12/23/2023 0 Comments Detune mac review![]() In the menu you can select from one of 6 playing modes. It’s pretty straight forward and the synth even comes with a card that maps out the entire structure of the menu and how it works. Over on the right is a menu that uses the Preset Control knob and Menu button to navigate its parameters. It feels slightly odd that it would need any special justification in the Nymphes. The thing is that any synth that combines presets or digital control with analogue knobs or sliders won’t reflect the patch in the front panel. I’ve seen a lot of commentary on the Nymphes front panel. An envelope can also be helpfully visual with those sliders but of course, once you’ve used Shift or selected a preset they won’t represent the actual values. By default, it controls the ADSR of the filter and you need Shift to control the ADSR of the VCA – I’m not sure which I would be fiddling with the most. The envelopes are perhaps where you feel it the most. I do get the shifting muddled sometimes but for me, that’s part of how you explore a synthesizer and I see the potential for happy accidents as a positive thing. Honestly, in playing with it for a few days now, I have had very few issues with the interface. The labelling is clear, the functionality is obvious and all you have to do is get used to it as an interface. This has the potential of creating a bit of confusion and accidental parameter changes where you forget to press shift but it’s certainly not uncommon in synths to have layers of control. At the same time, they control the parameters written above them in pink when the Shift button is held or latched. The sliders control all the parameters written below them. The front panel has a scattering of sliders that tell half the story whereas the other half is told via a Shift button. It invites and rewards in the simplest of terms. You can pull it easily from stabs into organesque tones, then drip in some bubbling resonance, push in some deeper attacks, and get weird with the LFOs. It’s instant and analogue and not remotely complicated and yet has some very pleasing little tricks up its sleeve. It has the vibe of a monosynth with the minimal controls that implies. You are only playing with sawtooth, square and triangle waveforms in a single oscillator and so the synthiness is distinct, chewable and without chorus or delay to mess it about, it’s right in your face. The sound is classically smooth and brassy. All of it is packed into a good looking, metal desktop box that’s smaller than a Typhon and bigger than a Volca. There’s a digital reverb, a chord mode, expression mapping and a preset system for 49 factory and 49 user presets. Nymphes is a 6-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with simple waveforms, sub-oscillator, noise generator, a 24dB/octave lowpass filter, 6dB/octave high-pass filter, 2 envelopes, 1 per voice LFO and 1 global LFO with multiple waveforms. You get a great Quick Start guide in the boxīut anyway, Nymphes comes to the table with a different set of priorities to most polysynths and I think Dreadbox has been very clever here in terms of how it functions and for a price of only £419. Now I don’t know whether playing a synth will smash the patriarchy anymore than other synths will kill fascists but I applaud the sentiment and concept of intersecting our love of handcrafted synths with the reality of life that many people experience. I wonder if there’s some correlation between the clarity of the elements and how this synth is “dedicated to all the abused and oppressed women in the world and how through navigating Nymphes we may become a better synth player and a better human”. It is unashamedly naked which forces you to fundamentally treat it differently. ![]() It has a reverb which we’ll come onto in a minute, but the sound is largely raw and standing on its own. The first thing that struck me about the Nymphes is the lack of effects. ![]() It makes everything sound good, so good that perhaps we don’t really need to put too much thought into our synthesizing. You turn on a synth for the first time, doesn’t matter if it’s hardware or software, pick up a preset and wham – a huge sound, moving, chorusing, dripping in reverb and sparking with delays that disappear off to the heavens. If there’s one thing that often defines the sound of a modern polysynth it’s the effects.
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