Synth Geekery 332

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In episode 332 we talked about synths, eurorack, sequencers, drum machines, samplers, effects and software! Plus all the usual segments! Funny Side, News from the Geekery, Price Watch, Name that Synth …

Show contents:

About the Synth Geekery Show

Synth Geekery is a weekly podcast/live stream (YouTube) show about everything synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, sequencers, eurorack and music technology. We take the “one of the masses” viewpoint, where we are also users of gear just like you (read: we’re not influenced by commercial product placement).

The show relies on the generous contributions of the synth community. You can contribute in many ways including supporting us via our YouTube Channel Membership or Patreon. We also have regular and special video guests: if you would like to take part in future shows – please contact me via email on the about page here.

Your Host

Ranzee (Ranz Adamson) is your show host. He’s based in Perth, Western Australia and has been a hobbyist musician and technologist for most of his life. More information can be found about him here.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ranzee

BandCamp: https://ranzee.bandcamp.com

Guests

This week’s video guests are:

Daren T. Housse

Bandcamp Link: https://darenthousse.bandcamp.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLPHxpZgFKKE1wkG9ndto3A

Daren resides in the UK and is one of the first video guests on the show since 2019. He has a large amount of tracks on his youtube channel plus a great album collection over on BandCamp.

SynthAddict

Andy is a musician and technologist from the bay area in California. He has an amazing collection of music tech gadgets and a large knowledge of synthesizers.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUtABvP7q29uvLKi73zIjFQ

Ian J. Cole

Ian is a musician, composer, sound designer and producer currently producing solo ambient electronic music. He also runs Sinners Music which is a Record Company and Online Music Retailer in East Yorkshire, England

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/IanJCole

Chris – Maikshifter

Chris is a musician and technologist from Perth, Western Australia. He’s always had a love for creating and tinkering with music electronics and has recently embarked on a new journey creating eurorack modules.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Maikshifter

Video replay

Funny Side

The funny side segment is a collection of memes that are somewhat relevant to the synth geekery community. Some of these images are taken from Facebook, Instagram and other social media sources. Please respect the creators. Hope you enjoy this week’s selection:

News

News Item

Image

Blurb

Video

Price:

Link:

News Item

A limited edition 64HP deep eurorack case with power switch and mults.

  • Steel design: stays put while you patch
  • Fixed rails
  • Power busboard with connectors for up to 10 modules
  • Big power: 1.7A of +12V, 750mA of -12V, and 1A of +5V
  • Two-zone PSU design isolates left and right modules
  • Deep design: houses modules up to 2 ⅛” / 53mm deep
  • Two sets of passive mults for easy patching
  • Integrated power switch built into the case
  • Includes power brick: just add modules and you’re ready to go

Price: $225

Link: https://noiseengineering.us/products/case-of-steel/

Tresse by Vald Labs

Tresse is a standalone polyphonic synthesizer derived from the Mutable Instruments Plaits. It runs an ESP32-S3 with a custom-made PCB.

The synthesizer boasts 38 different synthesis engines with 3 voices of polyphony. There is a USB and Bluetooth MIDI connection as well as a fair amount of controls on the front panel (4 knobs and 4 rotary encoders). The OLED display provides patch info and navigation.

For those interested there are PCM5102A DACs with 24-bit output. The controls are through a CD74HC4067 mux and MCP23017 expander.

More about the Synthesis Engines: The first 24 come from Plaits — East Coast, Phase Distortion, all three DX7 variants, Terrain, String/Chords, Chiptune, Wavetable, Speech, Swarm, Particle, both Rings modes, three drum engines, the whole library. Then 14 custom engines built from scratch: Karplus-Strong with excitation morphing from noise through impulse to tonal. ByteBeat with 8 classic formulas and pitch-tracked rate. CZ Phase Distortion in the Casio style with three distortion shapes. Supersaw with up to 7 detuned oscillators and PWM. Formant vowel synthesis with 3 bandpass resonators and gender shift. 2-Op FM with 13 ratios and operator feedback. Wavefolder with multiple source waveforms and bias control. Noise Drums through an SVF with pitch envelope, covers everything from kicks to metallic hits. Modal Resonator with 8 tuned partials that morph from harmonic to bell to bar, plus a bowed mode. Sympathetic Strings using 3 coupled delay lines with controllable coupling. Comb Resonator with 4 parallel combs and spread. Drawbars for organ-style additive with Hammond ratios. Complex Oscillator running FM into a wavefolder, Buchla-adjacent territory. Grain Noise for textures and evolving pads.

The controls offer 3 parameter layers on toggle buttons — Normal gives you Timbre, Morph, Harmonics, Color on the pots with Attack, Decay, FM, and LFO on the encoders. MOD layer gives you Fold, Detune, Ring Mod, Chorus plus full LFO routing. SHIFT layer is the filter section and vibrato/portamento controls. Hold both buttons for engine select. Double-tap MOD for the system menu. Double-tap SHIFT to browse presets across three banks. Play modes include Poly, Mono, and chord voicing in Major, Minor, 7th, Sus4, Power, and Octave. The randomizer generates patches with procedural names like “Velvet Moth” or “Iron Shard” — scroll through with the encoder, save the ones you like. 512 slots for generated presets, 512 for branches, 128 for your own.

The little synth covers a lot of ground: The Plaits engines already go from classic analog to FM to physical modeling to noise, and the custom engines fill in the gaps — proper supersaw, real string modeling, modal and sympathetic resonance for metallic evolving tones, ByteBeat for full chaos. Global FX chain with filter, wavefolder, ring mod, and chorus ties it all together.

Price: TBA

Link: https://valdlabs.com/#

Price Watch

Find below images and links to the items we showed for the price watch segment.

Name That Synth

No name that synth this week – send one in!

If you are after more information about Name that Synth – please check out this page here.

Saturday Sonority

This week’s Saturday Sonority we might talking about …..