Oxi Instruments Coral synth voice, alternative firmware unlocks additive synthesis

August 8, 2023 Synth Anatomy Eurorack, Hardware, News 1

Oxi Instruments has released an alternative firmware for its mighty multi-timbral synth voice module Coral adding additive synthesis.

The Coral is a voice beast for Eurorack systems. It’s not just a single voice but hosts eight full ones in total. Plus, multiple engines, polyphonic support, multi-timbral, independent filter/amp/mod/and FX per voice, samples, and more. As if you had a workstation in a module minus the sequencing stuff.

When the Spanish developers released the module last March, they promised new engines for Coral in the future. They have now kept that promise.

Coral Alternative Firmware

Oxi Instruments has recently published an alternative firmware for Coral that introduces a new additive synthesis engine in the Coral module. According to the developers, it features, besides the additive sound generation part wavefolding and a diode emulation distortion.

However, additive synthesis is not the easiest and often requires a lot of interfaces to make it pleasing and fun. Oxi didn’t go all-in but summarized the most important shaping aspects on a single parameter.

You get harm, timbre, and morph. Harm controls the harmonic content center, so the additive part, timbre the wavefolding amount, and morph the diode the distortion amount. More additive parameters would have been possible, but that would have invoked menu diving. You don’t necessarily want that in Eurorack.

A disadvantage of the alternative firmware is that the Oxi engine changes slightly in the operation. More precisely, the hi-hat and snare models are combined into one. So you have to choose whether you use hi-hats or snare. Alternatively, you work with the morph that crossfades between them, allowing you to use both voices in your patch.