Pittsburgh Modular Elephant and Narwhal: two new experimental percussive modules taking us into the past and future of analog drums
For some time now, Pittsburgh Modular has turned its entire line upside down and started from scratch. The first products of this reboot are the limited edition Safari series modules, in which the developers experiment with new concepts.
At Superbooth 22, PGH released Series 4, aka the dark series, including The Wolf, A Filter of Crows, and the Dynamics Controller Bat. Today Richard Nicol introduced Series 5 with two new fascinating drum modules with experimental analog concepts.
Pittsburgh Modular Elephant Drum
Elephant is a new drum voice that is inspired by the flexibility and musicality of the vintage 1970s Pollard Syndrum drum Synthesizer. Its core features a variable waveform oscillator that can be rhythmically modulated to generate complex percussive sounds.
You can control it with the material knob that moves the waveform from sine to square wave either manually or with voltage control. Plus, you can tune it with the CV-controllable knob with a dedicated attenuator. Then, you can form it using the built-in LFO and decay envelope, aka tension, to add depth and movement to the sounds.
The module sounds super cool. You get instant electro drums out, but you can also go completely off the rails in seconds.
Pittsburgh Modular Narwhal Snare
Pittsburgh Modular is currently working on a new snare circuit that tries to mimic the sound of a physical cymbal using analog circuitry. The result of this study is the Narwhal module, a new snare module with an analog core.
The core uses the concept of analog physical modeling to create versatile synthesized cymbals. It is capable of generating a super wide range of different timbres. From classic physical cymbals, and electro sounds up to undefinable percussive ones. According to PGH, it has the sonic flexibility that swings far beyond the limits of a tangible instrument.
This module also sounds awesome and is very tempting. In the live stream, Pittsburgh Modular chief designer Richard Nicol mentions that they are currently working on an analog drum machine. These modules serve more or less as sneak peeks on upcoming releases. That can be exciting!
Two exciting modules with again very lovely artwork-like front panels.
Pittsburgh Modular Elephant Drum and Narwhal Cymbal are available now in limited numbers (200 units each) for $199 each.
More information here: Pittsburgh Modular
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