Quadruple quadruple your refreshment, quadruple quadruple your enjoyment… sorry, I started quoting old Doublemint Gum jingles. As expected, Dave Smith has released his Tetra (”Tetr4″ in the l33t speak on the case). The name says it all: the Tetra takes the popular Mopho synth and packs four of them into a single, compact case. The Mopho was featured in the CDM Winter Guide and was one of the favorite reader products of 2008. Its strength is that it’s a great-sounding synth in a small box with all the basic analog goodness. The Tetra simply takes that design and squeezes four of them into a box. That’s four voices, each with two oscillators (which in turn come with sub-octave generators), one Curtis low-pass filter, and feedback loop per voice. You also get the step sequencer and arpeggiator features.

The Tetra also shares a name with the badass pirate version of the Princess Zelda from recent Nintendo games.

Now, the Tetra, like the Mopho, still remains a terrific choice for people wanting some simple analog goodness. But as noted in the Winter Guide, Dave Smith still has some tough competition …from Dave Smith. The Evolver’s digital oscillators may not appeal to analog purists, but they allow Frequency Modulation and Ring Modulation effects. And the Evolver has a digital highpass filter. Of course, the Evolver now has to stand up to the Tetra’s additional voices, which enable routings that weren’t possible before. But I’m hoping increased Mopho and Tetra demand may lead to some cheap used Evolvers on the market; I badly want one. Even from Dave Smith direct, at US$599 on sale I think the Evolver is still worth a look, even if it loses on voice count and doesn’t have those cool, accessible front-panel controls.

The Tetra is priced at US$799 direct from Dave Smith, or at your local reseller. And Evolver comments aside, it’ll clearly be the synth to beat – it’s a pretty amazing investment in an analog synth for $800, and it’s small enough to toss in a backpack – no flight case needed. You can route audio input into it with feedback. And the design eschews the psychedelic looks of the Mopho for a more grown-up, handsome look. Correction: The Tetra seems to lose the audio in present on the Mopho – one reason the Evolver and Mopho are still strong alternatives. You do keep the feedback routing, but there’s no audio in. (Thanks, mcpepe in comments – so it’s not quite like having four Mopho’s in one case; they had to cut something!)

I think Dave Smith’s work has a reputation for being favored by analog snobs – you know who you are. But it’s clear that these make nice hardware synths for computer fans, too, especially thanks to its compact size. If you pick one up, readers, let us know how it goes and how you use it.

Dave Smith Tetra

…and the oldie but goodie: Dave Smith Evolver (now, could we have a Quadvolver, perhaps?)

Roger Linn, father of the modern drum machine and creator of some of its greatest models (including the MPC60 and MPC3000), really is working on a new generation. I’ve seen some of that design work, and I’m confident it’ll ship in some form. But announced yesterday, that shipment won’t happen third quarter this year. Also, it seems that, while this was always a LinnDrum and not a SmithDrum, the product is tending even further toward the Roger Linn side and not so much the Dave Smith side – especially with Dave Smith’s own synth business going great guns.

I will say, I prefer a few months’ delay with fewer compromises (or in this case, maybe a lower price). The big names in the industry have such firm release dates that often some significant functionality slips instead of the ship target. Part of the reason a lot of people don’t talk about projects before they’re done really isn’t competitive secrecy – it’s because the evolution of a hardware design can be unpredictable.

But so you can decide for yourself, here’s the published note from Roger:

Ever wished you could pack the sonic goodness and programming power of a soft synth into a hardware box? Dreamed of software that lived in a road case and had the stability and power-on capability of your outboard gear? You’re certainly not alone. That meant many of us were intrigued when soft synth emulator house Arturia showed off the Origin, a DSP-based hardware box that put their emulations in a box that wasn’t a PC.

Dave Dri knows touring with gear, as the founder of Seque and a live electronic festival vet. We got his impressions from across the Pacific in Australia. He’s upfront with everything he loves and everything that annoys. To bring a different perspective to Planet CDM here, I’m pleased to welcome Dave as a guest.

An Origin Of Sorts

Founded in France in 1999, Arturia has gained a solid reputation for the quality of its emulations of classic analogue synthesizers. If the soft synth emulations of the classic Moog Minimoog and Yamaha CS-80 have made Arturia a name in the industry, the news of its development of a hardware DSP system made for enjoyable speculation and furious Google searches for videos, news and reviews. While units in Australia are somewhat scarce at present, an Origin was supplied for review by Musiclab in Brisbane, Australia. Where the initial review was for music press print media, there is so much more to this module that we can take a deeper look and share with the CDM community some of the issues and notable features of the Arturia Origin.

Hot dog purveyor Gray’s Papaya in New York is beloved for its “Recession Special”: two dogs and a drink. Their champagne is made from coconuts. And you don’t just scarf these down in bear markets; you enjoy them any time.

Dave Smith’s monophonic Mopho synth is perhaps the greatest recession special in the history of synthesis. It’s got the soul of a single voice from the Prophet ‘08 analog synth, but with sub-octave generators, distortion that they claim ranges to “extreme skronk,” and the ability to process audio input. Interestingly, that means its “skronkiness” and input processing address some of the complaints I’ve heard from people who didn’t immediately take to the new Prophet. The whole, 7.5×5″ package, with the 100% analog signal path mono synth, the Curtis analog low-pass filter, and a Mac/Windows editor, costs just US$400 street.

And then there’s that mysterious “Push It” button.

If you want some hands-on experience, our friend Chris Randall of Analog Industries (and Audio Damage) just got his:
Honky Mopho

I’m about the last person to mention the Mopho (I was out of town when it launched), so I went to the good peoples of Dave Smith to get a little more information. DSI’s Andrew McGowan responds.

And yes, we get to hear something about the ever-mysterious upcoming Dave Smith – Roger Linn LinnDrum II, which this is not.

The LinnDrum II (once the BoomChik) has become a somewhat mystical beast, looming over the horizon and taunting fans of synth and beat hardware. The collaboration between beat machine guru Roger Linn (of LinnDrum and MPC fame) and synth guru Dave Smith (of Dave Smith fame), the box has gone through various design revisions, each leaked and dissected by, well, people like me. Saturday brought a new set of news, as spotted by Tony Mission on Gearslutz.

Here’s what we know now:

We know that the LinnDrum will be a combination of Dave’s synthesis know-how and Roger’s approach to real-time sequencing and beatmaking. We know it’ll have digital and analog synth voices. We know it’ll do MPC-style real-time and 808-style step sequencing. It’s almost certain to retain onboard sampling, too. In fact, presumably the specs on Dave Smith’s site are still reasonably applicable.

What we don’t know is what the design will look like, or when it’ll ship. It won’t ship in 2008, so … 2009? The image above is not what the new LinnDrum II will look like. Roger released these images over the weekend, but they’ve already hit the wastebasket in favor a new design. On the design elements: