Announcing Strega!

[deke]

The various scenes in the video of woods and abandoned structures had a nice Blair Witch thing going, but far creepier and far less annoying than the movie. I want a remake my MN!

[mgscheue]

Good interview with Tony, with a lot of info on Strega and its development.
https://podularmodcast.fireside.fm/tonyreturns

[The Grump]

Looks pretty cool. It seems rather inspired by some of Peter Blasser's work. Lots of chaos, and squishing points built in to this little beastie. Sooner or later, one of these things will end up in my rig.

[smetak]

Having the 0 Coast for a couple of years now (and never knowing what the hell I'm doing) and being a massive Cortini fan, had to preorder one - though the wait will seem long - all two hundred units have been sold and my local MN distributor is having a bit of a rough time in finding one.

[starthief]

Another good one, video chat with Tony Rolando and Alessandro Cortini:

[SuperChoo]

An excellent overview from Sarah Belle Reid:

[Beewo]

I have to say I have already patched up my Erica Synths Pico system 3 / 0-Ctrl combo to act as a send FX/voice inspired by the Strega, but it isn't really even close to being similar other than the basic idea. Still it is giving me great ideas on how I will use the Strega as a voice/fx amalgamation. Truly seems like a brilliant device.

[starthief]

Her video really is clearer than any of the previous info, and there was some real talk in there

I think there's a bit more kinship to the Lyra-8 than I thought, but it's not the surface-level "good at noisy drones and has a filthy delay" aspects. It's the cross-modulation and feedback routing, and not being entirely predictable, and very gestural. Agitation being based on something that the delay is doing, for instance.

Some of my favorite instruments and modules have had features (or even bugs) like this that really add life, and it's nice to see this designed into the basic nature of the synth. (For instance, on Kermit mk2, the first oscillator can influence the second one through some kind of wavetable-based mask and it's completely undocumented and there are no controls for it. The Arturia Microbrute, with soft and gentle sounds, has these feedback thresholds with "brute factor" that make it sort of curl around itself like a warm blanket. And the Pittsburgh Double Helix I owned had all this crosstalk and odd behavior that gave it a ton of character.)

[debris]

I think there's a bit more kinship to the Lyra-8 than I thought

I'm curious to see what people who own a Lyra think of the Strega and it possibilities compared to the Lyra. To me, it also seems like they are very similar in concept.

[0netwo0netwo]

Hainbach is releasing a video this coming monday and i believe he will be addressing some of those comparisons
pretty excited for that video as well , but this one by SBR was pretty freakin fiya!!

[starthief]

I owned a Lyra. The synthesis options on it felt pretty limited, with no filters, very little waveshaping and even the envelopes have only two settings (albeit you could have *some* control by adjusting the Hold threshold knobs and to a very small extent, varying skin contact with the metal plates). Of course there are 8 oscillators rather than one, and it sounds very full and busy. (It also dominates a mix and needs EQ treatment to eaae the resonances.) Cross modulation is only engaged when you're playing notes and is not really anything like typical FM. And forget about CV sequencing, because it didn't respond to it with anything like exponential or linear response or over much range. But it was a very tactile instrument and inspiring to play, until I fell out of love with its sound anyway.

The impression I get of Strega is generally less brash except when Activation is cranked way up. Probably more flexible as a synth and much more cooperative with other gear.

I don't think the overall mood of the two instruments is really all that close. I figure Strega probably would suit me better.

[Pyrrhix]

The sound of the Lyra is often dominated by the tone of bare square waves in a way that I don’t like. If the oscillator section was more interesting, I would have bought one a long time ago as it otherwise seems great.

I just preordered a Strega. The oscillator section, touch points, crunchy PT2399 noise, and lots of mod inputs and outputs all appeal to me. Seems like a great flexible device for the types of irregular noise and drone that I enjoy. Also looks like a great device for death industrial and power electronics, which is something I’m after.

I hope to see more purpose-built stand-alone boxes like this in the future rather than more familiar monos and polys. If MN did a device in this format with Morphagene style sampling and a reverb, their 4 desktop boxes would make such a solid, complete semi modular workstation.

[Diabolik!]

I think there's a bit more kinship to the Lyra-8 than I thought

I'm curious to see what people who own a Lyra think of the Strega and it possibilities compared to the Lyra. To me, it also seems like they are very similar in concept.

based on what I've seen so far, I'll be keeping my Lyra.

