Unusable Engineering has released Currents & Nostalgia, a six-voice analog-style synth with a neat way to make sounds change as they play. Its dual slot system lets producers build moving patches without having to set up a pile of separate modulation routes.
Rasmus Nyåker, the firm's founder, based its two oscillators on a saw-core circuit he had made for an earlier hardware project. Both use circuit modeling, while a saturating waveform mixer adds color before the sound reaches the low-pass and high-pass filters.
Here's where the synth gets interesting. The oscillator and filter sections each have eight slots that can hold full sets of settings. Instead of changing one knob at a time, users can jump between whole states or let the values glide from one state to the next.
And the two slot banks don't have to move in sync. Each can follow its own pattern and speed, even at audio rates. That opens up room for fast tone shifts, slow filter changes, and detailed rhythmic motion within a single patch.
Parameter locks add another layer of control. A producer can keep certain settings fixed while the rest of the patch moves through its stored states. Handy when a bass sound needs to stay stable in one area while other parts keep changing.
Despite the extra movement tools, Currents & Nostalgia sticks to a basic subtractive synth layout. It can handle familiar analog-style tones as well as patches that shift over time. The appeal is having those changes built into the instrument rather than having to map each one by hand.
There's a fair bit to explore from the start, with 350 factory presets ready to load. Six-note polyphony also means users can play chords, not just single-note lines.
Currents & Nostalgia costs €89, with Danish VAT of 25% part of that price. Local taxes can change the final bill. It runs on macOS 12 or newer and Windows 10 or 11, with AU and VST3 plugin support.
A 30-day refund policy comes with the purchase. For producers who enjoy hands-on synth programming, the main draw is the chance to store full oscillator and filter states, then make them move at different rates without a complex routing setup.
Rasmus Nyåker, the firm's founder, based its two oscillators on a saw-core circuit he had made for an earlier hardware project. Both use circuit modeling, while a saturating waveform mixer adds color before the sound reaches the low-pass and high-pass filters.
Here's where the synth gets interesting. The oscillator and filter sections each have eight slots that can hold full sets of settings. Instead of changing one knob at a time, users can jump between whole states or let the values glide from one state to the next.
And the two slot banks don't have to move in sync. Each can follow its own pattern and speed, even at audio rates. That opens up room for fast tone shifts, slow filter changes, and detailed rhythmic motion within a single patch.
Parameter locks add another layer of control. A producer can keep certain settings fixed while the rest of the patch moves through its stored states. Handy when a bass sound needs to stay stable in one area while other parts keep changing.
Despite the extra movement tools, Currents & Nostalgia sticks to a basic subtractive synth layout. It can handle familiar analog-style tones as well as patches that shift over time. The appeal is having those changes built into the instrument rather than having to map each one by hand.
There's a fair bit to explore from the start, with 350 factory presets ready to load. Six-note polyphony also means users can play chords, not just single-note lines.
Currents & Nostalgia costs €89, with Danish VAT of 25% part of that price. Local taxes can change the final bill. It runs on macOS 12 or newer and Windows 10 or 11, with AU and VST3 plugin support.
A 30-day refund policy comes with the purchase. For producers who enjoy hands-on synth programming, the main draw is the chance to store full oscillator and filter states, then make them move at different rates without a complex routing setup.
