Hey, if running a label to release music seems a daft idea these days, there’s always selling hardware. And Ninja Tune’s new hardware effect looks like it’s got some serious potential.
Gear guru and underground weirdo music impresario Ingmar Koch and his Liquid Sky Berlin / gearporn.berlin blog get the scoop here. But already from the hardware we can tell a few things:
- The hardware sure looks like Erica Synths’ stuff. (Casing and knobs are a dead ringer for the Acidbox. So whether or not they did the engineering, they may have done the manufacturing and enclosure.
- It seems to have a big tube. (See also Erica’s love for Polivoks-era, ex-USSR tubes and recreations.)
- There are multiple delay modes: Stereo Delay, Tape Delay, Ping Pong Delay, and BBD Delay (Bucket Brigade – think classic chip delays)
- Feedback, delay time, and tap tempo
- A multimode analog filter (lowpass, bandpass, highpass) with overdrive knob
- MIDI IN, which suggests you also get MIDI sync (good!)
- CV in for analog control (and one control I’m unsure of, maybe pulse in – who has better eyesight than I do?)
So, it’s apparently some retro-style chip delay with analog filter and … tube for overdrive? That could get nicely nasty.
Plus if Erica was working on this, having tried their Acidbox line, expect all the right kind of mayhem.
I’ll be eager to get hands on this. The involvement of Ninja Tune suggests our friend Matt Black of Coldcut had some input with this, and he does love his tech.
More – photos of the prototype:
pure gearporn: ninja tune zendelay – hardware news leak [gearporn.berlin]