UPS delivered to my door in an obscure little building in the northern outskirts of BKK. What an age we live in. I do wish to whine about import taxes though… damn import tax blows…

Although I’m sure you all know this, it’s a filter in a box. It’s Fairly similar to the original Minimoog filter, and as far as I can tell, identical to the Moog LP filter (sans MIDI triggering or real envelope control etc). It has a 2pole/4pole swtich, and an envelope follower that tracks the input amplitude, but simple is good. I got the whitewash version, and at the risk of starting the bitching to early… the white is not exactly the best. The wood version looked hot enough already, but I just had to be different and get the fancy white one. It turns out this is just very very very badly painted wood. I mean, it looks like a kindergarten project. Moog seems to have gone all out with their crazy range of woods and backlight themes lately, which is very cute, but if they are delivering things like this, I would say stick with the original versions.

I’m in a list mood, so here we go:

Pros:

- Good price. Well not so good if you are thinking of it just as a LPF that takes up a lot of room on the desk. Good considering it sounds just as Moog does, ie. very good. I think back when these were sold as “Big Briar” they were a lot more expensive, but the build quality was better. As long as the insides stayed the same, I’m not too fussed.

- The drive is very satisfying, especially on low frequencies.

- The difference between 2pole and 4pole is very noticeable, as you would expect. Unfortunately, on a lot of other gear including my Virus, switching slopes doesn’t really get the results one could wish for.

- The env follower is very effective on the “fast” setting, even for sounds with a lot of release, it tracks perfectly.

- The resonance is ever so Moogy. There is something about the resonance on Moog filters that is so distinctive, especially on high settings with the filter very open. It adds a kind of nasty hiss that is just, nasty. I’m probably sending myself deaf and killing my speakers with supersonic ribbish.

-It also does something odd when the env amount and resonance are set quite high, the cutoff is fairly open and the incoming signal is fairly constant in volume (ie. fast attack, full sustain and no release… I’m not sure if this is making any sense). It adds a strange sizzle that I have not been able to catch since I stopped using the Waldorf D-pole plugin many years ago. In theory, any filter with an amplitude follower should do this, but these are the only two I have found that do it just the way I like it.

Cons

- There are two settings for the env follower, “fast” and “smooth”, on a rocker. Basically it seems to effect the attack time only, or maybe the release as well. I would hardly expect a full ADSR on something in this price range, but having a pot here sweeping the between the two values would have been nice, even if it had increased the price a little.

- Why is there a mix knob? Maybe guitarists using it as a wah wah thing need it… I don’t know, I never wah. I do know I don’t need to mix wet and dry on a filter. Maybe a heavily driven single could be mixed with the dry to add “depth”, but seriously, “depth” would have to be one of my least favourite words. So, I will reiterate, why is there a mix knob on a filter?

- Added to that, when the filter is as low as it can go, ie. more or less silence, and then you turn up the volume high and listen really hard, a little of the dry signal is coming through. Practically, this isn’t important at all, and I reeeeaaalllly shouldn’t be pushing the volume up with the filter at 20hz (the resonance was on zero so my monitors were relatively safe, but anyway)… I expect more than that!

- It would have been a lot nicer, and smaller, if it weren’t doubling as a stompox. Guitarists with their bluesy wails and drunken, clumsy feet don’t rate highly in my world. It also makes patching the cv controls a pain seeing as the jacks are at the back of the unit.

- There is no true bypass. The big ugly stompbox switch will bypass the filter, but not the drive. I don’t really mind, seeing as the drive sounds great anyway, but it makes it difficult to see exactly what the thing is doing to the sound.

- Bob’s grandchildren should be taken off the décor committee.

If you are one of the below DJs and don’t want your feedback shared, let me know. 

• “Parasite contains 5 tracks. The opening songs is identical to the album title and contains hars, but familiar beats, ready-cut for the dancefloor with little vocoded vocals. Fractured Lights is a more relaxed song, ambient in nature but seemingly fit for the clubs as well. Even less BPM contains Control, with emphasis on lyrics, fighting for…control. The Kong rmx doesn\’t add much but the Virul3nt rmx of Parasite is nicely done and highly danceable.” - Denniz
• “nice ep with some good clubtracks, although maybe a bit to trancy ( especially the remixes )” - X-X-X
• “Wow, what a great promo this is!!! Maybe not the most original music, but it still stands out!!” - djSPUD
• “I like your sound!” - Cheminee
• “Typical EBM release. Good dancefloor stuff and easy to the ears written songs. Unfortunately not surprising enough to give some new input to the over-crowded scene. Still, the heavier beat oriented songs can compete with most acts in the scene and that should be (more than) enough to crowd a dance floor.” - Beautevil
• “The synthesizer on Parasite does sound like a mosquito and fits in nicely, the sound itself is raw but loud and will do great for the dance floor. Vocally it is quite moderate and typical for the dark electro sound.
  Fractured Light has a nice slow but danceable sound with a nice bass line and good kick. The high synth is a welcome change in sound.
  Control has a really freakish sound to it, lovely in contrast to the title. The synth resembling a theremin/female vocal is really nice done. Even the guitars that I usually loathe in electronic music have a great place in this song. For me this is easily the best song on this EP, but not suited for the dance floor, but in any other setting it might do great.
  Parasite (Virul3nt mix) is a better mix for the dance floor than the original.
  The Control (Kong mix) doesn\’t really do better than the original which is a shame.” - Nosferius

Here’s a funny story about how I submitted the CDs to Cybercase.  I already knew Kees (pronounced “Case”), the owner, as he had organised a Crystalline Effect tour in April 2008 in NL and was similarly promoting the Crystalline Effect EP “Hypothermia” to his pool. 
In August 08, when we were heading to NL for Summer Darkness, I e-mailed Kees and asked if he’d like to promote the Parasite EP.  He said yes, and to hand him the box of CDs at the festival.  He said he would be DJing just before Combichrist’s set on the Friday night, and to find him in the booth and hand him the discs there.  So on the night I find him and handed him the box.  I ask him if he wants a drink, which he does, and I then head to the bar.  When I come back to hand him the drink, he said “next song’s yours”, and sure enough the next song to come out over the PA was Parasite (Virul3nt mix) to a roomful of hundreds of dancing Combichrist fans.  Total trial by fire!  Incidentally, the track held the room just fine.  At this point I was infinitely glad we shelled out for pro mastering (from Kolja/Soman), so it could compete sonically with the other agressive EBM tracks played. 

So yes, farewell to London!  Over the course of our time here we did see plenty of great bands and went to plenty of cool parties.  Unfortunately we’ve been living in a bona fide ghetto area (Seven Sisters), so the filthy setting in a violent atmosphere set the tone for our daily lives.  Catching the tube and changing at Kings Cross at peak hour twice a day, being pushed into a Northern Line carriage by hundreds of dead-eyed suits, was at best “undignified”, and the world’s seemingly longest winter didn’t help matters. 
Of course, there was plenty of good to balance out the harsh, and not just the bands and the parties, but the point is our time here is over for the near future and I’m looking forward to hitting The Netherlands. 

Right now Kong and I are working full steam on the debut Shiv-r album.  This is our main focus now and the music’s sounding nice & dark.  It will take a bit of time to get settled in The Netherlands but it won’t take long to set up my music-space again so the album progress won’t be too hindered.  At this rate we should be finished the writing process by the end of the year. 

My next post should be from Amsterdam…