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Superbooth 2024: Chase Bliss has added to its range of progressive effect pedals with the launch of Onward, “a dynamic sampler that creates living landscapes”.

The dynamism comes from the fact that Onward responds to your playing or any audio you put through it. “It moves when you do, capturing the sounds you make to create rich musical landscapes,” explains Chase Bliss.

It does this by way of two separate channels – Glitch and Freeze – that can be combined to create one “mega-effect” or split apart and made to interact (you can ‘lock’ one channel while leaving the other to respond dynamically, for example). Intelligent tracking is designed to ensure that Onward remains responsive even when the loudness of  your playing varies.

There are effects, too, for adding texture, harmony and motion, plus a synth-inspired Shape section.

If you want to throw a sonic curveball, you can play with the Error settings. There are “three different flavours of malfunction” that can be used to play havoc with the timing, playback and condition of your audio, and there’s even a secret mode that enables you to throw in all of these things at once.

You can get a good overview of what Onward can do in the walkthrough video below. Our takeaway is that it looks highly tweakable (there’s support for MIDI, CV and Expression control, too) and has huge potential for experimentation.

Onward is available for pre-order now priced at $399/€469, and will start shipping next month. Find out more on the Chase Bliss website.

At Superbooth 2024, being held May 16-18 in Berlin, Erica Synths has made two new introductions:

Nightverb is a new hardware reverb effect, developed in collaboration with 112dB. The two previously worked together on the Black Stereo Reverb and Black Stereo Delay Eurorack modules.

Nightverb is a different proposition: a stereo reverb with a custom algorithm. During development, the focus was on its musicality, so you can have extremely long decay tails while maintaining harmonic integrity. Notes can be pitch-shifted and turned into massive ambient textures by tweaking multiple parameters simultaneously.

What they have to say about it:

Introducing the Nightverb – a stereo reverb with a unique and musical custom algorithm, save/recall functions for all parameters, all in a sleek aluminum case to aesthetically match our lineup of desktop units.

We focused on the musical aspect of the effect – extremely long decay tails are possible without losing harmonic integrity and since multiple parameters can be adjusted at once, notes can be played individually and held in chords, pitch-shifted at a whim or used to create massive, ambient textures.

Coming in an aluminium case and similar format to Erica Synths’ other desktop units, Nightverb has save/recall functions for all parameters. Details are still minimal at the Erica Synths website, but they expect it to be available this summer.

They also have announced the Graphic Resonant Equalizer, a 10-band resonant equalizer, with a fully-analog signal path and digital control over individual band levels.

This architecture gives “an unprecedented level of control for shaping sounds”, with the possibility of saving presets, randomizing band levels, applying clocked modulations and even allowing for the module to act as an unconventional multimode filter.

The CV inputs for all bands and the clock input allow for integrating the Graphic Resonant Equalizer into any Eurorack system.

Features:

• 10 band analogue resonant equalizer
• Digital control over band levels
• CV control over each band level
• Configurable resonance loops (one or several bands)
• EQ, Lowpass, bandpass, highpass and notch filter modes
• Patch memory
• Clock input for clocked modulations or patch selection
• Spectrum analyzer mode
• An optional expander for hands-on control of each band’s boost/cut
• Module width – 20 HP

Details are still to come at the Erica Synths website.

Moog has not made an official announcement on this yet, but it looks like they have another all-in-one Mother-32 style synth in the works, the Labyrinth.

The Moog Labyrinth was briefly listed at the online retailer Turnlab, but their listing has since been taken down. The images have been widely reported, though, because of intense interest in Moog synths. It’s not clear if this is a leak or an intentional teaser, but either way, it’s generating buzz.

Moog filed to trademark the ‘Labyrinth’ name in 2023 to cover “Sound frequency filters for controlling audio parameters by raising or lowering the gain of specific audio frequencies using a multiple resonant filter array and animating those frequencies using a built-in pattern generator.”

The Moog Labyrinth is the latest in Moog’s all-in-one Eurorack synth format, established with the Mother-32. It joins the Mother-32, DFAM, Subharmonicon and Spectravox, which is debuting at Superbooth 2024.

The Labyrinth introduces a variety of interesting new capabilities to Moog’s Euro line, with what some may see as a ‘West Coast Synthesis’ emphasis.

The architecture features a primary VCO and mod VCO that are sequenced by a generative bit-shifting sequencer. The oscillators feed a ring modulator, and pass through a voltage controlled wavefolder and filter, which can be used both sequentially and in parallel. The VCW and VCF can be modulated by dual envelope generators and the two sequencer channels.

32 patch points add extensive patchability, and also the option to use the Labyrinth as part of a larger Eurorack system.

Official details on the Moog Labyrinth are to be announced.