I purchased one of these about 3 months ago. Beautiful, characterful little synth. Worth every penny. Very reminiscent of late '60s vintage. I love it.
friendofCHAKA Niche products like analogue synths aren't going to save the economy, but this is great example of the innovation and entrepreneurship that Greeks now really need.
+MrQurutin Greek needs expansionary fiscal policy at the moment and I don't mean things like olympic games, housing bubbles or other trinkets but basic needs like better public schools, green energy production (solar, wind) etc. The terrible austerity policy will just have you suffer more.
Markus Arike I was thinking something similar, but in a more negative fashion. If I were to buy one of these, what guarantee would I have that the company would be able to provide aftermarket support, in the current chaotic environment Greece is drowning in? This thing sounds/looks great, however.
Michael Smith I wouldn't worry about it, Greece has agreed to another bailout by the banksters, um, banks. For support, I'm sure there are distributers in your country who sell and support Dreadbox products. And if you have questions or concerns, you could always email Dreadbox direct. They have a website.
Markus Arike If only Dreadbox made politicians, Greece would probably be in a position to bail the rest of the world out!!! ;) As it is I'm glad they make synths. I've only had my Erebus for a couple of months & it's one of those instruments that's not only great on it's own, it also adds something to existing gear, breathing new life into it rather than making it redundant.
Nice review, and pretty impressive little piece of kit. I also like the musical sections in the review to break things up and allow us to hear a bit more of the synth rather than having to wait to the end jam session... good format, kept my interest all the way through. cheers!
Aside of the uncomplete (alas no noise!) feature list - it just resembles the very best of 70´s synth sound. Fat and vibrant. Love it. Very good review!
Excellent analog devices from Greece!!! During the economic crisis and the economic struggle by Germany and IMF the Greeks have done it again! Their products sound amazing! Unbelievable!
Bought one. Pretty much solely on the fact that nick brings this little box out whenever he can and always makes it sound good. Without Nick Batt I'd never have even considered it.
I came back to see this review again due to the reissue of the original Erebus and found that both 7:44 "not as snappy as some envelopes" and 9:13 "doesn´t go right up into the audio rate" were improved in the new one.
Just bought one on the strength of this demo. Particularly like the ability to modulate the delay time. Look forward to comparing it with my Doepfer Dark Energy
Been in love with this since this synth since the review by ProckGnosis covered it. Apparently there is a bit of resonance pre-filter, which is what gives it its particular charming sound. Great review, glad to hear you like it as well, Nick. I hope some day to be able to pick one of these up.
keep up the good work, your demos are really concise and helpful, really useful when trying to decide what will suit my needs. Thanks! (just ordered one of these)😁
You really do the best reviews! Mark Dotty is a bit overexited most of the time, because nearly everything with the "analog" sticker is his favorite. Most people can't hear any difference between a good VA and analog. It's all in the knobs!
Great little synth, eh? My neighbors have "appreciated" its sound on more than one occasion too, I'm sure. I was very interested how Nick was going to demo pulse-width modulation on a synth that didn't have pulse-width modulation. To my surprise, the "PW" input has replaced the "LFO/D" found on my earlier model! Smart modification as Nick loves his PW mod.
Great demo - Thanks Nick! What an interesting sounding little synth - and in the single Euro module price range! Very interesting (and just as I was lamenting being unable to afford a SEM...)!
should have told the upstairs that you were testing nothing....all the sonic waves have finally been answered from deep space...haha. thanks for another great review Nick!!!!
I used in a jam session and it is more than genius. To remember, i dont have the nick batt edition. ( lfo depth) . Midi sometimes aborts on me. Replug the power line helps. 20 min warmup is important. My twopence
Nice review, the Dreadbox does sounds quite cool I must say, the extra patch points give it way more depth than it seems at first. About the delay modulation option, the Korg Volca Keys has that as well (sort of...), you can control the delay parameters via MIDI CCs. Not as smooth and direct as a CV modulation but it does the trick.
As far as sound - it's simply magical. This synth alone manages to sound as if it's passed through a whole bunch of analog modifiers, reverb and delay included, and with my setup I often have to pass any of my synths through a ton of modifying equipment to get to this kind of sound. This would be my number one synth for live shows. However, do you not find that it only has a single ADSR envelope limiting? I long wanted to get this synth so badly as a complementary synth to Neutron, utilising the latter's huge patch bay, but now that the Mark III came along I wonder if I should go for that instead.
