Supercritical NEUTRON FLUX 8 Pole Variable Character Filter

[suthnear]

I finally got one: it is astonishing. I hesitated buying one for some time because I had a number of reservations:

• filters with tons of modes tend to be mediocre at most of them with just a few stand outs

• and even if the filter does have more than a few of decent modes, a few modes end up dominating anyway

• filters that implement distortion tend to be a bit honky or scratchy so I end up not using this much

• but, perhaps most importantly, I have yet to encounter an expensive filter that justified its price. I have had many of these and all are sold now. I had decided just to have a bunch of best-in-class single mode filters (I have and have had lots of these)

But I heard something in the demos and I am so glad I overcame my resistance. Literally everything sounds good - the distortion is wonderful - and it modulates extremely well. There is so much in the spaces between the character types and modes that I would be quite happy having this as my only filter. This is not something I ever imagined saying.

One reservation: I think this is a filter for people who deeply appreciate filters. At first pass with low-ish resonance the character positions don't sound that different so I could see this being a bit disappointing - particularly at the price - for someone who is looking for a wide variety of easily achievable different filter tones in a single module (as would be provided by e.g. the polaris or ebbe-und-flut on the analogue side, or vult on the digital side). And it's certainly not a set of classic filters in a single package (since the filter sound of classic instruments depends on everything else in the signal path as well). However, this turns out to be a benefit rather than a detriment. Classic filter sounds are the start of the journey with the NF not the destination. And it is the space between these starting points that turns out to be really interesting. For example, a blend between liquid and sour places you firmly into roland space, but it's no roland filter that has ever existed. And when I say filter I should really say filters because even small adjustments in one direction or the other change the response. Most importantly, all of this is extremely playable: provided you set up the poles correctly, these adjustments are extremely smooth and natural. The knobs feel terrific and classy and really contribute to this. This is a very good thing because given that you can modulate character and mode and drive as well as changing poles, well, let's just say you could be at this for a very long time.

For me the NF is to filters what joranalogue's generate 3 is to oscillators: the next level of a concept that has increasingly looked like it might be played out. So, so impressed.

[suthnear]

Oh, one negative: the neutral output is fairly quiet (at least compared with other filters) so if you want to filter without drive you may need to raise the level afterwards by other means

[nodog]

This seems like a brilliant filter which almost does everything I want. It just misses out on one trick that (for me at least) seems so obvious to implement in a stereo filter but isn't in most of them. I'm talking about a reversed polarity option for the cut-off freq modulation on 1 of the channels.(when left goes up, right goes down)

It's so easy to get brilliant stereo FX this way. Any chance this might get added in a firmware update?

[tisaalho]

This seems like a brilliant filter which almost does everything I want. It just misses out on one trick that (for me at least) seems so obvious to implement in a stereo filter but isn't in most of them. I'm talking about a reversed polarity option for the cut-off freq modulation on 1 of the channels.(when left goes up, right goes down)

You can actually do this trick: that's how the Stereo CV / knob works on most characters. I.e. increasing the stereo CV / turning knob clockwise increases right channel cutoff and decreases it on the left. Vice versa for decreasing CV / knob position, and at center the cutoffs are equal. Near the center it's useful for fine tuning the cutoffs.

[hzzzu]

Quick patch idea: When doing resonant filter sweeps with a long decay envelope, S&H a voltage near zero (±0.5 V) in the stereo cv input with gate as the S&H trigger. That'll give you some pan randomization in the stereo image. This does something similar that an Oberheim would do if the voice pan pots would be randomized and the voice allocation cycles them.

[nodog]

This seems like a brilliant filter which almost does everything I want. It just misses out on one trick that (for me at least) seems so obvious to implement in a stereo filter but isn't in most of them. I'm talking about a reversed polarity option for the cut-off freq modulation on 1 of the channels.(when left goes up, right goes down)

You can actually do this trick: that's how the Stereo CV / knob works on most characters. I.e. increasing the stereo CV / turning knob clockwise increases right channel cutoff and decreases it on the left. Vice versa for decreasing CV / knob position, and at center the cutoffs are equal. Near the center it's useful for fine tuning the cutoffs.

