Roundup 2 August 2024 | Shakmat, Befaco, Erica, 4ms and more
Greetings from Signal Sounds HQ
It’s a short and sweet intro this week as we head into August. With the Olympics in full swing, we’ve got some gold medal-worthy kit for your delectation below from Shakmat, Befaco, Erica Synths, Lorre-Mill and more. Hop, skip or jump your way to the website to check them out!
For all the local crew, an early heads-up about the inaugural Glasgow Stompbox Social, which takes place at the Glad Cafe on 24th August - a great chance to try out pedals built by small builders including Blind Panic Devices, Chase Bliss, Gojira FX and more. Not just for guitarists!
And a quick reminder that Bitwig’s summer sale is still on, with some serious discounts to be had on all versions and upgrades for the awesome DAW. Plus the Studio 5.2 update is now here, bringing a professional compressor and three hardware-inspired EQs along with loads of other new features.
Until next time,
Jason, Aleks, Kyle, Luke, Molly, Rob & Tom
New arrivals
Two new Shakmat beauties have just landed… hot on the heels of the brilliant Battering Ram kick drum module comes Archer’s Rig, a hi-hat generator that boasts 13 noise algorithms for more metallic percussion sounds than you could ever dream of. And Centaur’s Gates is a dual multi-type gate that can be anything from a pingable Buchla-style LPG to a snarling MS-20-style filter. Boom!
Another intriguing and original design from the mind of Nicolas at NOH-Modular, the Comper is a musical gate sequencer that’s the perfect partner for the Pianist chord sequencer. It’ll fire out jazz, bossa nova, and pop patterns with all sorts of options for swing, time signatures, randomness and more - nice!
It’s finally here! After a few unforeseen shipping delays, Befaco’s Oneiroi has landed. After shipping out the pre-orders we only have a couple of these droning dream machines on the site, so don’t hang around if you want one. Check DivKid’s super-deep dive to get a sense of what it can do.
Coming soon
The Nightverb is on its way and it’s a typically classy affair from Erica Synths: a sleek black desktop unit devoted to long, lush, stereo reverb with a custom DSP engine by 112dB and extensive MIDI control. Arriving next week, up for pre-order now - massive ambient textures ahoy!
Sticking with desktop effects, we’re also expecting the latest fruits of the Lorre-Mill lab this month. Float Glass is an experimental 8-stage phaser with a built-in complex modulation source. Perfect for adding a bit of sonic secret sauce to drums, synths, field recordings or anything else you can think of.
The 4ms MetaModule is a unique new fusion of software and Eurorack hardware, giving you an interface with real knobs and jacks for over 160 built-in software modules and over 200 third-party plugins. It’s VCV Rack in a box, basically, and it’s just as insanely powerful as that sounds. Up for pre-order now; due at the end of the month.
Restocks & B-stocks
A big ol’ box ’o Bastl landed this week, including some more of the Thyme+ desktop digital tape-style delay unit which sold out in record time last month. And alongside the Nightverbs mentioned above, we’ll soon have a load of Erica Synths goodies back on the shelves, including the Hexinverter Mutant Brain and the black version of the monstrous Perkons drum machine.
We’ve been adding a steady stream of B-stock gear to our Reverb store, including synths, monitors, microphones and MIDI controllers galore, so check out the listings and bag yourself a bargain!
In the spotlight
And finally
Thanks again to Noise Box for hosting us at Bloc last month and thanks to all the friendly faces who came down to support. Miraculously, all seven of us managed to deliver a set with no disasters, so we were well and truly buzzing by the end! Hopefully we’ll do it all again before too long…
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