Broke Beats pt1 - A £37 Interface & Multi FX

It's tough out there, what with the cost of living crisis - "cozzy livs", and data centres eating up all of our RAM. So what does one do if they require the escapism and dopamine provided by a new synth toy and don't want to break the bank? Thankfully, we have are some budget hardware options which should satiate even the tightest of belts.

Livtra Nanocore

When it comes to dirt cheap, creative effects - I've traditionally recommended used multi-effect pedals like Korg's AX1G from 1998 - approximately £20 any day of the week. This obsolete "Billy's first pedal" device nevertheless includes cool vocal filters, pitch shifters and a couple of odd surprises (I'll leave you to "claw" your way through the manual).

But a challenger has appeared, one that seriously upstages the Korg device - the Livtra Nanocore.

So what is it? It's:

• A mono effects device - I/O is on 2x 6.35mm TS jacks, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack
• A mono USB C audio interface
• Provided with a 1300mAh / 3.7V lithium battery, chargeable via USB! (Approx. 9-10 hours play time)
• Loaded with a tonne of effects, amp models and CAB IRs.
• Able to be customised! Connection to a computer allows you to change the white/green/pink 8-bit theme to something completely different.

And the price? I paid £37! If you look around on sites like AliExpress, you might find them even cheaper. The effects list is fairly extensive, by the way:

Dynamics

• Noise Gate
• Auto Gate
• Compressor + Gate
• Compressor
• Drive & Filter

Classic stomp

• Exciter
• Pitch shift
• Dynamic wah
• Auto-filter wah

AMP

• 30 AMP slots with 25 guitar and 5 bass amp models;
• Each slot can load RESONA tone capture files.

CAB

• 30 CAB slots with built-in guitar and bass cabinets
• Third-party IR import.

DELAY

• BBD
• Digital
• Duck
• Ice
• Reverse
• Lo-fi
• Smear
• Mod Delay

MOD

• Chorus 
• Phaser  
• Flanger 
• Tremolo 
• Vibrato

REVERB

• Room
• Plate
• Hall
• Concert
• Spring
• Shimmer
• Cloud

EQ

• EQ3
• EQ6
• EQ8
• Three band layouts for fast tone shaping and finer live correction.

And now the important question, how do these sound? Pretty good, actually! I wasn't enamoured with the BBD delay - whose age/degradation knob serves to only make the sound darker (real BBD chips get really noisy and artefact laden when you push them too far) but other effects, like the sample rate destroying lo-fi delay and the wide-ranging shimmer reverb sound easily impressive enough to be put on a record.

Join me next time for more budget-pleasing synth and effects devices!

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