Nick's World of Synthesizers - Chaos Engine
€359.00
Net: €301.68
Pre Order 19 November 2026
Nick’s World of Synthesizers Chaos Engine — A Raw, Unruly Discrete-Transistor Noise Machine with Five Oscillators, Handmade in Bakelite.
A wonderfully raw little noise machine with a mind of its own! The Chaos Engine is Nick’s take on a five-oscillator analog synthesizer, loosely inspired by the homemade electronic contraptions of the legendary 1960s duo Silver Apples. Five buttons, five tuning knobs, five square waves. You can play melodies and chords on it, although making polite electronic music is probably the least interesting thing you can do with this box.
With Sync To 1 switched on, the other four oscillators synchronize to the first, snapping between harmonically related pitches rather than sweeping smoothly as you tune them. Turn up Chaos Depth and they start pulling at each other, with increasingly unpredictable results. To give you an idea of the racket, think strange harmonies, screeching fax-machine punk, old computer-tape gibberish and something resembling a total electrical breakdown. At the more extreme settings, the tiniest knob movement can change the sound completely. And not a single microprocessor in sight. It's just a handful of transistors causing all this trouble.
The mind behind it is just as interesting. Nick's fondness for chunky industrial design comes from a misspent youth exploring abandoned factories. Hence the CNC-machined Bakelite enclosure with proper engraved lettering. It looks like a forgotten piece of laboratory equipment that's found a new, considerably less respectable occupation. Lovely stuff!
Features:
- Handmade analog mini synthesizer with five square-wave oscillators
- Discrete-transistor circuitry
- Five individually tunable oscillators with dedicated momentary keys
- Independent keyboard operation, harmonic overtone sync, undertone sync and chaotic synchronization
- Sync To 1 switch for synchronizing oscillators to the first oscillator
- Chaos Depth control for increasingly unpredictable oscillator interactions
- Stepped harmonic tuning, complex interference and fractal-like noise
- CNC-machined Bakelite enclosure with engraved lettering
- 9V DC power supply, 2.1 mm center-negative (600 mA)
- 6.35 mm mono audio output