Nick: The pre-driven filter means that there's already a little resonance dialed in, ie it will never go totally flat. "It has a built in pre-resonance on 1/6th of the filter's total input gain and is independent from the normal resonance control" Source: 3:14 in here: th-cam.com/video/Nu-RcSQFxsQ/w-d-xo.html
Typically excellent review from Nick, for what is a surprisingly nice little analogue synth. However, there was no quick look at the back panel! I'm sure it's simple, but it's surprising this was missed out.
Thanks for replying, Paul. I wasn't even thinking about buying a desktop analogue synth like this, but this review has put it on my "serious consideration" list. It really is quite tasty sounding and feature-rich.
***** You wouldn't regret it! It's a fantastic little box. Very warm and oozing late 60' and earlier 70's craziness. I've got the earlier (lfo depth instead of PW) but I'm seriously considering getting another.
sonicstate in the beginning when you were going over the oscillator waveforms you kept referring to the saws as triangles. nothing major, just a friendly jab ;) you were probably flustered by how incredible this little beast sounds!
sonicstate some stupid questions here: what was the setup for that really pretty opening riff? Would I be able to reproduce that sound/(oscilation?) with any other higher end analogue synths? What is that little mini keyboard?
Hi there even though they are saying V.1 and V.2 are sound exactly the same but I need your opinion on this because I wanted one but there only V.2 available now I think. And by the way, which version you are using in this video? Thanks
Sounds unexpectedly deep, more along the lines of Moog Mother 32 - and I'd say even fatter than any entry-level keyboard poly analog, such as the Korg Minilogue. This is $1000+ territory in terms of depth, I would say.
Nice sounding little synth, but some of the comments related to the economy of Greece...um, the UK exports are at an all time historic high and Osborne is still Selling England By The Pound.
So can you tune the Osc`s to play 5ths or not? I am not sure i understand the comment about "sounds like a third, doesn`t quite go to a 5th" ? when he Detunes the Osc
That modulated echo sounds great! Confused though, you said it was digital in the beginning and then later said it was bbd. Is it a digital bbd emulation? Either way it sounds cool and characterful.
Does it convert MIDI to CV the same way the Dark Energy does? Seems like it at least does the modwheel trick but does it also translate/send out 1V/Oct CV from the MIDI keyboard?
Would it be possible to patch the Erebus into (eg) a minilogue, and use a minilogue's motion sequencer as an effect on the erebus' output? Pardon my ignorance pls
Looks and sounds gorgeous to me! Price seems alright too. Tough choice between the MicroBrute and this, I'd think. Any advantages one has over the other? Great, thorough review and some lovely sounds :)
Vesa-Matti Sarenius true, but the brute's osc is very versatile though... for a good value starter analog it is a valid question I think. I still think MB is insanely good value for what it is.
Nick - I like my audio-rate LFO's as much as anyone else, but could you say a few words in these videos about how SLOW they can get? I really love me some very slow modulations, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Great little box, btw...
@sonicstate Nick, I'd love to see you do a follow up video with the Erebus where you really go off with it and push it further. This video is a great introduction. Love to see you take this piece of gear further.
Certainly 1 of the more interesting analogue monosynths around. Feature and structure -wise it's slightly comparable to the Odyssey i.e. 2 osc, paraphony, AR+ADSR envelopes, single LFO etc. and while going about it in different ways, routing options are somewhat similar too. Which is a smart move on Dreadbox' part, as the Odyssey is a very clever design in terms of making most of little. Don't be fooled though, they sound very different. Generally semi-modular designs are a very smart move these days, as it'll appeal to both modular-folk and non-modular-folk. Provided that it's eurorack compatible of course, which this is. And i'm yet to hear a bad sounding demo of the Erebus. But the market is bloated, and have become painfully singleminded. Almost all new releases in the synth world is just another analogue monosynth. Rolands hybrid designs being a note of interest, but still lacking in some regards. This whole analogue craze are starting to kill off the creativity when it comes to synth design. I agree with MegaCrasher3000 that there's plenty of room in the market for new cheap analogue polys. If i'm not mistaken DSi's Mopho X4 is the cheapest around, and especially after the american gear jumped up in price a while ago, i wouldn't exactly class it as being cheap. But other than that, it would be nice to see a new synth that brought more than a slightly different character.
