New Gear At Musikmesse

Jomox goes modular

Analogue drum machine specialists Jomox make their first move into the world of modular synths with the ModBase 09 bass drum module and the Mod.Brane 11 percussion module. The modules appear to be based on the MBase11 and M.Brane11 with additional features (such as CV inputs) to make them more modular-friendly. The modules retain the patch storage options from the existing units and include MIDI connections (accessed from the rear).

Intriguingly, Jomox promise that the ModBase and Mod.Brane are just the first of a forthcoming range of Eurorack modules. We’re looking forward to seeing what else joins the line-up. The modules will go on sale in summer. Pricing to be confirmed.

u-he Satin

Software always gets a bit of a raw deal at trade shows. Who wants to go and look at someone’s laptop to see the twentieth new EQ plugin of the day when you could be messing about with hardware synths, drum machines and DJ gear? The new Satin plugin from u-he doesn’t look particularly flashy, but we’re definitely interested to hear how this tape emulation effect sounds. The options look extensive, from the vintage and modern modes through to tape speed, bias and headroom.

Satin will have to be pretty good to beat some of the existing tape emulation plugins on the market – notably Steven Slate’s Virtual Tape Machines and Universal Audio’s UAD Studer A800 – but if it does as good a job of emulating tape as Diva does of emulating vintage synths then it’ll be well worth checking out. Release date and price to be confirmed but we’re told there should be a free demo available to download from the u-he site within the next few days.

Korg Volca series

As much as we’ve enjoyed Korg’s synth and groovebox output over the last few years, there’s been a worrying lack of ambition at times. The Monotron was a fun little toy, hinting at a new analogue direction for the Japanese company. We’ve seen that technology slowly develop with the Monotron Duo and Monotron Delay, then gradually build up through the Monotribe and into the forthcoming MS-20 Mini, but all of those products have felt like variations on a very similar retro theme. Meanwhile, the Electribe range has been looking seriously unappreciated. The last updates to the ESX-1 and EMX-1 back in 2010 were about as underwhelming as it gets, consisting of little more than a few new presets and the addition of SD card storage slots.

The new Volca series finally brings together all of the developments of the last few years into something much more forward-thinking (OK, there’s a hefty pinch of retro too, but the general concept is definitely fresh). The three Volca models – Keys, Bass and Beats – each specialise in a particular sound. The feature set looks remarkably impressive for such small units: MIDI in for tempo sync or DAW control; sync in/out for running multiple units simultaneously; three note polyphony on the Keys; built-in speakers and battery operation for portable use; self-tuning function; built-in effects.

The Volca units are a combination of all those separate strands of Korg thinking: the analogue architecture used in Monotrons and the MS-20; the groovebox concept of the Electribe; the bare-bones step sequencing of the Monotribe; the loop-based approach and hands-on immediacy of the Kaoss range.

We could talk at length about how excited we are to try these little boxes out, but we’ll save it for when they’re released in July. They’ll be priced at just $150 each, which we expect will work out somewhere around £110-20. At that price we can almost forgive Korg for describing them as ‘EDM production tools’.