If I was an instrument developer I don’t think I’d be inclined to spend a great deal of time on GS, to be fair.
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Indeed! 
Even as a casual poster, I had to ditch that place.
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Really, the company is completely different from when the 00x synths were released. I’m not even sure if the current company COULD support those synths in the correct capacity if they wanted to.
If it were me, I would have renamed the company to sell these new products. The new ones all seem to work as advertised for the most part, are aimed at a slightly different demographic, and are cool enough to stand on their own.
I think separating the new and old with a new company name could have solved quite a bit of the confusion, distaste for some of the old products and their flaws, etc.
I think it’s a mistake to fault the current team on that. They’ve quite obviously gone a different direction, and the direction they’ve gone has very little to do with the old one.
It REALLY does suck for anyone that bought the 00x series and had issues. I really do feel for those people. I’m not excusing that situation. I just think there IS a distinction, and that current Modal should be judged based on their current lineup.
IMO it’s ok to dislike what Modal used to be like, and also appreciate what they’re doing now, even if the current lineup isn’t to your taste.
Just opinion of course.
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Dammit, I don´t have ANY room for this!
I like the concept a lot. It reminds me of the Mutable Instruments modules where you can load different algorithms and have a lot more OSCs available than you would expect from a synth with two OSCs. I wonder if they will add more algorithms later. I miss physical modeling or different waveshaper and FM algos. But don´t get me wrong: the Cobalt8 looks very good as it is now already!
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I love that there are Modal peeps around to participate in the conversation. Sounds like they’ve set up a process by which they can release multiple different instruments quite quickly and easily, with similar design features / layouts - great business and good for us as consumers.
I like the look of this, it has some unique features and great possibilities. I must admit I’m not totally convinced by the sound yet… But that’s because I’m comparing it to my Peak (which costs a lot more) and I tend towards weightier sounds in general. But I’m sure there’s an audience for this and I look forward to seeing and hearing more!
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Oh there was some product from 10 years ago that didn’t get fully supported and there were two people that left the company and I didn’t get a good feeling at a trade show and THEY DIDN’T EVEN POST ON GS
YAWWWWWN
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ON TOPIC
Gino, I’m sure you’ve had a chance to hear some more of the Co8 now and I’d be interested in your reactions.
In particular BoBeats starting at 20:43 in his video does a side by side comparison, Ar8/Co8. I think he does show definitive differences in sound qualities here between the two. He puts into words his experience of those sound differences as well.
Something else of interest, and as a topic for discussion for others, Bo a little later on poses the question, do you need to buy both ? He basically says — No — that you should pick the one that sounds better to you and fits your needs better. But he adds that because the two instruments work so similarly, there is an advantage to owning both, and being able to fluidly switch between them.
Bo in his pros/cons section, also finds the same shortcomings with both.
I’d be interested to hear anyone’s reaction to these points.
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I’m wondering how well the Co8 may work as a controller. If one had the Co8 and an Ar8M could you set the Co8 up to more or less seamlessly run the Ar8M ? I mean given that the physical interfaces are identical.
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Module please.
Paired with the AK (even has its own joystick) could be my ideal travel rig.
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Anyone know of any dirty/grimy/dark demos with this thing yet?
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According to the midi implementation, Cobalt8 responds to CC116, CC117 and CC118 for the joystick axis (X+, X- and Y) so you’d need a midi processor (or at least a midi interface like the Iconnectivity MIOs) to remap mod wheel, pitch bend and breath control from AKs joystick to the midi cc the Cobalt8 responds to.
At least that’s what I gathered from scanning through the pdf manual…
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Just to say that I quite enjoyed Bobby’s video this time - in the past he tended to be overly positive about everything so getting a more balanced view is appreciated. I think his point about the crossover between the two is well made. My interpretation is that with the Cobalt8 and Argon8 they’ve built a common platform of features (and physical form obviously) that are really well considered and really flexible on top of which they can place a sound-engine that is nice sound and well placed to exploit the features of the platform. Depending on what else you have in your setup, I don’t think that they necessarily cause too much overlap. Personally I would tend towards the Argon8 as it aligns with my interests and preferences - a side benefit for Modal of this release is that it’s got me re-evaluating what I initially thought of the Argon8 when it was released as not offering enough beyond the Craft2.0 for me.
One broader question concerning the Animators - does anyone know if these can run with different step lengths for each lane? And indeed, different rates?
Is this thing multitimbral??
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it is not.
I know it’s too late to do anything about it now, but I can’t help wondering if it would have been better to release the Cobalt first, before the Argon. To me, the Cobalt has a more charismatic sound when you first hear it. Not that Argon sounds bad, but most people just have less familiarity with wavetables. They need to study up a little to know what they can do with wavetables. The Cobalt can do some otherworldy timbres as well, but most people familiar with subtractive synthesis can just hear an audio sample of it and just kinda automatically know what’s going on, where with Argon they might need some explanation. I guess it’s more like Cobalt would be the “meat and potatoes” in some people’s setup, while Argon would be the “special sauce.”
