ELECTRIX
Mar 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Remix Staff
Filter Factory With its desktop/rack-mount design, tap tempo-controlled LFO, and comprehensive MIDI implementation, the Electrix Filter Factory is equally at home in a DJ's rig or a studio rack. With a versatile filter section, LFO, and distortion circuit, it's just shy of being a synth. If you put some of the controls at extreme settings, this baby can generate rather unusual sounds on its own without having anything plugged into the inputs. Of course, the Filter Factory works best when it's used to process external sounds-and with a few adventurous knob tweaks it can morph even a mild-mannered Julio Iglesias ballad into a minimalist techno stomper.
The Filter Factory is housed in a rugged, die-cast aluminum case that's built to withstand club-land abuse (as I quickly found out when my roommate spilled beer all over the plugged-in box). The internal power supply has a rotating fuse drawer to accommodate power ratings in any region of the world-a significant bonus for traveling filter freaks. And the unit's rear panel has a lot more features than most synths these days: it boasts control voltage inputs that let you use an analog CV/Gate (1 volt/octave) synth to control the filter's frequency; individual MIDI In, Out, and Thru jacks; and both 1/4-inch and RCA stereo inputs and outputs. The RCA input section includes a ground post and Line/Phono switch for connecting a turntable.
FACTORY DIRECT But the front panel is where the Filter Factory's true power lies. It's split into three sections-Buzz, Stereo Filter/LFO, and Mix/Bypass. The Buzz section is a standard distortion circuit with a twist: in addition to distortion and gain controls, it has a momentary engage switch that lets you manually tap the distortion on and off in rhythm, or punch in a blast of dirt. A quick word about the switches: all of these button-shaped controls have an exceptionally smooth, springy feel that encourages you to use them as rhythmic controls. Most of the buttons are backlit by a ring of LEDs to make them visible even when a finger obscures the controls.
The Stereo Filter/LFO section is more complex. The filter consists of sweepable frequency and resonance controls; selectable lowpass, highpass, bandpass, and notch modes; a momentary switch for toggling the filter section on and off; and selectable filtering (either 2-pole, 12 dB/octave stereo or 4-pole, 24 dB/octave mono). The resonance control can cause the filters to self-oscillate, resulting in speaker-melting and ear-splitting frequency spikes; be extremely cautious with this knob, particularly when using the Filter Factory in a club at high volume.
The LFO offers speed and depth controls and a selection of waveforms-sawtooth, inverse sawtooth, triangle, square wave, envelope follower, and random modulation. Very useful for dance music applications, the tap tempo switch makes matching the LFO rate with the beat of the music a breeze. Tapping this switch once restarts the LFO at the beginning of the waveform; tapping it twice sets the rate to correspond to the time between taps; and tapping it three or more times in succession causes the rate to be averaged to the time between each press. The tap tempo button's LED flashes in time to the tapped-in beat. You can make rate adjustments with the speed control and use the division control to subdivide the rate in several ratios: 1:1 (in time with the tapped tempo), 2:1 (twice as fast), 3:1, 4:1, 6:1, 1:2 (half as fast), and 1:4. There is also a Singleshot control for momentarily triggering the LFO.
EVERYBODY LOVES A FILTER The Filter Factory can produce an array of effects ranging from manually controlled, gradual filter sweeps to machinelike, pulsating synth tones. Percussive, thumping bass-drum sounds can be dialed in by setting the LFO to sawtooth or square-wave modulation and experimenting with the frequency and resonance controls. The lowpass, highpass, and bandpass filter sections can isolate a wide variety of frequencies, but the notch filter is more suitable for generating phase-shifting effects than for removing specific sounds.
All of this tonal flexibility can lead to hours of experimentation, but unfortunately the Filter Factory has no memory bank, making duplication of certain settings a hassle. However, all of the knobs and switches transmit MIDI data, enabling a MIDI sequencer to record every knob movement and button push. The Filter Factory also receives MIDI Clock, so the LFO speed can be synched to the tempo of a sequencer, a drum machine, or an arpeggiator. A
Filter Factory $529 PROS: Roadworthy Construction. Comprehensive MIDI implementation. Tap tempo and division controls make it easy to beat-match the effects with music.
CONS: No memory bank. Extreme resonance settins can injure listeners' ears.
Overall rating (1 through 5): 4
Contact: tel. (20) 544-4091; fax (250) 544-4100; e-mail info@ivl.com; Web www.electrixpro.com
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
