Plankton Electronics Spice Semi-Modular Saturator Unit!

In February, the Barcelona based company Plankton Electronics announced SPICE, a semi-modular saturation unit for Eurorack and standalone. Since today it can be pre-ordered on Kickstarter.

In addition to the entire Spice module, you can now pre-order individual Eurorack modules that have been inspired by the concept of SPICE: NUTONE (dual channel VCA & distortion based on the Korg Nutube), SPICEVCF filter and ENVF a new envelope follower module.

News From February 14th, 2019!

Plankton Electronics, developer of the Ants semi-modular analog Synthesizer has today announced a new product. SPICE is a new versatile saturator unit in standalone and Eurorack format based on the 2 Nu-tubes. It combines analog and digital technology in one device: an analog section with 7 analog circuits, a 3 state variable filter with resonance as well as a digital section with bit distortion and sample rate reduction.

Very good is here that it doesn’t operate like a pedal but like a modular Synthesizer. It features 8 CV inputs with you can bring a lot of movements to your sounds. Additional all the functions except the feedback section are accessible independently from each other via the I/O section. This allows you not only to use it as a complete system but also all functions individually (filter, distortion…)

SPICE is a saturator unit capable of a huge variety of sounds and colors. From a subtle high frequency enhance to a hardcore fuzz with feedback. The core of SPICE is the Analog section with 7 different analog circuits, each one offering a different color and harmonics to your sound.

These circuits are:

BOOST: A clean circuit. It is used when you want to use the filter without any distortion.
SATURATION: A soft clip saturator. It adds a bit of harmonics to warm up your signals.
HARD CLIP: A classic circuit that distorts the signal in a stronger way.
NU-TUBE: A tube distortion from the Korg Nu-tube vacuum fluorescent display.
NU-TUBE X2: Both channels of the Nu-tube for a higher gain tube distortion.
FUZZ: A transistor based fuzz circuit for strongly clipped effects.
STOMP BOX: a filtered high gain distortion based on some popular guitar pedals.

The new Korg Nu-tube is a new vacuum tube that puts vacuum fluorescent display technology to practical use. It operates exactly as a triode vacuum tube and it creates the same rich overtones of a vacuum tube and the same tube sound. All of this with a smaller package, a higher live (30.000h) and using less than a 2% of the electrical power of a conventional tube

Features

Desktop and Eurorack (34HP)
8 CV inputs with led level indicators.
6 main functions: Prefilter / Digital / Analog / Mixer / Envelope Follower / Feedback
Prefilter: High Pass and Low Pass filters to shape the sound before being processed. Both controllable via fader + CV input.
Digital: 12 bit Bit Crusher + Sample Rate reducer. Both controllable via a potentiometer and CV inputs. It also offers an analog input control with led clip indicator and a low pass filter to smooth the output signal.
Analog: 7 analog distortion circuits selectable with a rotary encoder + a sweet resonant state variable filter. Drive and Cutoff parameters are controllable via a potentiometer and CV inputs. 2 of the circuits use the new Korg NU-TUBE.
Mixer: Dry and Wet controls to mixed the processed signal with the clean one of the input. Both controllable via fader + CV input.
Envelope Follower: A dedicated envelope follower with gain control and normal and inverted outputs to convert an incoming signal to an envelope. With its output, you can control any of the CV parameters and shape the processed sound in many creative ways.
Feedback: a triple feedback section that sends the Wet input to the Prefilter, Digital and Analog sections. It’s capable from a subtle resonance to a collapsed hardcore self generating tone.
Semi-modular architecture with prepatcehd sections that can be reestructured using patch cables. Each section (minus the feedback) can be used as an indpendent function from the rest.

3 Modules Inspired By SPICE

NUTONE is a dual channel VCA and distortion based on the Korg Nutube vacuum fluorescent display. 2 inputs, 2 outputs, 2CV controls for gain, 1 feedback controls at each channel and send potentiometers from Ch1 to Ch2 and vice-versa.

SPICEVCF is a module based on the filter of the ANALOG section of SPICE. 1 input, 3 outputs (LP, BP & HP), CV input for cutoff and resonance, V/OCT input and XMOD control to modulate the filter with its own output.
ENVF is an envelope follower base on the same function of SPICE. 1 input, 2 outputs, Threshold control, Gain control and a 3 state slope switch.