Clatters Machines EXP-FX
Small town lovers of music and electronic instruments Clatters Machines to announces the availability of its EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna) - latterly translated (into English) as the Sun and the Moon, marketed as a 6HP Eurorack expander module for its Sibilla stereo digital oscillator (that translates the beauty and harshness of a semi-barren mountain into a 10HP Eurorack module that sculpts sound with various saw and sine waves running through intricate delay networks altered by LFOs - Low Frequency Oscillators - and white noise to create constructive and destructive interferences, enabling ever-evolving soundscapes that can be both droning and/or melodic in nature) to allow anyone to use this majestic modular pairing in two different ways, depending on the uploaded firmware - as of November 15…
Same panorama under different glows. With wonderfully evocative words like those framing Clatters Machines’ concept of being able to see the same panorama - in this case, the mountain of Sibilla that lends its name to the small town lovers of music and electronic instruments’ much-loved Eurorack module - under different lights and shadows, EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna) literally sounds interesting. Indeed, depending on the uploaded Sibilla firmware, it can either act as an actual Sibilla expander - enabling direct control over more of that module’s parameters - or a stereo pitch-shifting drone effect - enabling users to process an external oscillator in the same way that Sibilla processes its internal waveforms. Digging deeper, the EXP firmware adds more control of Sibilla’s internal AR (Attack Release) envelope and filter resonant frequency. For instance, it is possible to transition from long release droning pads to crazy and noisy percussive sounds as a result of this.
The FX firmware, for its part, turns the Sibilla-plus-EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna) modular pairing into an intricate stereo pitch-shifting drone effect, effectively splitting the incoming sound into two separate pitch-shifted tracks whose stereophony is affected by the movements of the LFOs, multiple instances of white noise, delay lines, and sampled bits of audio. Thanks to the configurable Eurorack/line stereo inputs, it is possible to process an external oscillator, instrument, or sample in the same way that Sibilla processes its internal waveforms - by creating an intricate network of pitch-shifted delay lines, freezing them, and looping them, thereby creating a complex architecture of resonant frequencies and pitch-shifted audio tracks moving through the stereophonic field, in other words.
“As an intricate and evolving drone machine, Sibilla has been a major inspiration for both us as musicians and also many customers - couldn’t be prouder of this.” So states Clatters Machines Co-founder, engineer, electronic designer Michelangelo Nasso, before delving into the enticing EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna) backstory by way of ending with some wonderfully evocative words of his own: “As a result of product showcases at festivals and fairs where we chatted with musicians, friends, and customers, we started wondering how well-known oscillators and instruments would have sounded if processed in the same way that Sibilla does with its internal waveforms; we realised at the same time that Sibilla would not be complete without more control over basic elements such as its internal envelope, so we decided to combine two ideas for two new expander modules into a single unit - namely, EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna), a ‘dual’ expander that allows Sibilla to be used in two different ways... like looking at the same mountain under different tones and glows.”
EXP-FX (il Sole e la Luna) is available worldwide - with a choice of silver- or black-coloured aluminium front panels - from Clatters Machines’s growing global network of retailers or directly via its online Store.