Rhythmic Robot Audio – SteamPunk

Across the city’s grimy, sooty rooftops, weaving between belching chimneys and Tesla arc coils, an evil genius in a clanking mechanical exoskeleton grimly stalks a dashing young woman whose only crime was daring to dream of becoming an aeronaut. Now that dream will be beaten out of her in the dark, lonely walls of Newgate Prison – unless, of course, she can get to her prototype gyrocopter in time…

Taking inspiration from alternate universes and the excesses of alt-Victorian gothic (with a little H.G. Wells thrown in for good measure), SteamPunk is a Frankestian mash-up of hurdy-gurdy, steam engine, and electrosynth—the perfect instrument for serenading the ghouls of Paris at night while you float safely above them in your hot air balloon. Or something like that. However you decide to use it, it sounds pretty cool.

SteamPunk is based around three sound engines: Steam Pipes are organ-style wooden pipes with a throaty, flute-like presence; Reeded Pipes are taken from our 37-note Suzuki Melodica and bring a more buzzy and harmonically dense tonality; while Anbaric Waves access a gritty, electrically generated set of oscillators driven by faulty paper cone speakers and prone to overloading and breaking. Additionally, Sub and Noise waves can be welded into the mix to expand the sonic palette even further.

These sound engines create the basic tone, but what really brings SteamPunk to life is the Mechanisms panel , where you can take control of the squeaks, wheezes, buzzes, and hisses that any self-respecting alt-Victorian anbaric hurdy-gurdy produces as it goes along. Key press and release noises are handled separately, while a dedicated bank of dials controls exactly how imprecise you want your waveforms to be. Pitch and pressure are subject to random variations, and there’s plenty of deliberate instability in the instrument. The basic waveforms can be detuned, set to fifths, or doubled for thickness; and the whole thing can be run through a good mastication filter circuit to bring it under control.

The result is a soundscape that can evoke both the nostalgic glow of a fairground calliope and the unrelenting menace of Dr Jekyll’s laboratory: a turn of the dial can be the difference between sweet simplicity and grim oppression. Anbaric Waves’ balancing act with two airy oscillators allows the sound’s organic vibration to be either subtle or full-on, while the filter and various control options mean that more traditional pipe-based starting points can be given a modern (or wormhole-universe) twist. And of course, our Glitch Control gives you instant randomised patches to call your own!

SteamPunk is perfect for sound design, scores, or just adding instant inspiration and left-field patina to any genre. It pairs beautifully with our other hybrid or sci-fi instruments, and adds a weird and eerie quality when layered with more traditional synths. Put on your goggles, drop your chronometers, and fire it up…

• A strange and unusual alternate universe sound generator
• Bellows-driven pipes, reed tubes and anbaric circuits working in harmony
• Powerful uncertainty controls ensure every note is unique
• Customizable mechanical noises for user-defined squeaks, rattles, groans and hisses
• This is what synths would sound like in a parallel wormhole of Dickensian London