That’s exactly what Soma claims for itself: “romantic engineering”
Sure, if we compare just about any boutique company to those… of course
But I wasn’t talking only in political sense. Something can be termed conservative or traditionalist for repeating an old blueprint without any reflection on contemporaneity. And that’s what Soma’s new-age approach about, imo. Just compare it to Ciat-Lonbarde new weird America poetics and you see.
And it’s reflected in instruments design also. What they do is merely trying to deny a player of any and all controls of the structure, which flows from Vlad’s overt esoteric believes, and/or on a more technical level, to basically create preset algos of what was achieved by structural experiments of true innovators — see phase-shifted delay lines in Cosmos. Compare this approach to something like Glou-Glou achieved with a Loupe (despite that being ‘simply’ a development of an EDP paradigm). This approach is done all-out modern way and funny by Chase Bliss, who are also miles ahead in innovation and control-randomness balance (though far from being my personal favourites as ‘experimental’ instruments maker, just saying)
nah, ‘romantic’ can mean anything today
and historical ‘Romanticism’ was truly modern and innovative, both in arts and philosophy (with a probable exception of pre-raphaelites one can argue)
and speaking of the common-sense meaning of ‘romantic’ today, I can’t see anything romantic about losing control or ‘freeing your soul’. it sounds more ‘drunk circuit-breaking’ than ‘romantic engineering’ to me.
again, compare on this front what Vlad does to another Russian engineer, albeit in software — Igor Vasiliev (of SoundScaper, FieldScaper fame et al), and imagine those in h/w form if needed.
what I could call ‘Romantic engineering’ is probably a Digitone, for instance. or La Voix du Luthier, if we’re to go another way. or even Ciat-Lonbarde, as Peter and his stories seem to be very ‘romantic’, just like GangGangDance’s or CocoRosie’s, for instance.
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I have a Ciat Lonbarde Cocolase and two Chase Bliss pedals. But I don’t compare them to my Soma Lyra-8 or Enner as I have no reason to do so.
So I guess you do not feel that the TERRA will not allow you to control what you want to control.
I know you do. I also know you love your Octa. I’ve actually followed this (and previous) forum for many years, and I must thank you for all the invaluable input on many a topic, Octa especially. This was especially rare and useful, as we both use live instruments and when I read your posts (and listened to the music), I could always relate. So I don’t really think disagreement here is about huge differences in musical goals or general requirements we have regarding instruments.
Nor would I say Soma’s tools don’t have use or value. They clearly do. I could find a way to include some of them into my setup… if I was forced to )
But I thought it would be relevant place and (historical) time to voice a disagreement in regards to the seemingly-dominating perception and public description of both their instruments and brand ethos.
Maybe to those who just enter the world of ‘experimental’ approaches that would be valuable.
And hopefully the more philosophical side of the question would be of interest to some too.
But definitely to their future customers it is the time to think over and maybe question them personally before buying stuff — I’ve seen some avatars with Ukraine flag, so I guess there’re those who care for what you sort of dismissed as ‘political’ question. It is more. It is cultural thing, and music is culture, period.
Did anyone have any need to question Moog, Novation or any other US/UK based synth companies when our governments saw fit to blow the living shit out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia etc.?
I have Russian friends, should I make sure that they are made to answer for their government every time I speak to them?
There’s a big difference between individuals speaking out and companies with employees and livelihoods depending on them speaking out.
It’s just not a simple situation.
As for all the pseudo spiritual shit, who cares, really.
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First of all, the ‘living shit’ you mention is hardly comparable to what Russia does now, and even less so those countries’ stance — both of their powers that be (rather, were) and their people — is close to the ‘rationale’ of this war. You’re really stretching the argument (and the truth) here, and actually nearly repeat (unknowingly maybe) official Russian rhetorics.
But okay, let’s imagine these are comparable.
Now, did a Moog, Novation or any other CEO wrote the next day the ‘living shit’ was unleashed in their blogs, publicly, what Vlad did?
On the same hand, if they even did so, was it RIGHT thing to not question them? It’s easy to question Behringer’s all-in capitalist strategies though, right? First world problems or what. But hear me too: when putin comes for Finland or Sweden or Poland next, would you still be on ease?
And finally, that ‘pseudo spiritual stuff’ has a lot to do with this. I bet I have more friends in Russia than almost anyone in this forum, and I can tell you a lot what Russian conservative worldview entails and how exactly it was assembled historically. Vlad uses Soma to push his ‘pseudo spiritual views’, his book is a proof.
At this point I am only curious about what you think about TERRA itself. as that is the topic of this thread.
I do not participate in political discussions on this forum. Personal choice.
If you don’t want to talk about TERRA then I am happy to let you have the last word on this conversation
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I’m sure sending or not sending money to Vlad’s company for a synth isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to the war compared to the international sanctions and severe reductions in payments for oil/gas. Anywaaaaay, this is all massively off-topic. Start a thread about Russian synth manufacturers and if we should boycott them if you like. But please don’t single-handedly ruin this thread, which is meant to be about TERRA
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Im personally interested in the sound generating algorithms. It looks like it is 32 different digital synth engines to create the sound which I find incredibly diverse and interesting. Any one have any idea of how these are set up or where they draw inspiration from??
okay, I got you. no worries.
just one question, may I, to you as a veteran member here: do you think it’s worthy (or mods-safe) to create a new separate thread on this? I could just summarise those few posts of mine and pose a clearer question.
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regarding Terra, I can only reiterate: another conservative instrument by the brand, very limited in its sound engine (hence the tone) and approach to microtonality & obscure controls with limited expression, dressed in ‘designer clothes’ but losing to MPE controllers, which combined with digital sound generators would give much more to any musician I suppose.
on a side note, it feels ridiculous to me if I saw a chunk of wood (holy mine, real wood?) on stage in 21st century. like riding a steam-engined car or dressing in rough animal skin in times when we slowly phase out furs and leathers.
and anyone who’s hooked on Soma’s approach in terms of ‘weirdness’ I think would find much more freedom and ‘illogical logic’ in Ciat-Lonbarde stuff.
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I sent money, I only wish they’d send me the cosmos I ordered in return
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Fair thoughts regarding the Terra.
I think the mods would allow you to start another thread discussing Soma’s philosophies, design style, etc.
A thread on the political leanings of Soma’s leadership, I suspect would be short-lived here. It’s not my place though to encourage or discourage such a thread from being created. My observation is political conversations here tend to spin out of control in short order.
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Yea, please let’s keep this one more focused to the original topic. Thanks! 
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an update:
the musical cutting board…
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Hmmmmmm.
I know how it looks makes no difference to the sound etc. but the aesthetics of the pre production were really special. This looks like they used some toilet seats and cut some awful wobbley edges… like a school project.
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the less special wood version doesn’t bother me too much. they initially said the production version was going to be a metal box, which i couldn’t really visualize. this version is at least closer to the prototype. i still wonder how feasible it is to produce something like this. the design doesn’t look complicated — it’s a milled slab of wood. i can’t imagine they’re going to make tons of these, but who knows? the markings look etched. that would be nice, as those areas will get lots of wear that would make stickers or paint disappear quickly. somehow the midi jacks surprised me, and i wonder what the usb jack’s for. i kinda figured this thing would be a playable instrument only with just power and audio outs.
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Me too. On closer inspection it seems to indicate a USB key. So maybe it’s a way of updating firmware and adding new sounds, etc.
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