Guten tag from Signal Sounds HQ

We’ve done the spring sale, we’ve done a full stock check… next up it’s Superbooth! We’re decamping to Deutschland next week to see what fresh delights the synthesiser world has in store.

A heads-up that our showroom will be closed for demos on Friday 17th May since most of us will be in Berlin, but normal service will resume when we get back and we’ll fill you in on all the latest and greatest product announcements after the show.

Even though a lot of brands are saving their new releases for the salivating hordes in Germany, there are some great new bits on the site from SoundForce and RYK Modular, not to mention a delivery of minty-fresh 50th Anniversary edition Buchla Music Easels direct from the West Coast. Read on to find out more.

Looking forward to seeing a bunch of you in our Glasgow showroom tonight for our special event with Morgan from Worng Electronics, who’ll be demonstrating his module line-up and answering some questions about his design philosophy and generally messing with your perception of reality by bending stereo fields until they turn back in on themselves.

Finally, we’ve been making a few improvements to the website under the hood which you can read about here. As ever, your feedback is very welcome - after all, nobody uses the Signal Sounds site more than Signal Sounds synth freaks, so let us know what we can do better and we’ll add in anything we can to the list.

Until next time,

Jason, Aleks, Kyle, Luke, Molly, Rob & Tom

What's hot

A fantastic take on FM in Eurorack from the always-innovative RYK Modular. Algo has four through-zero oscillators for all manner of complex FM or additive sound textures. Check out Mylar’s excellent video to hear it put through its paces and get a great insight into the simplicity/complexity of FM synthesis!

This has to be the best value and most compact way to bring sample playback into a Eurorack system. After their series of handy 4HP modules containing classic individual drum machine sounds (808, LinnDrum and others have all featured so far), SoundForce have released this turbocharged MkII version that lets you load your own sounds from USB. Sample-tastic!

New in from our friends in Sweden are three cute new Pocket Operators! PO-14 is a bassline synth, PO-16 is a lead synth and PO-24 is a noise percussion drum machine. Fun, great-sounding synths you can fit in your pocket - what’s not to like?

At the other end of the budget scale, for the true West Coast connoisseur, we now have a very limited number of these gorgeous numbered, gold-plated special edition Buchla Music Easels in stock. Only 50 of these iconic instruments are being made for the world, so if you want to own a piece of music history then you know what to do.

Restocks & B-stocks

Along with the new bits above, we’ve had a big restock of SoundForce’s full range plus a big batch of Teenage Engineering’s EP-133 KO II beat machine, which is fast becoming a modern classic. We’ve also had a big box of Xaoc Devices including the superb new Batumi II quad LFO and a bunch of Leibniz Binary Subsystem modules for the 8-bit heads out there.

We’ve also had our first batch of the utterly beautiful Torso S-4 desktop sampler arrive - these have all gone straight out to the eager beavers who preordered, but we’re expecting more soon for general consumption. Watch this space!

We did our annual stock take earlier this week and we’ve unearthed a good few B-stock specials and one-off older items which we’ll be adding to the site and Reverb store over the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for some bargains!

New on our YouTube channel

We’ve invited sound designer and video game composer Michael Manning to host a mini-series of videos on our YouTube channel, looking at some of his favourite gear as well as techniques for creating music. His latest piece takes a look at the hot topic of AI - is ChatGPT actually any good at suggesting modular patch ideas? Hear for yourself!

And finally...

If you’re not already a subscriber to Jamie Lidell’s Hanging Out With Audiophiles podcast, you’re missing out! It’s a regular supply of fascinating conversations with producers, engineers, artists and designers, and the latest episode features Matthew from ALM Busy Circuits who goes deep on his raving days and the genesis of Pam's. Happy listening!

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