First thing you notice about the Modal Electronics Cobalt8 is that it's very photogenic, a lovely shade of blue. That and the striking similarity betw

Sonic LAB: Modal Electronics Cobalt8 - Review

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2020-11-18 14:16:59

First thing you notice about the Modal Electronics Cobalt8 is that it's very photogenic, a lovely shade of blue. That and the striking similarity between it and the Argon8 with which it shares the DSP driven 8 voice polyphony, voice spread feature (8 Osc per voice), three effects slots and other common elements such as the sequencer and arpeggiator. It also features the signature Modal Electronics joystick found on the Argon8 and it's other, older high end synths.

However, before you ask, no it's not possible to interchange the synths brains via a firmware swap - the DSP allocations are different and so it can't happen.

But while the Argon8 is a wavetable synth, the Cobalt8 is an "extended Virtual Analog". At it's heart are 34 distinct waveform algorithms ranging from regular standard waves to more angular, unusual Ring Modulations and more. The high contrast display gives you a real sense of what the waves are doing.

The basic voice allocation has two oscillator groups per voice, each with up to 4 oscillators per group via the Spread feature - though this does not apply to all algorithms (in some it changes other characteristics), dialing it in adds a duplication and detune, with fixed tuning intervals the further you go.