New synth incoming -- Soma Labs Lyra 8

[Martin Walker]

Thanks for the follow up Ben!

Martin

[Ben Asaro]

Arpangel's thread on the Subharmonicon has be thinking that the L8 and SubH would probably make a great combo, especially feeding the Subharmonicon's output into the Lyra for it's delay and additional modulation, and taking the SEQ or VCA outs from the Sub H into the L8 may make for some interesting rhythms.

Hmmmm .... more to follow.

[Ben Asaro]

Well, these last couple of months have flown by! My day job hit its busy season and all hope of making music was sidelined for a few weeks as looming deadlines and coverage for people on holidays took over. If there’s any advantage to it, it’s being able to revisit this strange machine with a fresh perspective.

I recorded the L8 on two pieces yesterday. On one I used the L8 to create an ominous, tuned drone patch. I increased the sharpness of the voices and then ran it through a Make Noise low pass gate to tame the high freqs but keep the harmonic complexity. This drone was not intended to be noticed and the L8 did the job perfectly after I wrangled a steady tuning out of it.

On the other, the drone is front and center and I tried a different approach. Using the Hyper LFO to modulate the pitch on most of the channels, I ‘played’ the feedback created by the delay self-oscillating. The resultant sound is a ((MASSIVE)) alien soundscape of churning-space-whales-dying-in-hell and absolutely silly amounts of pants-flapping bass.

I was beginning to have fringe doubts over the Lyra-8. Space is at a premium in my house and everything on my ‘play’ shelf has to justify its existence. I needn’t have worried, the Lyra-8 is such an amazing instrument for exploring sound design — not from a top-down, conscious view but the street-level; getting your hands dirty by directly manipulating and influencing the sound, though you have very little control over it.

I am sitting here listening back to these sounds, knowing that I’ll never be able to replicate them, and I’m okay with that.

[Martin Walker]

I am sitting here listening back to these sounds, knowing that I’ll never be able to replicate them, and I’m okay with that.

Sounds good to me Ben - can we please listen to them too?

Martin

[Ben Asaro]

I am sitting here listening back to these sounds, knowing that I’ll never be able to replicate them, and I’m okay with that.

Sounds good to me Ben - can we please listen to them too?

Martin

All in good time.

The first drone will be ready soon, the other track is in progress and will take longer.

I may record another drone jam just so you can hear the approach, though!

[Martin Walker]

[Ben Asaro]

Here you go, Martin! https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... drone-test

Lyra 8 + Valhalla Supermassive, with a touch of EQ to keep the hiss down a bit.

[Martin Walker]

Love all the inner movement in this, and it builds and builds!

[Ben Asaro]

There's definitely something percolating in the ol' noggin with regard to the Lyra-8 these days, I feel like I'm now completely stuck in with this instrument and won't be able to rest until I record an album with it.

I just scored a BOSS RC-5 from Perfect Circuit for $120 as I had a store credit with them. The RC-5 allows for up to 1.5 hours of continuous recording per memory slot (with unlimitd overdubs as long as that total time isn't exceeded), has a built in drum machine, and most importantly, MIDI out with sync.

That means I can sync the Subharmonicon to the RC-5 and will have access to percussion as well (namely, a kick drum).

This is all starting to get very interesting ...

[Ben Asaro]

Love all the inner movement in this, and it builds and builds!

Thanks, me too! I find that when you use it this way it's like a raging river, and you can stem it off but can never stop it or totally control its flow.

Wild piece of kit!