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Sonicware Livens up its Lofi-12 sample groovebox with an all-new XT version – a portable, hand-held groovebox sampler with some interesting twists.

Sonicware continue their exploration of Lo-Fi sampling with the Lofi-12 XT and has launched a Kickstarter project to fund production of the Lofi-12 XT groovebox sampler.

The Lofi-12 XT is an advanced model of the Liven Lofi-12, newly developed, based on hardware of the SmplTrek. The Lofi-12 XT inherits the retro sampling engine of the Liven Lofi-12, but is redesigned and redeveloped as an even more user-friendly and fun Lo-fi Groovebox Sampler with longer sample times, more connections, a much better screen and better performance features.

The original Lofi-12 was aimed at those wanting their grooves a little old school in terms of sonic quality. It boasted a 16-bit/12kHz/24kHz sampling engine but most definitely had an ’80s and ’90s vibe in mind with its 12-bit sampler mode.

The new Lofi-12 XT still has that 16-bit/12kHz/24kHz engine and 12-bit sampler mode, but each sample now has a maximum length of 300 seconds and, depending on your SD card, you can store as many samples as you like and load up 256 of these into a single project.

The display is a massive improvement over the original’s with more graphical capabilities helping to make your sample editing ‘simple and fun’. An extra Pad Mode gives you more performance and playing options, and you can also chop and play slices, or use the D-pad to retrigger notes over different divisions.

An on-board 8-track sequencer allows for both real and step-time recording plus you can record automation – just hit record and tweak. There are 20 effects on hand of which you can use eight per track. Sonicware gives you a good start with your sounds too – an included SD card delivers over 1000 samples from many classic Roland, Linn and E-mu drum machines.

Finally, there’s a cool-sounding Mix Tape feature that allows performances – mixing down tracks, recording live or creating beats – to be captured on one of five different tape quality levels, from the lowest (micro-cassette) to DAT.

LoFi-12 XT has two sets of TRS analogue ins and outs, digital outputs via USB, and tempo sync through MIDI or audio.

Production of the Sonicware Lofi-12 XT is being funded via a Kickstarter project, and it is available to project backers starting at about $374.

Note: Crowdfunding projects can involve risk. See the project website for details.

Limited edition (500 units) ‘retro colour’ version (pictured below): Standard price, $559, early bird (first 5 days), $429 or $399 for the first 100 units

More information from the Sonicware website.

UVI Falcon is a multitimbral synth workstation in software, and its French developer is promising a ‘significant’ update with its third iteration. There are more oscillators, more scripts, more effects and a better workflow. And you thought it did everything already?

There are many soft synths out there that promise to deliver everything you will ever need, but few can fulfil their promise. One that gets pretty close, though, is UVI’s Falcon, a soft synth workstation packed with more features than you could wish for. But there’s obviously room for more, as UVI has just given the workstation a big update to v3.

Falcon is a multitimbral synth that has lots of synth and sampling engines, vast effects, and a DIY modular feature to make more utilities and modules. It can run a pretty much unlimited number of multi parts, assigned to any set of MIDI channels. So think of it as one of those huge and expensive hardware workstations made by the likes of Yamaha and Korg, but one that sits on your hard drive and potentially does even more than its hardware relatives.

The last version of Falcon was released over three years ago to wide acclaim – particularly among its loyal fanbase. This time around the updates include big additions to those core components including oscillators, utilities and effects.

To give you a quick breakdown of what the workstation now delivers – and expect a barrage of numbers coming at you now – v3 has a total of 20 oscillators for a wide range of synth and sample-based sounds. These include the usual VA, wavetable, phase distortion, FM, additive, sample and granular ones, plus the less usual pluck, drum, and stretch.

Among the ‘significant’ oscillator additions are VOSIM, ‘a tribute to vintage vocal synthesis’; Bowed String, for simulating strings; and Harmonic Resonator, which is an exciter that feeds six tunable resonators.

There are over 100 effects in Falcon, and the newcomers include Opal, an optical compressor; Ladder, an east coast filter; Dispersor, a transient shaper; and Harmonic Resonator, a tunable resonator bank (which is presumably similar to the Harmonic Resonator oscillator, or UVI just ran out of names).

Falcon also uses a form of scripting so you can create your own sequencers, effects, and performance tools, and UVI claims you do not need to be a programmer to use it. Plenty of these scripted tools are also included, and new in v3 are Node Arp, Motion Grid, and Snowflakes. Motion Grid (above) looks like a sequencer/scaler.

UVI has also released two expansion packs for Falcon: Organic Pads which features multi-layered pads, and Modular Noise which, as you might expect, features loads of sounds from Eurorack modular hardware. This brings the total number of expansion packs available for Falcon to 24.

UVI Falcon v3 is $/€349, currently on sale at $/€199, with a $/€100 voucher towards sound packs. These usually retail at $/€39 each but there’s currently a 2-for-1 offer available.

Find more info at the UVI website.

Noise Engineering has introduced Alia, a new oscillator platform for Eurorack synth modules.

Alia follows the precedent of Noise Engineering’s previous platform modules – creating a standard hardware platform that you can load with a variety of firmware. Noise Engineering has brought back Basimilus and Manis, two synth voices, on the Alia platform. In addition, they’ve introduced new synth voice, Debel Iteritas Alia, that offers a hybrid take on phase modulation and additive synthesis.

The company had to retire Basilimus and Manis earlier in the year, along with a couple of other modules, because they were based on a CPU that’s no longer available.

The revamped Basimilus Iteritas Alia and Manis Iteritas Alia have a near identical sound to the originals, according to NE, and a few added features.

When we had to discontinue the BIA and the Manis, quite a few customers reached out asking us to bring them back,” says Markus Cancilla, Noise Engineering’s Chief of Destruction. “The new Alia platform allowed us to bring back our old favorites with a few improvements, and experiment with entirely new concepts, too.”

The platform concept will be a familiar feature to Noise Engineering’s customers. The Versio lineup introduced the idea of swappable firmware to the Noise Engineering ecosystem in 2020, and now has 9 different FX firmwares now available for the platform. Legio followed as a smaller platform in 6HP now with four firmwares.

Alia follows suit, launching with three firmware options, and more planned.  As with the existing Versio and Legio platforms, the firmware can be downloaded by customers, so you can try out any of the firmware options that your module supports.

Debel Iteritas Alia

Debel Iteritas Alia is a new synth voice, based around an additive phase-modulation architecture. Debel uses a few different configurations of four-operator PM, with each operator comprising four oscillators. Traditional FM sounds are easy to create, but can be brought into entirely new territory with the tweak of a parameter or some external CV.

Debel also features Taco, Nacho, and Diablo modes.

Basimilus Iteritas Alia, Manis Iteritas Alia, and Debel Iteritas Alia are available now, in black and silver, priced at $385.