Animal Factory Amplification - Asura

Asura is a six-voice hybrid wavetable synth developed by Animal Factory together with Philtersoup, pairing two digital oscillators per voice with analogue fuzz, modulation, sequencing and a small pressure-sensitive touch keyboard. Animal Factory describe it as a “rabid” wavetable synthesizer, which is fair enough once you start pushing the distortion, but there is a much prettier side to this thing too. Slightly detune the two oscillators and you get these lovely slow beating frequencies, with sustained notes and chords gently shifting as the oscillators move in and out of phase.

The Melt control plays an important role here. Rather than simply adding another modulation effect, it introduces slow wandering instability to pitch and wavetable position while also softening the envelopes, making Asura feel less rigidly digital without trying to impersonate an old analogue polysynth. Add a little detune and Melt to a fairly simple wavetable and it can already sound wonderfully alive; increase the spread and things start phasing, beating and gently drifting out of tune. There are several voice arrangements too, from normal six-voice polyphony to three voices with four oscillators each, a twelve-oscillator unison mode and a chord mode where even the inversion can be modulated. Lovely stuff for slowly evolving chords and drones…!

Then there is the more classic Animal Factory side of the instrument. Oscillator A can frequency-modulate oscillator B, and the signal can be pushed into a digitally controlled analogue fuzz circuit with drive, gain, a rather unusual notch-to-low-pass filter, gated fuzz and bipolar feedback. Turn that feedback far enough and the circuit starts generating overtones and self-oscillating on its own. Alongside it sits a dual-head granular delay that can run forwards or backwards, smear repeats with diffusion and increasingly reduce fidelity as the delay time gets longer.

And what about modulation? Two envelopes, two morphing LFOs, keyboard pressure and two external CV inputs can all be assigned directly to parameters, with colour-coded controls showing you what is being modulated. As if all of this wasn't already enough, there's also an eight-step polyphonic sequencer with parameter locks and live knob recording, an arpeggiator, 25 onboard presets and a pressure-controlled randomizer for making variations of the sound you already have rather than simply throwing the dice from scratch. Asura can certainly get nasty, but we think its slightly wonky, beating, not-quite-in-tune side might be what keeps you coming back to it. A beautiful-sounding little synth, you'll understand once you hear it!

Features:

• Six-voice hybrid polyphonic wavetable synthesizer
• Developed by Animal Factory Amplification together with Philtersoup
• Two custom DSP wavetable oscillators per voice
• Independent wavetable position for both oscillators
• Detune control for widening voices and creating beating between oscillators
• Melt introduces slow random movement to tuning and wavetable position while softening envelope response
• Oscillator A can frequency-modulate oscillator B
• Four voice modes:
  • Six voices with two oscillators per voice
  • Three voices with four oscillators per voice
  • Twelve-oscillator unison
  • Chord mode with selectable chord type and inversion
• Chord inversions can be modulated
• Digitally controlled analogue fuzz circuit
• Independent fuzz drive and internal gain controls
• Rakta notch-to-low-pass filter for shaping the distortion
• Soma gated fuzz
• Bipolar Ketu feedback with controllable self-oscillation
• Dry/fuzz blend
• Dual-head granular delay with forward and reverse operation
• Delay diffusion, tone, feedback, wow/flutter and saturation
• Fidelity decreases at longer delay times
• Two envelopes
• Two LFOs with continuously morphing waveforms
• LFO sync to internal, MIDI or CV clock
• Assignable modulation from envelopes, LFOs, keyboard pressure and two CV inputs
• Pressure-sensitive touch keyboard
• Eight-step polyphonic sequencer
• Parameter locks and live knob automation recording
• Arpeggiator with Up, Down, Up/Down and Random modes
• Pressure-controlled randomizer based around the current patch
• 25 onboard presets
• Full MIDI control of parameters
• USB-C MIDI
• TRS MIDI Type A In, Out and Thru
• Clock In/Out
• Gate In/Out
• V/Oct In/Out
• Two assignable CV inputs
• Main audio output and headphone output
• 12V DC / 1A power supply