Neutral Labs - Luna

Luna is an experimental synthesizer from Neutral Labs, and it belongs to a fairly niche family of instruments called Lunettas. Super short history note: back in the 70s and 80s, DIY builders started making synths out of cheap CMOS logic chips, the same humble components you'd find in calculators and digital clocks. The results were raw, a bit unpredictable, and often closer to a noise box than a conventional instrument. The style picked up its name from Stanley Lunetta, an American percussionist who built music-making machines from exactly this kind of circuitry. Neutral Labs calls Luna "the first serious Lunetta," which is a cheeky way of saying they've taken this DIY tradition and turned it into something properly built and ready to go straight out of the box.

The logic is what drives the whole thing, and Neutral Labs puts it right out in the open. The CMOS inputs and outputs sit on the front panel, so patching cables here means rewiring the inner workings of the synth rather than just moving audio around. Five oscillators feed a bank of logic blocks — gates, counters, shift registers, a multiplexer — and as you combine and repatch them, the signals interact in complex, shifting ways that are quite hard to predict. There's also no firm line between a sequence and a sound. A slow logic pulse can tick out a rhythm, and the same pulse sped up becomes a tone. Rhythm and timbre end up being the same raw material, depending only on speed.

Pure logic chips can sound harsh on their own, so Luna runs everything through three low-pass gates, each with adjustable decay and a bit of tone shaping. This is also the part that makes it musical — the gates add a natural, percussive shape to the digital mess, which is how you coax bongos, plucks and solid basslines out of what is essentially a pile of computation. After that comes a two-slot effects section with a generous range to pick from, plus a pair of sequencers, MIDI and a headphone-ready output. This is a fun, bizarre and beautiful hands-on machine for noisy, experimental sounds.

Features:

• Experimental CMOS logic-based ("Lunetta") synthesizer
• 5 oscillators
• 6 logic gates (2 XOR, 2 NOT, 2 AND)
• 5 logic blocks (5-step ring counter, 4-bit binary counter, 2 shift registers, 4-channel multiplexer)
• 3 touchpads that generate logic signals
• Exposed CMOS inputs and outputs on the front panel for direct patching
• 3 audio channels: low-pass gates with adjustable decay, switchable trigger mode, gain and tilt EQ
• 13 audio effects assignable to 2 effect slots running in series (drive, delay, reverb, 6 filter types, bitcrusher, phaser, chorus, comb filter)
• CV control for effects and 2 oscillators
• MIDI control over 2 oscillators, all 3 low-pass gates and 3 logic outputs (MIDI TRS Type A)
• 2 sequencers with up to 64 steps, syncable to clock or MIDI
• Headphone-compatible audio output with dedicated volume knob
• Desktop version includes a 12-pack of braided patch cables

Note: The desktop version has a Eurorack power header and can be placed into a Eurorack. The desktop case, however, has 5V USB power and no Eurorack rails, so you cannot use it as a 42 HP rack without modifications.