[neonmercury1]

i had been looking at building a THC recursive machine which seems similar but im starting to lean to more the strega or both direction. i think they seem somewhat comparable in functions but not implementation and interface. interface of strega seems much better and more playable. but they seem to reach similar sonic territory that im looking for

[starthief]

It's kind of interesting that the design was partially inspired by the EMS Synthi, some people have thought it was kind of Ciat-Lombarde like, SBR compared it to the Benjolin and Blippo Box, and of of course the Lyra comparisons.

Alchemy indeed: D

[pmboos]

I am really enjoying her vid (having to watch it piecemeal). At any rate, I can see this being a great little synth to add. I think it will sound awesome next to my Quadrantid Swarm. I'm also noodling how it would sound with the new Pluto that will be coming out. That has some great sounds as well...

I think those would be the first set of experiments beyond just adding it to the 0-CTRL and 0-Coast.

[Hovercraft]

i had been looking at building a THC recursive machine which seems similar but im starting to lean to more the strega or both direction. i think they seem somewhat comparable in functions but not implementation and interface. interface of strega seems much better and more playable. but they seem to reach similar sonic territory that im looking for

No question, there’s some sonic overlap between the recursive machine and the Strega. A good bit of that is from clocking the PT2399 at its extremes, so it starts to produce noise on its own. The recursive machine is also full of semi-normalled feedback loops. Listening to the Strega demos, I occasionally hear some sounds very similar to recursive machine recordings I’ve made. The recursive machine works beautifully with the 0-Ctrl, but the Strega does look more playable and artist-friendly. The rm has two oscs, but they don’t track at 1v/oct. With an unquantized sequencer like the 0-Ctrl, this isn’t a big issue, but adding in a 1v/oct osc (like the 0-Coast) can make it hard keeping things melodic.

[Acquadar]

Seems that MN dont want that others MN oscillators sounds as good as the main osc of the DPO. O Coast therefore has a worse sounding oscillator. Even worse than STO. From what I hear Strega also has an oscillator which is not as good as it could be. I order one but... It’s a shame...

[starthief]

Heh, I preferred the 0-Coast's oscillator over DPO myself. The triangle sounds so good with the bit of saturation in the output stage. I don't really like the wavefolder in either 0-Coast or DPO as much as some others though, through part of its range.

[Acquadar]

Dreamin a Strega with a Buchla Easel main Osc...

[leftbracket]

I've been very happy with my Lyra-8, including some of the parts of it that I see many people don't gel with, but PT2399 gunk is among its lesser selling points in my view, and I often find myself bypassing the delay entirely. That said, Strega's implementation thereof seems far more interesting to me, mostly because of the filter, and I'm also quite interested in the touch-point patching much like I am with the Lyra method of building strange interacting patterns and FM sonorities from different touchplates (I could go off for ages about how I feel that most people don't really get Lyra, but I don't think it's really warranted). I'm not sure if Strega would suit my particular way of doing things, and the raw sound of the oscillator is to me a bit underwhelming, but I'm definitely interested.

[Unborn Gore]

I couldn’t care less about how the oscillator sounds. I have plenty of oscillators, samplers, and other sound sources to send into the preamp and take advantage of the other parts of the Strega.

I think the preamp and the saturation at different junctures is the main draw here.

[Beewo]

Yeah Strega seems like a thing that I am going to have to really explore myself before I can really cast a proper judgment of how it will make sense for me. I am mostly getting it to play with as a sound processor, but the oscillator means it can almost play both sides, the input can be processed by the FX while at the same time be effecting the oscillator having the oscillator more or less be processed by your sound. I could see why you might want an oscillator that is easy to fit in the mix especially when you are almost never going to be fully in control of it.

So far everyone seems quite genuinely enthusiastic about it who has spent time with it but they also curated who it went out to pretty wisely.

I kind of get the feeling that it is going to be that extra spice for a lot of people but not the meat and potatoes of their music.

[pmboos]

I couldn’t care less about how the oscillator sounds. I have plenty of oscillators, samplers, and other sound sources to send into the preamp and take advantage of the other parts of the Strega.

I think the preamp and the saturation at different junctures is the main draw here.

In watching the videos, particularly Sarah Belle Reid's, it seems the chief reason for it to have an oscillator is to throw in that instability to create some interesting random warbles.

I really enjoyed some of the sounds she passed in as well. I really liked what she got as she banged that cookie sheet. It enhanced the metallic sound.

[ninicoco]

HAINBACH demo