Hardware Touch-Based Drone Synth

Folktek has been known for small production and one-of-a-kind pieces that have been both costly and time consuming to create but say that their intention with The Conduit is to get some Folktek into the hands of anyone who's ever wanted some.

The Conduit is a symbiotic touch-based drone synthesizer based on a delay which then travels to a filter. Folktek says that it creates swells of oscillation that can delve into eternal noisy feedback territory as one desires. They tell us that you can connect to a sequencer to control the time/pitch and pull forth some powerful  synthesis, and that the touch board is a control voltage generator/keyboard sending 0-5v in .5v increments.

Note that the final will be slightly different than what's shown. The circuit's been redesigned to have the two outer knobs taken up on the panel to provide more space for the jacks with less interference.


Features:

• Touch pads; 8 polyphonic notes + noise + pitch: all sensitive to touch. These are synchronous with the delay clock, meaning delay time = oscillator pitch. All notes are tuned with one another so the pitch is a master control.
• Oscillation and/or incoming audio sent through on-board filter: for further manipulation.
• CV controllable: over delay time/master pitch (+0-5v).
• Touch panels generate CV: signals from +0-5v in .5v increments to control your modular gear (it's a cv keyboard).
• Audio input: to get your sound into some delay and filter goodness. Expect the delay to be a noisy little bastard (this is a drone synthesizer). For a clean delay and filter signal, however, one can disconnect the touch plates and use it strictly as an effects unit for synthesizers, guitar, etc. Cv controls delay time.
• Delay: True vintage analog sound delay. The delay goes from extremely tight to some unspecified, very long, very noisy time. The range of the time knob has been allowed to extend to incredibly long times by allowing the degradation of quality beyond a second or so, allowing the sound to get into very lo-fi and grimy territory.
• Filter: Single knob style filter with fixed resonance allows for a nice, rich sweep.
• Adaptable with other Folktek works: Without sending the audio output anywhere, the oscillators will travel through the players' body and into Materia, Mentalis and/or Aether to be further manipulated (examples in videos).
• All 3.5mm jacks
• High quality parts, solid construction.
• Bamboo box with dark splines.
• 12v operation with included power supply

Pricing and Availability:
$299 during the Indigogo campaign. $449 afterwards.

More information:

• Conduit

• NAMM 2024: Folktek - Resonant Garden 29-Jan-24
• Three-Tier Synthesis System 24-Mar-17
• Module For Drum Wave Synthesis 14-Dec-15