Make Noise Strega

The Lounge Other Gear
#548

I don’t understand the big deal about using this delay chip in regards to the price. One pedal I really like that uses this chip is the Caroline Kilobyte. It generally goes for around $200 new, which may seem a tad high, but is in line with a lot of pedals nowadays. I believe the Earthquaker Space Spiral is another for around the same price. Anyway, the Kilobyte has 4 knobs, one input, one output, and two switches. So what would the cost be from Caroline, or Earthquaker, if you had around 20 knobs. around 20 in/out jacks for interfacing with other gear, a preamp, an envelope follower, a filter circuit, and a synth voice? And on top of that make it a collaboration with a respected artist?

Anyway, I get that it’s not for some people. I would love for it to be in the $400 - $500 range. But from a small company like Make Noise, whose instruments are high quality, $600 doesn’t seem that outrageous to me.

8 Likes
#549

I agree. Nobody who complains, citing per-component prices seems to understand the rest of what it takes to bring a synth to market.

This thing is completely reasonable IMO.

Also the PT2399 is just part of the greater delay circuit. There is a ton of trickery that can be done with these.

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#550

Lyra 8 also uses the PT2399. Tons of “lo-fi” delays do. It makes a good delay

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#551

The Belton Brick reverb was designed entirely around the PT-2399 chip. There are a bunch of reverb pedals that are Belton Brick, including the Caroline Metere and my beloved Industrialectric RM-1N…

I haven’t followed the PT-2399 discussion closely but if that is what prevents you from buying a Strega, that is your right as a consumer.

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#552

To be fair there are plenty of devices that use it as a “lo-fi” solution. That might give it a certain stigma. The fact is, with some careful circuitry you could run a couple in series, do some creative clocking or some other trickery to make it sound good. Good filtering can do it too. It’s not the most amazing chip out there but it’s interesting, if a bit limited out of the box.

Also, if you want to talk lo-fi, let’s discuss large BBDs :smiley:

Its older, bigger brother, the PT2395 (I believe) was a much more capable chip, but they’re not really attainable these days. At least not in quantity.

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#553

When I first saw and heard the RM-1N, I wasn’t even thinking about what kind of chip was in there. My first thought was “Holy Fark!!! I gotta get this!”

I don’t think I ever bought a device based on what type of chip was used. Computers maybe.

The supposed shocking reveal about Raspberry Pi being used in so many hardware synths didn’t bother me in the least either. It was no different than peeps saying Korg Kronos was sure to be a piece of garbage because it was built on Intel Atom and Linux

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#554

I had run in to this video a while back while looking at delay pedals. It’s guitar focused but what it really shows off is how many ways the PT2399 can be designed around to yield different results.

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#555

I don’t plan to dive deep into modular, but I love my 0Coast. I def want to grab this and the 0Ctrl and have my own little Make Noise Black and Gold system.

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#556

New video coming Thursday from Sarah Belle Reid.

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#557

They talk some more specifics about the inner workings of the strega around 40 minutes and he has some more pretty sounds coming from it at the demo near the end doing audio processing.

Interestingly it sounds like the synthi had a lot of influence over the design of this synth. With lots of subtle saturation and feedback circuitry going on behind the scenes.

I feel quite confident I am going to enjoy strega after hearing them talk about it and hearing more sounds.

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#558

Yeah I think this is going to end up being awesome. Looking forward to patching it with the 0-Coast/0-CTRL and processing instruments through it.

1 Like
#559

Thank goodness there aren’t any SID obsessives in this thread. :grimacing:

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#560

Hmm Hmm!!!

Founder, CEO, President, and Emperor of the SID Obsession Foundation.

(or SID Off for short)

:stuck_out_tongue:

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#561

Tony Rolando and Alessandro Cortini are both on tomorrow’s Knob Twiddlers Hangout.
Should be an interesting listen.

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#562

I know it’s their “aesthetic” but man I don’t like the Make Noise demo videos. The majority of Buchla videos on YT are also just nonsense noise and trash percussive sounds. And then I know for sure the capabilities of complex oscillators from the work of artists like: Petre Inspirescu, Barac, Dorisburg and Cortini himself. Just take a listen to the Buchla Easel clarinet patch from this track:

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#563

The announcement video of Strega was annoying in its deliberate obscurity.

But I enjoy the videos they put up on social media because of the way they embrace how synths and associated circuits have been used outside of electronic music but also in foley, electroacoustic music, academic research and random things like telephone calls.

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#564

I like the PT2399 chip too, I think it is a better choice than modern BBD chips, which in my (albeit limited) experience of them don’t sound anywhere as near as good as some of the vintage BBD chips.

I listened to a few of the demos of the Strega and it did not appeal to me, without meaning to sound mean I found it a bit less exciting than I’d hoped it might be.

3 Likes
#565

I wait for more user demos in different musical contexts. I‘m sure there are many ways to use it.
I like that they do things differently. They could just release an upgraded 0 coast and have a huge hit again, but they continue to bring new concepts to desktop world. The 0 coast itself was completely different from the flood of analog monos released at that time, that‘s what made it so appealing

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#566

I don’t know… I wouldn’t spend $4000 to make a pseudo clarinet sound on what is largely known as an instrument that caters to experimental music.

Not that more conventional music can’t be made on a Buchla or instruments inspired by them. People can do what they like, but using a high end electronic instrument to emulate a clarinet seems somewhat odd to me. Also, to be fair, while that sound resembles a clarinet I suppose, I kind of doubt that was the goal. It’s definitely an expressive sound though.

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#567

maybe this is some kind of nostalgia, since the very first sound synthesis attempts historically were aimed at reproducing acoustic instrument timbres, and all the experimental stuff was actually the main goal of Buchla, whose approach was, contrary to Moog’s, built expressively playable instruments to develop experimental approaches to “music”, instead of reproducing conveniant timbres and structures.

However I am always surprised to see peoples reactions to instruments like the Strega.

MN is and always has been a boutique Eurorack module production company with a very Buchla-inspired experimental mindset and a tendency to mystification and esoteric designs. Their panel designs are the best proof for that: You either like the visual feedback of their design or not.

I think it is fair to compare it to e.g. a Lyra 8, since both instruments with with complex crossmodulation and low-fi delay circuits, but comparing it to selfmade Eurorack systems is really something, since one is an open ended, constantly interchangable and transformable system, and the other is an instrument with consciously set limitations.

And what I also don’t understand is pointing out the prices of the delay module etc.

It’s like people going to art galleries, pointing at art pieces and saying: “I could have done that by myself.” But did you? And if not: Why complaining about someone others effort and work?

We don’t pay for the parts of a specific something, we pay for the time, effort, design, part-sourcing, quality control, philosophy, prototyping, production, distribution, costumer service, updates, upgrades and last but not least: for the developers, their workers and their energy they put in those things.

21 Likes