Body Synths - Laboratory

After the rather excellent Metal Fetishist, Body Synths are back with Laboratory, their second instrument and a rather unusual take on a stereo effects processor. It covers everything from familiar delays and filtering to self-oscillating drones and harsh noise, even without an incoming signal. The layout is really easy to follow: two channels, each with voltage-controlled gain, delay, a resonant low-/high-pass filter and an output clipping stage. You can use the channels separately, in parallel or chained together, and each stage can be dialled back or taken out of the equation. Fairly straightforward so far, but there's a lot more going on once you start combining things.

Four feedback controls let you feed signals back through each channel or across to the other, creating anything from repeating echoes and shifting textures to full-blown self-oscillation. With enough feedback, Laboratory becomes a sound source in its own right, capable of generating all sorts of noise and evolving textures without anything plugged into its inputs. The delays use the PT2399, a humble digital chip originally designed for karaoke machines. At longer delay times, the repeats become increasingly gritty and unstable. With two channels to play with, you can create ping-pong and multi-tap echoes, crude reverbs, or even a band-pass filter by running one channel in high-pass mode and the other in low-pass. Like we said, there's quite a bit to explore here!

At the top center, above the two channels, sits a global modulator that works as a triggered attack/decay envelope or a looping LFO. Its four CV outputs can be patched to the gain, delay time and filter cutoff inputs for tremolo, vibrato, chorus-like effects, moving filters and more unpredictable feedback experiments. A collaboration between Body Synths' Xavi Badosa and Andrey Salomatin of Berlin pedal maker akkusativ, Laboratory is a nice example of how a handful of familiar functions can become something much more elaborate when allowed to interact. And despite all the noise it can make, the controls remain easy to understand. If you're curious, the introduction video is well worth a look — it does an excellent job of showing what this little box is capable of!

Features:

• Dual-channel stereo effects processor and feedback synthesizer
• Four feedback paths: individual channel feedback and bidirectional cross-feedback
• Self-oscillation with or without an external audio signal
• Independent voltage-controlled gain, delay and resonant filter per channel
• Gain stages with up to 40 dB amplification
• Two PT2399-based delays with increasingly gritty character at longer times
• Resonant low-pass/high-pass filters
• Output clipping for compression and distortion
• Series and parallel operation, including ping-pong and multi-tap echoes
• Band-pass filtering by chaining the two channels
• Channel 2 input normalled to Channel 1 for mono-to-stereo processing
• Global attack/decay modulator with triggered envelope and cycling LFO modes (10 ms–10 s)
• Four modulation outputs (two positive, two negative) and six CV inputs for gain, delay time and cutoff
• Manual or external envelope triggering
• 2 × 6.35 mm audio inputs and outputs, 3.5 mm CV connections
• Primarily analog circuitry with digital PT2399 delays, no software or microcontroller
• Includes power supply, two patch cables, velvet bag, earplugs and accessories