The biggest weekend in the British synth calendar is almost upon us, and we’re about to load up the Signal Sounds van to make the 750-mile round trip from Glasgow to Bristol for Machina Bristronica!

We’ll be showing a choice selection of modular and standalone hardware from our showroom and hanging out with our partner brands including Apollo View, AtoV Project, Boredbrain, Expert Sleepers, Forge TME, Future Sound Systems, Herbs & Stones, Instruo, Knobula and Shakmat.

The weekend is packed with cool talks, performances and showcases, and there are only a few tickets left, so don’t hang about if you haven’t got yours yet.

In the meantime, read on to see what’s landed at the shop over the past fortnight. It feels like we’re drowning in brilliant new products at the moment, so these are just some of the highlights…

Until next time,

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

Latest arrivals

Phwoar! Future Sound Systems have produced an absolutely mouthwatering flagship synth here. Drawing on their wealth of expertise in analogue circuit design, Cric features an ingenious pin matrix and a stunning enclosure that really puts it in a league of its own. A limited quantity of these are being hand-built in Bristol as we type - pre-orders are open now.

AtoV Project have teamed up with Swiss designer Lucas Bonvin for lx-euclid, a unique new Euclidean sequencer whose interface is built around two massive gold touch-sensitive rings and a circular colour screen. Tom’s done a full walkthrough/demo over on YouTube - he reckons it’s the most intuitive interface yet for programming Euclidean beats.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you’ve probably seen the news that Expert Sleepers have released the Disting NT. More powerful and easier to use than any of the previous Distings, it’s built on an all-new platform (NT = “new technology”) and boasts a huge screen - all the better for tweaking the many algorithms it can run simultaneously!

New to the store are these very cool modular MIDI controllers from Intech Studio. The compact square units snap together with magnets, letting you build up a custom control service with your preferred combo of buttons, knobs and faders. Smart!

We did a double-take when we saw what the new D3V monitors cost - yep, that really is the price for a pair! If you’re on a budget but don’t want to compromise on sound quality, these compact marvels deliver the legendary Adam sound for a frankly amazing price. Arriving any day now, we’re pretty sure these won’t hang around for long so they’re available to preorder now.

A beautifully produced box of patching inspiration! Patch Deck is a set of high-quality cards packed with useful tips and creative jumping-off points courtesy of an impressive list of contributors, from Sarah Belle Reid to Surgeon. The perfect gift for the synthesist in your life (or just treat yourself!)

And there’s much more - almost too much to fit in this week! We’ve also taken delivery of the Sawtooth Stack from Verbos, a monster oscillator with MIDI control for all your supersaw needs; the Mod 6, SoundForce’s latest Juno-inspired module which offers an ADSR and LFO under advanced digital control; and the Nano Modules Arc, a smart and modern take on the Maths-style dual function generator.

Then we’ve also got the Analog Sweden SWEnigiser Proto VCFA, a Eurorack version of one of the world’s most distinctive filters; Tubbutec’s new Brainstep sequencer, sampler player and all-round Eurorack hub; the Erica Synths Graphic Resonant FB, a voltage-controlled EQ/filterbank that sounds incredible (Tom’s making a video on it at the moment and swears it’s producing some of the wildest sounds he’s ever heard); and the Five12 Vector MkII, the new and improved version of the ultimate battleship sequencer.

There are new bits and restocks on the way too from Making Sound Machines (including more DivSkips!), Xaoc Devices, Teia Synthesizers, T-Rex Effects, Landscape, Bjooks and more… more details next time, once we’ve got our breath back!

B-stock & used deals

As well as all the amazing new stuff, we’ve been filling up our B-stock and Pre-owned stock room with dozens of nearly new or lightly used devices at amazing prices. There’s more coming in all the time and we’ll start sharing some highlights over on Instagram next week, so keep an eye out for bargains.

Here’s just a tiny selection of what’s in stock at the time of writing: 1010 Bitbox Micro, Elektron Digitone, Erica Synths Black Sequencer, Make Noise Strega, Moog Mother 32, Oberheim TEO-5, Pittsburgh Modular Voltage Lab 2, Polyend Tracker Mini and a bunch of Verbos modules.

New on our YouTube channel

The Unperson is back on our channel to explore three experimental, affordable new units from Ear Modular - direct from the underground electronic music scene in Beijing. Between them Trot, Hadouken and Boxing offer mad filtering, logic/switching, noise and randomness - just the thing to spice your rack up a bit?

And finally…

The 50th episode of Why We Bleep just dropped and it’s a biggie - an in-depth chat with none other than Tom Oberheim. Mylar Melodies gets to know one of the greatest minds in synthesiser design  - don’t miss it! Available on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

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