Neutral Labs Elmyra 2: Hybrid Drone Machine with bells on

17 Jul 2023 by Robin Vincent |

4,5 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

Neutral Labs Elmyra 2 · Source: Neutral Labs

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Neutral Labs releases the second incarnation of the digital/analogue drone machine, filling it with interesting possibilities. Let’s explore Elmyra 2.

Elmyra 2

I have the original Elmyra sitting on my shelf. I built it from a kit, and it’s a fun machine to dabble with for drones, noise and messed up sounds. It has some vibes from the SOMA Labs Lyra 8 but with a much fiercer digital edge. Version 2 appears to take a similar idea and surrounds it with a whole host of modulation and manipulation possibilities.

Neutral Labs Elmyra 2

You start off with four independent voices that are activated either by CV or connecting the touch plates with your fingers. The sounds come from a complex wavetable-based oscillator engine with up to 12 oscillators. It has 1v/oct inputs and can make chords and harmonics, which is not something I remember the first one doing. Outside of the chromatic, it also supports microtonal scales. From there, the sound is mixed through a switchable 2-pole or 4-pole resonant filter before swimming in a lo-fi reverb and bouncing around inside a full-on feedback delay.

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Greatest Hits

I like that Neutral Labs has pulled in things from some of its other modules. You’ve got the OUCH circuit from the Nermal tying the waveforms to a chair and slapping them around with a combination of destructive distortion, waveshaping and filtering. It has preset cards from the Scrat filter that brings in tonal changes and custom rewirings.

And finally, each voice has a bundle of modulation and effects with unison detuning, sub-oscillators, saturation, bit mangling, sample rate reduction, noise, and filters driven from a pair of LFOs. There are also four sequencers with polymetric structures and a bunch of utilities.

Neutral Labs Elmyra 2

Elmyra 2 is like a greatest hits of Neutral Labs’ most cunning and interesting modular moods. It’s angry, unruly and full of smile-inducing grit. It comes in a cool oak wood case or you can drop it into your Eurorack. It’s available from the 20th of July.