Pittsburgh Modular experiments with Llamas and Polar Bears
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The Pittsburgh Modular Safari continues with percussive experiments on unsuspecting beasts. Llama and Polar Bear apparently sound like kick and snare drums.
Llama and Polar Bear
No, we don’t know what they’re smoking in Pittsburgh these days but it sure is resulting in some interesting outcomes. These modules are an attempt to tease out some fairly realistic kick and snare drum sounds from bits of circuitry. Pittsburgh says that they are not based on any of the classics; these are new designs with a different approach that sound not unlike kick and snare drums.
Llama is all about the kick and has concepts such as Vibration, Beater and Tension that you can dial in beyond what anyone would call a kick. Polar Bear (rhymes with snare) has a Snares knob, Tension and Head to play with. That all sounds like it could be interesting.
Richard from Pittsburgh Modular brought the modules to life in a live stream and they sound really good, different, but great! The Polar Bear Snare is particularly cool; it really cuts through with a sharpness and presence which is unusual for an analogue snare. It can also be played from the top and the bottom at the same time giving you two independent sounds.
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Pittsburgh has also developed some new knobs for these and the other experimental modules, which is exciting, but then we’re easily pleased.
The unreleased modules knocking around in Richard’s case is something else that’s quite pleasing. There are some Snakes that are doing the trigger sequencing, The Wolf EQ, The Bat Dynamics Controller and the Crows filter. In Series one there was a “Crow” filter that was half the size. The Cardinal appears to be an oscillator and there’s also the Local Parks oscillator which has a similar design to their Local Florist module. Can’t quite make out what the Narwhal is, it has Density, Tuning and Material so it’s likely to be a string or resonator type module. There’s a weird looking module with some kind of animal splashed on it in green which appears to be a clock.
Pittsburgh Modular Safari Series 3 live stream demo
So it’s safe to say that there are more experiments to come and Richard completely ignores all of them in the demo. The original idea was that these were module concepts that would make it into a forthcoming Pittsburgh Modular synthesizer, and they are produced in limited numbers for a short amount of time. However, this range is really growing and turning into a series that I think should be permanent. Looking forward to the finished machine.
Llama and Polar Bear are available now and there are 200 of each. The cost is $199 for each one.
- Pittsburgh Modular Safari Series 3: Pittsburgh Modular
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