This is a nice synth that is very capable given its portability and price. It is geared towards making drones. I have to admit that I am really bad at genres and have my own ideas about what drones even are. When I make a drone, I want to create a piece of extended duration where timbral elements shift slowly and provide the bulk of the movement of the piece. So in my world, tonal changes and content take a backseat to waves changing shape, beating against each other, the change of harmonic content, resonance, etc. My drones are predominantly textural pieces where the rhythmic element comes from modulation of one or more elements by a fixed-rate cycling envelope or slow LFO.
Iâve outlined the above not because I think you care about my art but to point out that if you have a similar frame of mind, you will probably really like this synth. It is so well-designed for the kind of work I have in mind that my thought after my first session was âif this thing is so popular, why donât I have more plays on my Bandcamp?â 
Letâs look at the whole thing from left to right. The leftmost panel is the âUltra LFOâ. One thing thatâs neat about this is that the two LFOs have shapes which are complementary to each other in each position of the selector dial. The first position has a triangle wave for âWave 1â and a 90 degree phase-shifted triangle wave for âWave 2â. This is a kind of setup that is great to use for drones and textural pieces, particularly at a slow rate. Itâs like a little piece of that new Make Noise Multimod. Some of the other LFO shapes are really neat. The steppier or more varied ones towards the end are great for âkrellâ type pieces when applied to pitch, or apply them to filter to get cool rhythms with resonance. I feel like the LFO rate range is well chosen for drone pieces, where you often want things to be pretty slow. In theory I would like to have independent rates for the LFOs, or a clock divider sort of thing, but some of the waveforms available will give you an approximation of the second one, and the related-but-phased waveforms are really useful in this context.
Next are the two oscillators. One nice feature here is the âpitch linkâ switch, where you can dial in an interval between the two oscillators which will stay consistent while you vary the pitch of the first oscillator. This is like a really basic version of âFollowâ on the Make Noise DPO. Itâs fun for changing the pitch via knob while maintaining a harmonic relationship that keeps things from being too disorienting. Both oscillators have the same setup with pitch, a continuous wave shape selector, and their own filter with attenuators for the LFO to control how much it affects pitch or waveshape and filter frequency. Thereâs also a volume control for each oscillator which gets gain-y/gritty the further you push it. Thereâs a few patch points up the top, including for PWM, but not everything on the panel has a corresponding CV input so you are going to need to get out and push and perform your piece. I like the sound of the filters here, and the resonance can get pretty squelchy and almost acid-y. The morph of the waveshape is smooth and gives you a nice timbral variety.
Finally, you have the mixer and effects section. Thereâs a PT2399 delay and a digital reverb, along with an aux input. Note that the aux input is processed by the effects, which is really nice. I often like chaining things together in small setups as it can make everything sound more cohesive. Plus you can also just use the delay and reverb with another small synth if you like. The delay time is modulatable by LFO. Make sure you try the last reverb setting, âCH/HALLâ which has a really nice rippling chorus effect. I wish the maximum delay time was a bit longer. I think this is inherent to the PT2399. The MN Strega extends the delay time but it starts sounding pretty dirty ala Korg Monotron Delay. The reverbs are nice, especially the chorusing one. Of course if you are really into tuning your effects youâll probably have something else available already that youâll want to use, but itâs nice to have here. I feel like it is also not uncommon in drone and whatever my vague idea of ambient is to use multiple layers of effects, so you could conceivably use the onboard ones as part of your overall sound design. There is a switch to select mono reverbs, which may be wise if youâre going to a stereo external effect to avoid undesirable phasing.
Regarding the build quality, the housing is made of shiny plastic, with grooves on either side intended to join up other synths in the series. Itâs probably a bit more robust than it looks. If youâve had a Volca, itâs a similar feeling. All the knobs turn smoothly and donât feel gritty or too stiff. The panel switches are a little firm but not too bad. I do find the jacks a little stiff but those will get looser with repeated use. There is no âsoft touchâ coating on any of the parts. I felt like the knobs and other controls were well spaced for performance, similar to various larger Eurorack modules.
The synth also comes with a couple of neat cables in addition to a few standard Eurorack patch cables and a TRS cable to attach external audio sources. One is a splitter cable which you can use as a mult. Another has an inline attenuator. The inclusion of these items strikes me as being really thoughtful. You also get some batteries, so you have everything you need to get started.
There are a number of small drone synths available. This one is certainly the most portable since it has a battery bay and includes effects. Itâs probably the least expensive one in terms of price vs features. Less expensive drone synths like Crows Ovum or some of the JMT offerings do not include effects and are less configurable. More expensive ones like MN Strega or Elmyra 2 offer more patch points and a somewhat more âopinionatedâ experience. I wouldnât purchase this particular synth if I needed it to be a jack of all trades for general music production. Anything fairly knobby where you can sustain notes indefinitely can be made to serve for interesting drones, after all.
Overall, I think this is a really compelling package for the casual drone enthusiast, or for someone who doesnât want to haul a modular out to a jam with a friend, while traveling, etc. Dubreq have done a great job at thoughtfully designing a really interesting yet affordable synth that is fun to perform or just mess around with. I donât think I would have written so much about it if I hadnât seen it as something more than the current flavor of the month.
That was a very thorough and thoughtful piece you wrote there and I think you completely get the product design concept.