Dylan Burtch What I do is set the delay time to something short and modulate the delay time with an LFO, noise, filtered gates, filtered sequences, or whatever sounds good at the time. You have to be able to control the delay time with CV- and the delay times have to be relatively fast (by today's standards). By the way, according to the manual, the Erebus has CV controlled delay time! Experimenting with the 'delayed' signal and dry signal as well as the feedback setting should give you all kinds of fun :). Still though, BBD's require filtering for their clock noise so their fidelity vary depending on their min-max delay time as well as the (low pass) filter's cutoff frequency. I hope that helps you!
Dylan Burtch Well, in that case you might be interested in something like the Ibanez AD202! That has a 'chorus' setting which uses an LFO to modulate the delay time which creates a chorus effect. I think the MXR Carbon Copy uses a similar concept, but you have to go under the hood to alter the 'MOD' LFO speed & depth. I'm sure there are other vintage and modern BBD's that will work :).
I have the original version of this (lacking PWM). Not sure if any of these things have changed in v2. Some things to note: - The envelope can get very clicky. I'm not hearing it in the demo here, though, so maybe that changed. - It only tracks around 2 octaves before it gets too far out of tune to use. Not a killer issue: you just need to work within that envelope. Others have reported the same thing (including in other Dreadbox products). It's by design. That said, I absolutely love this synth. It's one of my favorite sounding modern analogs and it's really great and definitely worth a buy. The dreadbox folks are also really great and have been responsive to email questions, even detailed ones about the internal guts of the synth. The delay is a PT2399 and is a perfect match for this synth. My teardown (v1) pics here: www.flickr.com/photos/psychlist1972/sets/72157652448250942
Pete Brown I have both the Erebus and the Semi-Modular, and they're both good for about 3 octaves without enough of an impact to the tuning. BUT, I only get that after a fair amount of time warming up. Unfortunately my Arturia Minibrute really is only good for about 2 octaves. But minus any "Lucky-Man" multi-octave dives, it and the dreadbox synths are still MORE than usable and a blast to make noise with...
ProckGnosis Totally agree. But given the price, this is likely to be the first analog for many. They'll hook it up to a 4 octave midi controller, or up to Ableton Live, and then think it's broken because it doesn't scale beyond 2-3 octaves like a Moog, modular, or other more expensive analog might. But if you know that going in, and play within that envelope, it's a great little synth.
josker Thanks. I get the feeling these are all a bit individual, like the analogs of the 70s and 80s. They're obviously hand-soldered and hand-assembled. I once heard that no two ARP Odysseys sounded alike. I can believe it.
Pete Brown Ehm, sorry. I didn't fully get the details from their e-mail answer. There's now a small addendum on their website: -Enclosure’s shape is slightly changed to a perfect rectangular -LFO Depth patch changed to PW -RES patch that had the ability to control either the resonance or the VCA is now only dedicated to VCA -Everything else is EXACTLY the same. Are you getting mileage out of the LFO Depth patch? Would've seemed nice for things like vibrato, but oh well... I guess PWM is nice too.
Nick Batt: Helping destroy my bank account balance since 2011.
😂😂😂 and you thank him lol
I purchased one of these about 3 months ago. Beautiful, characterful little synth. Worth every penny. Very reminiscent of late '60s vintage. I love it.
This thing has a little bit of everything, a patch panel, a built-in delay, duophonic mode. The only thing missing is a side of Tzatziki sauce.
and frape caffe !
friendofCHAKA Niche products like analogue synths aren't going to save the economy, but this is great example of the innovation and entrepreneurship that Greeks now really need.
+MrQurutin Greek needs expansionary fiscal policy at the moment and I don't mean things like olympic games, housing bubbles or other trinkets but basic needs like better public schools, green energy production (solar, wind) etc.
The terrible austerity policy will just have you suffer more.
I've been interested in buying an Erebus to support Greece's local economy, and because it sounds terrific.
Markus Arike I was thinking something similar, but in a more negative fashion. If I were to buy one of these, what guarantee would I have that the company would be able to provide aftermarket support, in the current chaotic environment Greece is drowning in? This thing sounds/looks great, however.
