1st Impressions of Rob Papen's Blade - part I

It's been a long time since I have invested in a new synth (software or hardware) so I did see something unique about this synth before I bought it.

Whenever I buy a synth now I will only buy it if there is little overlap with what I have. For additive synths, I have used Cube, Poseidon, Chameleon, Alchemy and now Blade. Blade has very little in common with any of those so first test passed.

I also like to be able to start using a synth without ever looking at the manual. Good synths have a vision behind their design and if you get that it's easy to go exploring without the manual. Blade's focus us dead center on the XY mapping of parameters. Nicely designed and clear. Second test passed.

Morphing

Most additive synths use morphing. Blade does not but rather morphs between additive parameters that effect the structure of the partials. One of my frustrations with additive synthesizers is that I really get very little sense of what an additive model sounds like looking at partials. Blade rather shapes the partial to create the type of harmonic shifts that
make additive sounds so interesting without the need to interpret graphs if partials.

So, that's it for part I. In Part II I want to get more into the sound which is really where things get interesting.