Reader Olivier Lebra (Piano in a Living Room) shared his take on Abraham’s Theme, composed by Vangelis for the Chariots of Fire soundtrack in 1980.)
What he shared about the technical details:
Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone praises its “hyper realistic” quality.
Reason Studios is preparing a new soft synth launch, known as Objekt, details of this are yet to be revealed, but it is coming on 11 May.
We know about Objekt from a combination of the above screenshot and a series of teaser videos featuring reactions from artists and Reason users. From these, we expect that there’s no sampling involved – we know it is a ‘modelling’ synth – and that the sounds that it can create have an acoustic tone to them.
Eric Barone, creator of video game Stardew Valley, sums it up by saying: “It sounds like real instruments but it also has a hyper-realistic quality to it – it’s almost better than real instruments.”
Apparently, the only place to get a taste of these sounds is in the trailers below, but all will be revealed in about two weeks time.
Objekt will be available as a Rack Extension from Reason Studios, that will be included in the Reason+ subscription. Those who own Reason outright will be able to purchase it separately. Release date 11 May 2023
Find out more on the Reason Studios website.
New Systems Instruments has announced that the Triphase Oscillator Eurorack module gives you three sawtooth waves, with independent control over the phase of each wave, combined with a bipolar mixer. This creates a comb filter pattern in the harmonics, emphasizing some harmonics and canceling others.
The Triphase Oscillator works with phase cancellation, combining three waves at different phases and polarities to remove or reinforce regularly spaced harmonics, such as odd harmonics or every third harmonic. With the bipolar mixer, you can control how the waves interact, canceling or reinforcing parts of the spectrum either fully or partially.
Applying CV to the phases creates variable-width pulses, subtle detuning effects, and a continuously moving soundscape. Phase cancellation is related to pulse width modulation, but pulse width modulation only has one dimension of control instead of the multiple phases and polarities of the Triphase Oscillator. A closer relative is a chorus effect, which creates frequency-dependent phase differences by delaying a signal.
One way to use the Triphase Oscillator is to mix all three saws at the same polarity, modulating their phases to create a supersaw, similar to mixing multiple detuned sawtooth oscillators. This creates a classic thick analog sound, further enhanced by the internal CP3 type mixer—a discrete transistor mixer that reportedly gave the Moog IIIp modular system a good part of its sound. With the individual outputs, you can also use a full featured stereo mixer and pan the saw waves left, right, and center, giving a stereo supersaw or stereo chorus type of effect.
Apart from its unique phase modulation capabilities, the Triphase Oscillator is a very capable analog oscillator in its own right, giving a tuning accuracy of around 8 octaves and ranging from 1.5Hz–60kHz, well into the sub and supersonic ranges. In addition to volt per octave and CV over phase, it has a hard sync input, and a linear FM input. All the CV runs at audio rate as well, meaning the Triphase Oscillator can produce some interesting FM + phase modulation sounds.
New Systems Instruments has announced that the Triphase Oscillator Eurorack module is now shipping and available now for $385.