Thanks!

[tisaalho]

Good news: we're finally very close to releasing the first firmware update, which gives a new bank and fixes some minor niggles here and there!

Before we release it to all the world, we'd like to make sure there's no bugs etc gone unnoticed. In other words, we're looking for beta testers.

So if you have the Neutron Flux, and you'd like to give the update a quick go before we release it (the release is probably next week, if there's no bugs found), drop us a line at info@supercriticalsynthesizers.com, including the serial number of your Neutron Flux, and we'll send you the update link, instructions etc etc.

Changes:
- Yellow character bank is added, see bank description sheet for new responses. Banks are switched by holding "BUTTON" until character LED color changes
- Increase character, mode, resonance and stereo CV -update rate to 4kHz
- Reduce noise when "CHARACTER" is between the named positions. Reduces Character CV effective bandwidth to about 600Hz
- Change pole selection pattern to "traffic light", i.e. order is now 2, 4, 1, 3, 6, 8

Yellow character bank:

Note: Characters might not have all the six possible pole settings. Usually these characters have 2, 4, 6 and 8 pole settings.

Liquid:

2, 4, 6, 8 pole settings are variations on phasers (i.e. multi notch), Mode controls notch width and low / high emphasis at high reso, resonance adds peaks in addition to notches. 6 and 8 pole settings are connected in series.

Crisp:

Chebyshev filters. Usable on FX and pad type patches.

2 pole: 4 pole Chebyshev Type II, resonance controls stopband ripple, mode is LP -> HP
4 pole: 4 pole Chebyshev Type I, resonance controls passband ripple, mode is LP -> HP
6 pole: 8 pole series Chebyshev Type I, resonance controls passband ripple, mode is LP -> HP, stereo control is disabled
8 pole: 8 pole series Chebyshev Type II, resonance controls stopband ripple, mode is LP -> HP, stereo control is disabled


Fat:

Dual band resonators, mode controls peak separation, resonance controls relative peak amplitude.

1 pole: LP resonators
2 pole: BP resonators
3 pole: HP resonators
4 pole: BP resonators, lower Q
6 pole: same as the 2 pole BP setting in series, with inner drive. Stereo still splits the frequencies for a four-band response.
8 pole: same as the 4 pole BP setting in series, with inner drive. Stereo still splits the frequencies for a four-band response.

Mean:

Oscillator modes, in which both channels act as separate oscillators. Mode is fine tune, resonance affects the waveshape, stereo can be used to fine tune the channels. Try the left output patched into FM input and adjust stereo control for wild FM.

2 pole: phase oscillator, stereo controls phase difference between channels.
4 pole: dual oscillator
6 pole: wave folder osc
8 pole: wave folder osc, using the boosted second stage for further distortion

Sour:

Distortion modes, which do not sound dramatic unless overdriven. Meant to be used with the boost on.

1 pole: flat distortion, reso and mode adjust distortion tone.
2 pole: distortion with slight eq'ing.
3 pole: variation on flat distortion.
4 pole: Pultec style low-high-shelf (i.e. slight peaking before and after the shelf), also good for distortion work, mode goes low to high shelf, resonance controls peaking at the shelf edges.
6 pole: Distortion with pre shelf, reso controls distortion tone, mode goes from low to high shelf.
8 pole: same as 6 but with post shelf.

[Jay]

The new modes look awesome. Can't wait to hear some demos!
Are there any plans to release the firmware code with an open source license at some point in the future?

[jollyjack]

This wasn't on my radar until a few days ago, but now I'm extremely hyped for it! Owners of this filter, I would love to see some more (long) videos once the new firmware is out!

[hzzzu]

The new firmware 1.2 is out!

You can download it at our site and update your module via audio

http://supercriticalsynthesizers.com/neutronflux/

I'll try to get inspired to make a playthrough video of all of the modes in next week or so.

There's a handy character guide which sums up all of the content in this update. Woohoo!

[hzzzu]

Oh! And huge thanks for the beta testers of this fw update. The input and ideas were really valuable. We might do this again for the next one!

[suthnear]

This looks amazing. Will definitely be checking out the distortions tonight. Thanks so much