Korallum Atelier No.1 Nérée, shaped like a whale, is a new touch looper-based groovebox with synths, samples, and FX.
Whales are among the most fascinating creatures of the underwater world. Underwater communication is difficult for humans. Whales, however, make it more beautiful with their whale songs.
A new French company, Korallum Atelier No.1, is now bringing some whale fascination to the studios and sofas of the world with the Nérée, a new touch instrument. It will launch on Kickstarter this week.
Korallum Atelier No.1 Nérée
Nérée is a new touch instrument built from a PCB shaped like a whale, with 24 touch-capacity plates that support notes, pressure, and movement. Additionally, you have a knob and a display. For those who love knobs, it might be the wrong instrument.
Pressing the button triggers engine-generated sounds. As the title suggests, it’s a portable touch synth, but it’s more than that.
It’s a standalone Synthesizer, sampler, and drum sequencer, or easily say a groovebox in a whale. According to Korallum Atelier No.1, Nérée won’t replace your entire studio; it brings music-making to your couch.
The sampler engine plays back mono samples from a microSD card with internal smoothing and filtering. They can have up to 12 seconds each in 8/ 16 / 24 / 32-bit PCM & 32-bit float support (all based on a 16-bit conversion).
Then, there is an internal Synthesizer with multiple sound engines. According to the specs, you can find expressive, pressure-enhanced engines for bass, pluck, ambient, metallic, and organic sounds, based on wavetable and algorithmic voices.
Alongside this, it has a 16-step drum sequencer with five tracks (kick, snare, hat, tom, percussion) and multiple drum engines. They are not available as individual tracks but only as a summed track in the built-in looper.
On top of that is an FX system with various effects that add color, space, time, glitch, stereo, ambient, and noise layers. According to the developers, it offers non-destructive or baked FX rendering.
Performance & Compose
In terms of performance, Korallum Atelier No.1 takes a unique approach with its whale groovebox Nérée. It has only one knob, not 20 or more. Instead, they’re focusing entirely on the 24 touch elements, allowing for real-time performance control.
This includes continuous pitch bending, touch-controlled modulation and FX, strum-based FX intensity control, Theremin-style glide mode, and a unique arpeggiator that turns chords into arpeggios.
Plus, you have a scale system with various built-in scales, including microtonal and non-equal temperaments.
Recording in the Nérée groovebox is also possible. It has a 4-track integrated looper with live recording, overdubbing, and sync options. Pre-FX recording and optional post-FX rendering are also onboard, making it flexible to capture your sounds.
Once you’ve created your 4-track compositions, you can export them as individual tracks or as a full mix.
First Impression
The small whale proves to be a comprehensive, compact groovebox for on-the-go use. I’m eager to see all the details and more demos. It looks like a fun instrument.
Korallum Atelier No. 1 Nérée will launch on Kickstarter on March 5, 2026. Early backers can benefit from a special 1-day price of 130€ instead of 210€
More information here: Kickstarter
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