isaac_newey

My go to for anything knarly. The brute factor, despite its name, is far from a gimmick, it's this thing's secret sauce. Rarely do I track anything without at least a touch of it. It can round out and flatten up brittle sounds (especially helpful for processing external sound sources) or go crazy with some wild feedback. Certainly not super versatile sound, though. Whilst it excels in creating wild, unstable flourishes, I've found it can struggle to create punchy bread-and-butter mono sounds. I think this is solely down to the Steiner Parker filter. Run its oscillator out through the patchbay into a Moog filter and the difference is night-and-day. The patchbay was the reason I chose it and it hasn't let my down. It's served as the perfect bridge into Eurorack. Keyboard / sequencer section is incredibly buggy however, sometimes requiring a reboot. This makes it difficult to consider for use in live setups and less than ideal for integration into complex studio setups. The lack of MIDI Thru is a frustrating omission that is basically inexcusable for this price / form factor.

Surely one of the most well thought out module designs to ever grace a rack. Yeah the little knobs can be a little finicky but I can excuse that considering how much functionality is packed into such a small package. It's ability to be used as a mixer, even multiple mixer at a time, has to be one of my favourite features. Far from a boring utility module though, as you can get some serious grunt out of the boost switch, especially when stacking multiple stages and utilising the exponential response gain quirk.

Infinitely better than the standard modern style of machine head. Incredibly easy to string, great stability and smooth as fuck.