Michael Smith I wouldn't worry about it, Greece has agreed to another bailout by the banksters, um, banks. For support, I'm sure there are distributers in your country who sell and support Dreadbox products. And if you have questions or concerns, you could always email Dreadbox direct. They have a website.
Markus Arike If only Dreadbox made politicians, Greece would probably be in a position to bail the rest of the world out!!! ;) As it is I'm glad they make synths. I've only had my Erebus for a couple of months & it's one of those instruments that's not only great on it's own, it also adds something to existing gear, breathing new life into it rather than making it redundant.
reverse:pool Yeah if they had balls as big as them oscillators!!
It's 2018, and the Erebus still sounds better than most analog mono synths!
Nice simple interface for a semi-modular.
Nice review, and pretty impressive little piece of kit. I also like the musical sections in the review to break things up and allow us to hear a bit more of the synth rather than having to wait to the end jam session... good format, kept my interest all the way through. cheers!
+ollilaboratories and 8 months later i got one too... cant wait to sink my teeth into it :)
Such a beautiful sounding little synth. Must have.
We need more Greek synths in the market!!
this is my 2nd time watching this video and I was sold on this just from the intro! good stuff
i have been waiting for this one. ever so patiently. Its a warm blanket. Comfort food for the eardrums.
Aside of the uncomplete (alas no noise!) feature list - it just resembles the very best of 70´s synth sound. Fat and vibrant. Love it. Very good review!
Your closing little jam was fantastic too! Such a characterful sound
Excellent analog devices from Greece!!! During the economic crisis and the economic struggle by Germany and IMF the Greeks have done it again! Their products sound amazing! Unbelievable!
Well, the Greeks do love their bottom end ...
This is a nice little synth.
The oscillators sound f-ing amazing on this synth.
Bought one. Pretty much solely on the fact that nick brings this little box out whenever he can and always makes it sound good. Without Nick Batt I'd never have even considered it.
I came back to see this review again due to the reissue of the original Erebus and found that both 7:44 "not as snappy as some envelopes" and 9:13 "doesn´t go right up into the audio rate" were improved in the new one.
Just bought one a few days ago, but I haven't received it yet. I'm very glad to have Nick's approval.
Love it! The neighbours complained about the noise! I want one..
Got one permanently plugged into a Hades. Completely recommended, a great little synth with tons of character.
I just got one of these and have it paired with a Mini Brute SE. It is an amazing little synth.
This is an excellent sounding synth!
thx a lot, this is the best review on it, i think. i use the erebus und my tracks and it gives a lot of character
Really like the sound of that thing!
absolutely great price for an analog synth, sounds terrific too!
The phone call from the neighbors regarding the bass ;-) definitely a good sign
Got one. It has a MASSIVE amount of girth & presence.
Snappy editing. It's cool to see you getting creative with the newer reviews.
Just bought one on the strength of this demo. Particularly like the ability to modulate the delay time. Look forward to comparing it with my Doepfer Dark Energy
We need a NYX review!
Been in love with this since this synth since the review by ProckGnosis covered it.
Apparently there is a bit of resonance pre-filter, which is what gives it its particular charming sound.
Great review, glad to hear you like it as well, Nick. I hope some day to be able to pick one of these up.
Dig that opening riff - nice work Nick!
I have it and use it on all liveset I do. Great machine! Very recommanded!!
This is definitely on my want list for a tabletop analog synth!
They knew to send Nick the new one with PWM :)
Pete Brown LOL! Was thinking exactly the same thing! I actually wondered if they changed it *because* of him :)
Hahaha true!
keep up the good work, your demos are really concise and helpful, really useful when trying to decide what will suit my needs. Thanks! (just ordered one of these)😁
Now this little thing I Like.
You really do the best reviews! Mark Dotty is a bit overexited most of the time, because nearly everything with the "analog" sticker is his favorite. Most people can't hear any difference between a good VA and analog. It's all in the knobs!
Love your reviews! Bought One based on your review today
Impressive and inspiring! On my shortlist for sure.
Great little synth, eh? My neighbors have "appreciated" its sound on more than one occasion too, I'm sure.
I was very interested how Nick was going to demo pulse-width modulation on a synth that didn't have pulse-width modulation. To my surprise, the "PW" input has replaced the "LFO/D" found on my earlier model! Smart modification as Nick loves his PW mod.
