Making Sound Machines - Plinky 12 Blocks

Blocks is the most open-ended interpretation of the Plinky 12, designed by mmalex (Alex Evans), who built the original Plinky. Its almost entirely unlabelled panel divides the large 16 × 16 pressure-sensitive surface into broad playing areas — a six-string play surface on the left, a clip launcher and an XY pad on the right — with nearly every pad ready for live performance across ten tracks as soon as the instrument starts. Beneath it is Plinky 12's twelve-voice polyphonic sample-and-wavetable engine, capable of fragile plucks, softly dissolving chords, animated digital textures and rather stranger material once modulation gets involved. Notes also respond to position and pressure.

As if all of that wasn't enough there's even more stuff to explore. Blocks includes clip launching, piano-roll editing, chord sequencing, live effect inserts and XY sound morphing, turning it from a very immediate touch synth into a compact multitrack composition and performance instrument. Its sparse layout also makes it a nice choice for controlling external MIDI and CV equipment, using it as a Monome-compatible grid, or — once the browser-based code editor leaves closed beta — developing entirely new layouts and instruments of your own.

Blocks is the Plinky 12 with the fewest rules. It can be approached as a ten-track synthesiser, a clip-based composition tool, an expressive controller or simply a large surface for following sounds wherever they happen to go. Easy to begin with, but with enough open space to become considerably more personal over time.

Features:

• Expressive polyphonic desktop touch synthesiser and grid controller
• Designed by mmalex, creator of the original Plinky
• Nearly label-free Blocks interface designed for open-ended playing
• 16 × 16 RGB pressure-sensitive capacitive touch surface
• Six-string play surface, clip launcher and XY pad
• Large playing areas spread across ten tracks
• Twelve-voice polyphonic sample-and-wavetable synthesis engine
• Immediate live playing from almost the entire surface
• Clip launching with polyphonic sequencing
• Up to 128 steps per clip
• Piano-roll note editing
• Chord sequencing
• Live insert effects
• XY modulation for morphing between sounds
• Tape-style delay and shimmer reverb
• External audio input with routing through the effects section
• Usable as an expressive MIDI and CV controller
• Monome Grid compatibility (128 grid)
• Web-based MIDI controller designer
• Browser-based panel-development environment (currently in closed beta)
• Support for user-designed controllers and instruments
• Web-based sound-bank editor
• Preset, sample and song storage via SD card
• Four tactile buttons along the sides
• Built-in stereo microphone and accelerometer
• Swappable front-panel system
• Automatic panel detection without manual firmware changes
• CV clock input, reset input and configurable clock output
• Two bipolar CV inputs
• Two 0–5 V CV outputs
• TRS MIDI input and two TRS MIDI outputs
• Second MIDI output configurable as two trigger outputs
• USB MIDI, class-compliant audio output and WebUSB
• Stereo audio input and output
• RP2350 microcontroller with 14 MB sample memory (around 114 seconds)
• USB-C powered: 5 V, 500 mA
• Steel enclosure with fibreglass PCB front panel
• Dimensions: 305 × 305 × 12 mm

About the Plinky 12 system: Blocks, Chords and Toadstep are three distinct instruments built around the same pressure-sensitive touch hardware and polyphonic synth engine. Their panels can be exchanged, and Plinky 12 automatically recognises which one is fitted and loads the corresponding instrument.