
Quord is a soundbath synthesizer and harmony exploration machine.
Four Sawtooth Waves provide the raw sound. Sawtooth waves have a nice brassy timbre when filtered and also provide a good amount of overtones to process.
The long sliders control these four pitches. Carefully slide them to find pockets where two, three, or more voices sit together - either with ease or with tension. The pitch ranges of the oscillators are limited from bass to alto to allow for some tuning precision by hand. Quord lacks a traditional keyboard. Instead you play it by tuning the oscillators. If Quord were an acoustic instrument, it would be like a guitar that you play by retuning the strings.
The Mixer, with four short sliders, combines the sawtooth voices into one sound stream. Look for (green) caps to show how Voice 1 maps between the mixer sliders and the pitch sliders.
The mix flows into two sound shapers: a Filter (yellow) followed by a Distortion (red). The filter tames the sound before the distortion adds edge, highlights beating rhythms, and glues the sound together.
Surprisingly, we found that the Resonance works great as a fifth voice. At the right settings, it latches onto overtones of the blended sawtooth waves. These overtones combine to make a new musical scale that always compliments the drone. Simple melodies can be teased out for ancient campfire music
Rhythm (blue) is a low frequency oscillator for timing and mood. It has a sawtooth wave for sharp rhythms and a sine wave for soft ones. Like traditional LFOs, Rhythm can wiggle the filter cutoff. Rhythm can also bias the audio mix for some unexpected results, including a bass drum/sidechain effect.
Quord is totally analog. Decapod Devices designed the circuit and tuned it. The filter is based on “Pas Isel” originally by Dwyfor Devices for eurorack. The filter sound can vary from clean to “fuzzy jumper vibes” based on the input gain set by the Mixer (credit DivKid).
That’s Quord. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you.
Connectivity:
Power Input - USB-C
Audio Output - TRS Mini Jack
Audio Input - TS/TRS Mini Jack, line level
Filter Control Input - TS analog CV, TRS expression pedal
Our first batch of 35 Quords sold out in January and shipped September. We are working on refining the design and scaling production. The next batch will be shipping no earlier than Winter 2025. Please click through to the shopping page below to join the waiting list