ProckGnosis i wish they kept the LFO/D though. Ditto on Murmux2
Great demo - Thanks Nick!
What an interesting sounding little synth - and in the single Euro module price range! Very interesting (and just as I was lamenting being unable to afford a SEM...)!
Very, very clever design ! Certainly this little "baby" will brake the synthesizer market !!!
should have told the upstairs that you were testing nothing....all the sonic waves have finally been answered from deep space...haha. thanks for another great review Nick!!!!
I used in a jam session and it is more than genius. To remember, i dont have the nick batt edition. ( lfo depth) . Midi sometimes aborts on me. Replug the power line helps. 20 min warmup is important. My twopence
That intro is so beautiful
That opening sound. Ohhhhhh yesssssss
That's a really nice sounding little synth.
Gorgeous intro sequence!
Nice review, the Dreadbox does sounds quite cool I must say, the extra patch points give it way more depth than it seems at first. About the delay modulation option, the Korg Volca Keys has that as well (sort of...), you can control the delay parameters via MIDI CCs. Not as smooth and direct as a CV modulation but it does the trick.
Harmonics sound lovely even through TH-cam.
As far as sound - it's simply magical. This synth alone manages to sound as if it's passed through a whole bunch of analog modifiers, reverb and delay included, and with my setup I often have to pass any of my synths through a ton of modifying equipment to get to this kind of sound. This would be my number one synth for live shows. However, do you not find that it only has a single ADSR envelope limiting? I long wanted to get this synth so badly as a complementary synth to Neutron, utilising the latter's huge patch bay, but now that the Mark III came along I wonder if I should go for that instead.
Great review.... I'll be on the lookout for one of these.
Very nice Demo by the way!
wow sounds fantastic
On a second listen I want one.
This sounds very nice!
it sounds amazing, and the price ($500) is damn good as well. I just wish it was available in Canada
i'm definetly sold
Just got the first gen nyx, and now I want this one to : )
Dreadbox is unstoppable.
great synth
Nick: The pre-driven filter means that there's already a little resonance dialed in, ie it will never go totally flat. "It has a built in pre-resonance on 1/6th of the filter's total input gain and is independent from the normal resonance control"
Source: 3:14 in here:
th-cam.com/video/Nu-RcSQFxsQ/w-d-xo.html
Good god that sounds good with some delay.
been searching all the videos that show the envelope speed, 7:30 just sold this on me.
sounds great....
Typically excellent review from Nick, for what is a surprisingly nice little analogue synth. However, there was no quick look at the back panel! I'm sure it's simple, but it's surprising this was missed out.
It's simple round the back but it does have an audio input which is nice for running stuff through that lovely filter!
Thanks for replying, Paul. I wasn't even thinking about buying a desktop analogue synth like this, but this review has put it on my "serious consideration" list. It really is quite tasty sounding and feature-rich.
***** You wouldn't regret it! It's a fantastic little box. Very warm and oozing late 60' and earlier 70's craziness. I've got the earlier (lfo depth instead of PW) but I'm seriously considering getting another.
Amazing synth! My next buy
sounds great!
Haha every waveform is a triangle, not any easy job to do what you do though I've tried! But gorgeous sounding synth!
AJ Gapsquez not sure what you mean - there's TRI/SQ/SAW?
sonicstate +AJ Gapsquez 3:33 and 4:09 Triangle should be Saw. Amazing sounding little synth!
sonicstate in the beginning when you were going over the oscillator waveforms you kept referring to the saws as triangles. nothing major, just a friendly jab ;) you were probably flustered by how incredible this little beast sounds!
AJ Gapsquez I've noticed this too, last few videos Nick has been calling saw/ramp waves triangle.
Nice.
sonicstate some stupid questions here: what was the setup for that really pretty opening riff? Would I be able to reproduce that sound/(oscilation?) with any other higher end analogue synths? What is that little mini keyboard?
Andrew Benavides just screenshot the opening setup and March accordingly. The little keyboard is a CME XKEY midi keyboard
Hi Nick, can I ask you what keyboard you're using there ? (Already got an Erebus and Hades, incidentally.) Cheers and Happy New Year !
Hi there even though they are saying V.1 and V.2 are sound exactly the same but I need your opinion on this because I wanted one but there only V.2 available now I think. And by the way, which version you are using in this video?