Plus, if Argon were released now instead of back then, there wouldn’t have been the constant comparisons to the Hydrasynth. Oh well, I guess you can’t turn back time lol. Either way, I’m happy Argon was enough of a success that they seem to be hitting their stride and developing a pretty robust product line now.
It is timbral though !
I don’t think the order of release matters much — except if they had been released simultaneously ! And as has been observed the Ar8’s do VA quite well on their own (as does the HS !)
You could probably fake a limited duo timbral with key tracking on the oscillator mix but you would be getting more limited sounds working that way.
It looks like a tremendous value for a polyphonic analog modeling synth in terms of sound and build quality. However, the Argon8 or Hydrasynth’s wavetable abilities would add more variety to my analog-glutted setup.
Are you saying that the Cobalt8 (i) does things that other virtual analog synths do not, (ii) has a distinct sound that other virtual analog synths do not and/or (iii) achieves a level of quality not equalled by other synths at its price point? The variety of waveforms is definitely unique, but what else do you feel sets it apart? How is its character different from that of other synths?
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Hi Jukka, thanks for the callout as I’ve been thinking about this, and have several thoughts on it.
First off I feel that the Argon8 is a great and versatile synth, with deceptive depth. You get out of it what you put into it. I personally don’t see that diminished in any way with the announcement of the Cobalt8. It’s just silly that it’s $750 USD, with such a high quality sound, build quality and feature set (talking the 37 Key version, as that is the only one I have hands on with). And with build quality we have to talk about the knobs and buttons…
I’ve seen all the reactions to the feel of the knobs, and respect that, but to me they are just fine and work very well. Certainly not a reason to avoid it, and as Modal has stated many times they are high quality Bourns encoders, and the light feel of them is what also gives them a longer lifecycle. That said, I prefer the feel of the encoders on the Digitakt, to me those are ideal (well except for some params that still need the acceleration tuned 
). To me the clicky circular buttons on the Argon8 are good, and the ones on the PRO3 are just as loud - I’ve seen no complaints on the PRO3 buttons.
The joystick, keybed, metal top, and bamboo end cheeks feel premium to me. The whole thing feels like a much pricier synth, except for the knobs.
The sound of the Argon8 is why I got it, and we use it often. Our latest track is about 60% Argon8: https://g.co/kgs/2bGSBj The other synths on the track are Omnisphere and Massive.
Regarding the Cobalt8 I think it sounds thick, and juicy thanks to the 8 oscs per voice, and the way Modal blends everything (plus a new filter). The algorithms remind me of how the color knob on the Model Cycles works. The concept is similar, with a single macro knob that makes for immediate sound exploration, along with something clearly audible to automate. I think Nick Batt nailed this, by describing it as “synthesis closer to the surface”. By contrast on the Argon8 you need to do some more setup to get to similar results, but can also go off the path a bit more more as it’s DIY.
The intriguing part about the Cobalt8 is that you have 2 independent OSC groups, and that means they can be doing very different (even opposing) things. It’s like the wave modifiers on the Argon8, but animated with a baked in wave table if needed. For example, one can be doing a supersaw that get’s more detuned and spread out on one OSC group, and the other could do PWM with some hard sync-like effect. Then you put a slow LFO to move the algo knobs per voice, and that’s a super complex patch on other synths, but fast to get to with the algo approach on the Cobalt8.
Mod slots… agree with Bo. I fill them up often esp when I map params to the joystick. In fact I wish the joystick had it’s own setting outside the mod matrix, that would free up some space (fully mapping the joystick can use 4 slots). What I also want (and already sent the suggestion to Modal) is to be able to assign the AMP Env and Filter Env to additional destinations. Having 1 mod env holds me back more than the number of mod slots.
LFO’s are a big question to me, as I’m guessing the Cobalt8 does not have the magical full audio rate LFO2 of the Argon8, which is closer to a routable OSC for modulation. Are LFO2 and LFO3 more traditional on the Cobalt8? If the Cobalt8 does have 2 full audio rate polyphonic LFO’s… well, that changes everything
I see the Argon8 and Cobalt8 as more of a choice than a pairing, but it’s still very early.
They are both feature rich synths (effects you can automate, audio in, deep sequencer, arp, etc.) and are also more “boutique” if you want to have something unique vs mass produced. Modal is making very cool instruments lately IMO, and if I do end up getting a Cobalt8 it will be fast to learn as the layout is very similar.
Best regards,
Gino
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Can someone explain to me what “keys type sounds” means ? It was a phrase in BoBeats’ review of the cobalt8 ( link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5VYYW_be4&t=237s ) and I seem to have encountered it several times in various places in the last couple of days.
Is it an attempt to reference sounds originally made by electro-mechanical keyboards ? Or … ?