With Arcane, Night Owl Industries is showing a unique 5-voice analog synthesizer in which the user can interact directly with the voices using buttons and sliders.
Arcane is one of those synthesizers that you have to master before you can use it properly like the Soma Laboratory’s Lyra-8 drone synth. A crucial point that tells us immediately is the different design of the instrument. Instead of a large number of features or even the possibility to save presets, Arcane has just a handful of function that works well.
It has five full analog voices that can be played manually or via control voltage. However, this can not be played with a classic keyboard or via MIDI but can be triggered temporarily using 5 Arcade buttons, held on via the toggle switches, or via CV. The buttons are arranged bilaterally, not sequentially, this means the thumb button controls voice one, the index fingers control voice 2, etc. This gives you control over a voice in each finger.
To the left is the synth “control station”, the area where parameters can be set. Also designed so that you can reach it nicely with your left hand. Here you can find sliders to control the built-in filter, knobs to control the frequency, and switches to engage the CV input. Here, too, everything is designed so that you can interact directly with the 5 voices.
The five voices are grouped into two busses, the first for voices 1-4, and the second for voice 5. With the mix knob, you can control the balance between these two busses. Each bus has an effects loop available via TRS jacks so that different effect chains can be used for the two groups. This allows voice 5 to be used as the dedicated CV voice for your sequencer with its own effects, leaving the first four voices playable and with their own effects.
Richard Devine Patch
Richard Devine has released a nice but super experimental example of how to perform with the Arcane Synthesizer using modular synths.
First experiment with the Arcane five voice analog synthesizer. ?
Gepostet von Richard Devine am Dienstag, 28. April 2020
According to the developer, Arcade is good for:
- add thick, analog backing notes or chords to your recordings, including 5 and 7 chords, while manually sweeping the filters for effect.
- create four-note melodies over a repeating background sequencer track; Perfect for film scoring where repeating themes with variations are used.
- build a custom instrument by combining Arcane with a desktop sequencer and your favorite guitar and bass pedals on a pedalboard.
- use your new “noise board” any time you need inspiration and sonic madness that can’t be achieved with your normal instrument rig.
If you would like to hear the raw sound of the synth without effects, you should watch the video of the YouTuber Pedal of the Day. Here, you can see a quite different sound demo of it.
Night Owl Industries Arcane Synthesizer is available now for pre-order for $300 USD and is hand-built in its facilities in Greenwood Lake (NY) Pre-Order ends this Friday (June 5) and units are scheduled to ship within 30 days of pre-order.
More information here: Nightowl Industries
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