Thanks
I'm sure Nick gets a semi on playing with all these new toys ;)
Sounds unexpectedly deep, more along the lines of Moog Mother 32 - and I'd say even fatter than any entry-level keyboard poly analog, such as the Korg Minilogue. This is $1000+ territory in terms of depth, I would say.
Freaqbox Murmux - Greek Synth =)
Freaqbox was actually the name of dreadbox and the murmux is the company's first synthesizer. It is now produced under the name dreadbox murmux
myrsias Gotcha :)
I'll bet that delay is PT2399 and not a BBD. It sounds cleaner than a BBD. Good chip.
Sorry wrong my friend
Nice sounding little synth, but some of the comments related to the economy of Greece...um, the UK exports are at an all time historic high and Osborne is still Selling England By The Pound.
So can you tune the Osc`s to play 5ths or not? I am not sure i understand the comment about "sounds like a third, doesn`t quite go to a 5th" ? when he Detunes the Osc
DreadBox has been putting out some impressive products. will you guys be reviewing the hades too?
That modulated echo sounds great! Confused though, you said it was digital in the beginning and then later said it was bbd. Is it a digital bbd emulation? Either way it sounds cool and characterful.
Flohr It's actually a PT2399 delay chip, which is digital, but it sounds dirty, lo-fi and magnificent.
Does it convert MIDI to CV the same way the Dark Energy does? Seems like it at least does the modwheel trick but does it also translate/send out 1V/Oct CV from the MIDI keyboard?
4:30 You had me on separate glide.
Would it be possible to patch the Erebus into (eg) a minilogue, and use a minilogue's motion sequencer as an effect on the erebus' output? Pardon my ignorance pls
Looks and sounds gorgeous to me! Price seems alright too. Tough choice between the MicroBrute and this, I'd think. Any advantages one has over the other?
Great, thorough review and some lovely sounds :)
Tony2dH Microbrute is one OSC, this is two. Huge difference, I would say.
Vesa-Matti Sarenius true, but the brute's osc is very versatile though... for a good value starter analog it is a valid question I think. I still think MB is insanely good value for what it is.
It is :) I have it. And I think the price has gone down too. Also worth checking is the Basstation II which also got down in price.
Thanks! Also, the actual price of this unit seems to be more towards €479. Still, the 2 osc sound really nice here and a nice price nonetheless.
TheRealFieryBiscuits does not have a strong character like Erebus.
Nick - I like my audio-rate LFO's as much as anyone else, but could you say a few words in these videos about how SLOW they can get? I really love me some very slow modulations, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Great little box, btw...
Sound on sound's review actually stated it took their test unit's LFO almost two minutes to do a single cycle at the slowest setting. Crazy :D
umm... wow. THAT is SLOWWWWW.
Sean Hornibrook It is also useful to hear how long the release is on the envelope. I like a 5+ second release sometimes.
+Sean Hornibrook Bubblesound uLFO's max cycle is over an hour...
+Flohr You may have just sold me on a new module lol.
14.03 the neighbours😂😂 yes that's an awesome sign lol😂😂
is the gate out put Can do midi to cv to trigger other synth like the moog mother 32?
Does this mean a new song for the Sonic Lab Bandcamp? 😉 My Nick Batt album needs more tracks!
@sonicstate Nick, I'd love to see you do a follow up video with the Erebus where you really go off with it and push it further. This video is a great introduction. Love to see you take this piece of gear further.
I'm going to help the Greek economy after its EU shafting and buy one of these little beasts.
How is the pitch stability and vco tracking in the higher octaves?
could you review the murmux? I love this little tweed thingy!
This one or the Moog Minitaur for soulful/funky basses and leads for rap- beats? Price is quite the same.
Just bought one. Hoping for a Hades v2 soon.
great review, sadly €350 seems a bit short, apparently most sites got them up for about €470 and higher.
Certainly 1 of the more interesting analogue monosynths around.
Feature and structure -wise it's slightly comparable to the Odyssey i.e. 2 osc, paraphony, AR+ADSR envelopes, single LFO etc. and while going about it in different ways, routing options are somewhat similar too. Which is a smart move on Dreadbox' part, as the Odyssey is a very clever design in terms of making most of little.
Don't be fooled though, they sound very different.
