eowave quadrantid swarm - experimental touch synthesizer New Technology Tech World

The Quadrantid Swarm encourages you to explore sound design and music with a direct and inspiring set of synthesis and sequencing tools

The Quadrantid Swarm

The Quadrantid Swarm is a desktop touch synthesizer aimed at sound designers and musicians who are looking for an expressive tool to explore rich and unusual soundscapes with a direct intuitive approach.

Past research and development at eowave has contributed to a range of successful products aimed at musicians and performers - including sensor interfaces, MIDI devices, modular synthesizers and more. This has been honed and distilled in the Quadrantid Swarm. It is an instrument that has been designed openly - to be used with MIDI, alongside your modular synthesizer/CV sequencer or to be explored as a standalone drone/sequencer/generative synthesizer.

Here is the first protoype being presented at Superbooth'17 (many features have been adapted between then and the production model!)

Modes

The QS now features 8 modes. Each should be considered a springboard for musical exploration, rather than a preset. The modes are not direct emulations of existing instruments, but they borrow on inspiration from their namesakes. We found that this was the best way to retain the immediacy of function per button design while offering a generous feature set. The QS will ship with a cheat sheet that details the specifics behind each mode - the waveform, perc sound and character effect.

Organ - Strings - Drone - Noise - Grains - Perc - Metal - Chiptune

Let's take a closer look...

Front panel

Building on the feedback we received at Superbooth 17, we have redesigned the front panel to be easier to read. This matte black PCB pictured below is the final material we will be using on production, although there is a mistake on this panel that will be rectified (white layer inverted!).

Oscillator

The oscillator section is a digital wave generator. In sequencer mode (activated when you push start) the spread control multiplies the waveform up to 8 waveforms. In live mode (sequencer not active) the spread control will not affect the oscillator because the 8 waveforms are spread across the touch keyboard to be used as a simple polyphonic synthesizer. Character controls a different effect or folder depending on the mode. The character effects/folders will help you design timbres that will range from clean and glassy to dense and distorted.

CV IN - control voltage input from eurorack or analogue sequencers
mod - attenuation for CV in
freq - frequency (to tune the oscillator with your other devices)
spread - in sequencer mode this controls the spread of the 8 triangle waves, in live mode this is inactive
character - amount of wave folder or effect
What else...? We have also added in a sine wave which isn't processed through the spread or folder, giving an extra layer to your sound design

Percussion

Tied to the fundamental frequency of the main oscillator is a percussive element. The type of synthesis implemented is different for each mode.

perc - decay length
Mixer

A simpler mixer section, feeding into the two filters directly below, comprises of three inputs. One for the oscillator voice, one for the perc voice, and one spare. The spare input can be used to patch in an external signal, utilising the filters. With nothing patched in, the third input is pre-patched as a feedback for the spring reverb (which will overdrive/distort with high gain levels to great effect).

voice vol - oscillator voice volume
perc vol - percussion element volume
IN - channel 3 input jack
in vol - channel 3 input volume/pre-patched to spring reverb feedback
Filter

Two 12db filters, based on our 'fluctuations magnétiques' module. Filter 1 can be switched between high or low pass. Filter 2 is low pass. Using the two filter poles together you can create a bandpass and other interesting filter shapes. This allows for rich, throaty and deep sound sculpting.

cutoff - cutoff frequency
mod - modulation attenuator
MOD - modulation input
res - resonance amount
hi/low - high pass/low pass switch
Modulation



eowave quadrantid swarm - experimental touch synthesizer New Technology Tech World
[ Ссылка ]

свернуть