and 6 are stereo. You have level knobs and a stereo output in only 10HP.
What’s cool are the unique swap functions around the mute switches. The mutes are vactrol-like and clickless, but you can also automate them with the six-mode swap function. Functions include randomisation, Binary counter and more – although I’m not sure why Eowave can’t tell us the other four modes. Interesting stuff, anyway.
Eowave Supamix
- Eowave website.
- Eowave Supamix: Eowave
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2 responses to “Midweek Modular: Harmonic Pitch Shifting, Back Patching and Vocoders”
There is a lot going on in there, which the OLED screen handles quite well. It’s a clever method for adding polyphony to a monophonic system. How do I place an order?
I would follow the link to the website and put yourself in contact with the guy.