Modal Electronics Carbon8 Synthesizer (Black)

General

It’s compact, and although it has a whole host of encoders, the control panel doesn’t look all that complex. But under the bonnet of this Modal Electronics Carbon8, the story is quite different. This is a highly sophisticated wavetable synthesiser capable of producing a vast array of sounds. This isn’t just your standard synth with sawtooth, square and sine waves; the range of sounds you can create with it goes far beyond that. For instance, there are 56 waveforms (including 18 algorithms and 38 wavetables), and when you consider that back in the 70s and 80s we only had about three waveforms, you’ll realise that 56 is a huge number. And of course, you can apply all sorts of envelopes, LFOs, filters and effects to this wealth of timbres.

Modal Electronics Carbon8: a palette full of timbres

We’ve already mentioned the filters. Back in the day, we had one, very occasionally two or three (for example, low-pass, high-pass and band-pass), but that was about it. This Carbon8 features 34 types of filters, so that should keep us going for a while, won’t it? Three LFOs with over 15 waveforms really liven things up. There are envelopes for amplitude, filter and one that can be used freely. Two oscillators per voice, and eight-note polyphony, so you can have a good play with that. The sequencer and arpeggiator add to the fun; they’re perhaps the best bits of this synth. Especially when you run a phrase through the effects processor – which has three engines. It offers effects such as reverb, chorus, delay and LoFi. So whilst you’re playing, you’ve got plenty of options for creating lovely atmospheres.

Target audience

It’s still a subtractive synth, so you’ll be familiar with the possibilities. It’s not a particularly difficult synthesiser to get to grips with, helped by the crisp OLED display. You can save your own sound creations in 500 memory locations, and sequences in 100 locations. There’s even an app available: the MODALapp, for Mac, PC, iOS, Android, and as an AU/VST3 plug-in. A highly versatile synthesiser, though it’s likely to be used most often as a lead or pad synth, given the limited keyboard range. It could make a great top-end synth in a band’s synth rig, to name but one possibility! In any case, you won’t get bored of it in a hurry.