Generally semi-modular designs are a very smart move these days, as it'll appeal to both modular-folk and non-modular-folk. Provided that it's eurorack compatible of course, which this is.
And i'm yet to hear a bad sounding demo of the Erebus.
But the market is bloated, and have become painfully singleminded. Almost all new releases in the synth world is just another analogue monosynth. Rolands hybrid designs being a note of interest, but still lacking in some regards.
This whole analogue craze are starting to kill off the creativity when it comes to synth design.
I agree with MegaCrasher3000 that there's plenty of room in the market for new cheap analogue polys. If i'm not mistaken DSi's Mopho X4 is the cheapest around, and especially after the american gear jumped up in price a while ago, i wouldn't exactly class it as being cheap.
But other than that, it would be nice to see a new synth that brought more than a slightly different character.
Marc the Darc people want usefulness & immediacy. Analog subtractive is still a "go to" design.
Is it possible to create a chorus effect with the delay?
Steven Morris Read that you could get a chorus effect with the delay, but haven't tried it yet
ProckGnosis Thanks for the info. I would love to hear it sometime. That's one of my favorite uses of BBD style delays :).
Dylan Burtch What I do is set the delay time to something short and modulate the delay time with an LFO, noise, filtered gates, filtered sequences, or whatever sounds good at the time. You have to be able to control the delay time with CV- and the delay times have to be relatively fast (by today's standards). By the way, according to the manual, the Erebus has CV controlled delay time! Experimenting with the 'delayed' signal and dry signal as well as the feedback setting should give you all kinds of fun :). Still though, BBD's require filtering for their clock noise so their fidelity vary depending on their min-max delay time as well as the (low pass) filter's cutoff frequency. I hope that helps you!
Dylan Burtch Well, in that case you might be interested in something like the Ibanez AD202! That has a 'chorus' setting which uses an LFO to modulate the delay time which creates a chorus effect. I think the MXR Carbon Copy uses a similar concept, but you have to go under the hood to alter the 'MOD' LFO speed & depth. I'm sure there are other vintage and modern BBD's that will work :).
I have the original version of this (lacking PWM). Not sure if any of these things have changed in v2. Some things to note:
- The envelope can get very clicky. I'm not hearing it in the demo here, though, so maybe that changed.
- It only tracks around 2 octaves before it gets too far out of tune to use. Not a killer issue: you just need to work within that envelope. Others have reported the same thing (including in other Dreadbox products). It's by design.
That said, I absolutely love this synth. It's one of my favorite sounding modern analogs and it's really great and definitely worth a buy. The dreadbox folks are also really great and have been responsive to email questions, even detailed ones about the internal guts of the synth.
The delay is a PT2399 and is a perfect match for this synth. My teardown (v1) pics here:
www.flickr.com/photos/psychlist1972/sets/72157652448250942
Pete Brown I have both the Erebus and the Semi-Modular, and they're both good for about 3 octaves without enough of an impact to the tuning. BUT, I only get that after a fair amount of time warming up. Unfortunately my Arturia Minibrute really is only good for about 2 octaves. But minus any "Lucky-Man" multi-octave dives, it and the dreadbox synths are still MORE than usable and a blast to make noise with...
ProckGnosis Totally agree. But given the price, this is likely to be the first analog for many. They'll hook it up to a 4 octave midi controller, or up to Ableton Live, and then think it's broken because it doesn't scale beyond 2-3 octaves like a Moog, modular, or other more expensive analog might.
But if you know that going in, and play within that envelope, it's a great little synth.
Pete Brown Apparently the only thing that's changed (asked the manufacturer) is the PWM input.
josker Thanks. I get the feeling these are all a bit individual, like the analogs of the 70s and 80s. They're obviously hand-soldered and hand-assembled. I once heard that no two ARP Odysseys sounded alike. I can believe it.
Pete Brown Ehm, sorry. I didn't fully get the details from their e-mail answer. There's now a small addendum on their website:
-Enclosure’s shape is slightly changed to a perfect rectangular
-LFO Depth patch changed to PW
-RES patch that had the ability to control either the resonance or the VCA is now only dedicated to VCA
-Everything else is EXACTLY the same.
Are you getting mileage out of the LFO Depth patch? Would've seemed nice for things like vibrato, but oh well... I guess PWM is nice too.