Lists
Five of the best music tech oddities
Our favourites from the fringes of the gear industry
Microphonic Soundbox
No, it's not an exhibition at Tate Modern, but Manu Richter's prototype of a new electro-acoustic field kit device. Consisting of a bow and strings, a rock and some lollipop stick-like keys hooked up to mics and running through a software FX editing suite and mixer, it lets you create truly oddball sounds.
Martin Orman/Soulsby Synths 'Milleniatmegatron Falcon'
Fan Martin Orman has installed an 8-bit Soulsby kit synth in a model Millenium Falcon, housing six control knobs in the exhaust ports and adding holes for switches and lights. A one-off for now, sadly.
Eowave Quadrantrid Swarm
The Swarm sounds like the Doctor Who and The Twilight Zone's soundtrack composers trapped in a lift with a load of circuit boards. A digital synth engine with analogue filters and reverb, it recalls the out-there-sci-fi sounds of the 60s and 70s; its touchplate can be a keyboard or sequencer.
buy here.
Critter & Guitari Intro Etc Video Synth
This achingly cool red box of magic interprets sound into visuals. Feed it some music via midi connection and USB and it will create involving trippy patterns and visuals which can be modified and tweaked, and saved for later. Great for creating visuals live, or making a video to accompany your music.
Yamaha 'Reface Robot'
It looks like an army of robot toothbrushes cleaning a synth but this is Yamaha's latest twist on their Reface series. It's made up of two sections, the first a sleek, aluminium plated box with lots of LFO pots to control the robot arms on the second section that tweak the slider controls on Reface.
