In his latest video, Alex Theakston of Mylar Melodies offers an in-depth hands-on demo of the new Intellijel Cascadia semi-modular synthesizer.
The video is an official, commissioned Intellijel overview of Cascadia, vs an independent review. It covers the panel in depth and demonstrates how Cascadia sounds, with a wide variety of patches.
Cascadia is an advanced, performance-oriented semi-modular synthesizer, but with the footprint of a laptop. It features a modern analog architecture, with a mix of classic East Coast and West Coast functions. It’s normalized, meaning that the individual modules have internal ‘default’ connections, so you can instantly get started with it. But you can also patch any of the modules together, however you choose, or use them independently with other gear.
Topics covered:
00:00 Hello montage
01:30 Panel Walkthrough
08:00 Sounds Begin: Drone
08:29 Traditional Acid
10:42 Calm Acid
13:03 Itchy Acid
13:27 Majestic Fifths via FX Loop
14:20 Feedback FM Acid
15:15 Calm Foldy Plucks
16:00 Steppy Filter Acid
18:20 Contemplative Acids
19:21 Duophonic Acid
21:14 Wavefolded Helltones
22:39 Righteous Ring Mod Jam
25:38 29 Second Reverb Acid Dream
Some great sounds there, love that you can hear that he loves acid, what an amazing vst in a box
I’m confused by the “VST in a box” statement. You do realize the oscillators are analog, right?
“aliasing in high registers is no longer an issue and hasn’t been since the mid 90’s, so every synth in existence is just a vst in a box.”
is an actual argument that was made on the original cascadia post.
Clearly, you haven’t read my explanation. Gadi was just invoking my descriptive name for your seemingly overpriced box. It is nice that you have included analog oscillators, but your insulting remarks to my initial post were to the statement that I made about making analog oscillators so well behaved that they might just as well be older digital oscillators. My main point that I developed through that last thread was that it no longer makes a difference what produces the initial waveforms anymore. Digital oscillators models are no capable of imitating even the most obscure properties of analog oscillators, so much so that in empirical tests, people of all levels of experience with music can’t tell the difference, So, about 20, or so years ago, analog oscillators might have made a difference (however, if they were so well behaved that they didn’t sound like analog oscillators, they wouldn’t be any better than digital ones).
And these are stone cold facts, correct? If anyone here were to have an opinion that analog oscillators were still useful, or still contained character that digital cannot duplicate, they would be objectively wrong?
It depends on what you mean by “stone cold facts”. If you take responses by listeners as the basis for making a determination, then YES. Nowhere have I ever implied that analog oscillators do not have their place. All I have said is that you can replace analog oscillators with digital ones that produce the same outcomes as to listening experiences. If you are building a hardware box and you are looking for an “analog” sound, then it probably makes more sense to just use a VCO IC. However, if the goal is to produce a synth with acoustic flexibility that goes well beyond what a VCO is capable of achieving, then it makes more sense to go digital. Of course, there is the intermediary position that is occupied by synths like the Prologue, that allow the best of both worlds (and which, apparently, can be made to sound even more “analog” with the inclusion of a new digital oscillator 🙂 ).
Gotta love the random “VST in a box” knee-jerk comments. (Though I’m pretty sure gadi is being ironic here).
Do we need to start calling plugins intangible hardware or something?
“There’s an irony at play here if you look closely.“
Obvious troll is obvious 😀
This is a hardware synth, you dont need a pc to run it
So is a 3d Wave or a Quantum, so what’s your point?
i tried the digital lsd. just not the same as some good old fashioned needlepoint on geltabs
I’m excited for the cascadia. Even more when you realize people are just digging deep for a reason to dislike it. Like really deep. Looks cool, sounds good, has functionality, done and done. Once you start talking about components, or lack of polyphonic aftertouch, or why every drum machine doesn’t have individual outs, I just stop caring. Intellijel never ceases to amaze me, from their cases to their modules 3u and 1u, they can do no wrong, yet.
i like intellijel. expect their modules tend to be a bit to menu-y. I have a ton of their 1U stuff. jsut not excited about the price tag vs functionality.
I didn’t have to dig too deep. They had me with “precision oscillators”!