Glacial Soundscapes with Evolving Drone Tones!
Drone synths are an ambient producer’s dream, generating slowly-evolving textures, tones and melodies for a dream-like glacial atmosphere, especially when used with reverb. The Elmyra is a new tabletop drone synth which you can build to immerse yourself in a lurid electronic soundscape with a gritty edge, thanks to its on-board analog distortion!
The Elmyra is based on the Adafruit ItsyBitsy M0 Express microcontroller, and has a 10-bit audio resolution which gives it a gritty sound. It features three oscillators which can be mixed using the front panel controls, which also include controls for feedback, delay, modulation, shape, filter, envelope and individual oscillator tuning. You may notice shades of the Lyra-8 in its design and sound, this was one of its main influences.
Choose to buy the Elmyra fully constructed or as a DIY unit, for which you’ll need a soldering iron, solder and a screwdriver – everything else is included. You can find more information, photos and videos on the Elmyra website . Hear what the Elmyra sounds like in the videos below:
Here is version 1.2 of the firmware, which features a chromatic mode and polyphonic playback.
The Elmyra is available from Neutral Labs who are based in Germany, and this is their first product – what a great start!