Felt Instruments have released Smugi, a beautiful re-interpretation of an incredibly rare (to the point of being unobtanium) filter bank, used by the pioneers of electronic music… fused with performance techniques introduced at the Polish Radio’s Experimental Studio back in the 1950s. It’s available the intro price of £59.00, increasing to £79.00 after the promotion. The offer ends October 18th.
In the 1950s, decimated postwar europe was in need of a change. composers began experimenting with repurposed laboratory equipment, tape and left-field recording techniques to find a sound fit for a new world.
What happened behind closed doors studio doors in germany, france, uk, italy and poland shaped the foundation of the electronic music we know today: from synthesizers to looping and all shapes of creative signal manipulation we now take for granted. music would never be the same. and that was the point.
While each studio had its own sonic philosophy, they had one thing in common: a set of two monumental boxes with a ton of faders. the albiswerk model 502. the ultimate filter bank.
A tool to reshape, transform and transfigure everything thrown at it.
Stockhausen used it. pierre schaeffer used it. they had one in rai in milan and a half of it at the radiophonic workshop, because it was too expensive for the studio to afford both filter sets at the time.
Due to the price and absurdly elaborate internal construction, not many of these units survived. most that did, belong to the studios’ museums. and one is here, at the felt instruments studio.
Smugi fuses the sound of this iconic filterbank with performance techniques originated at the polish radio’s experimental studio and presents it as an easy to use plugin.
Get your mad scientist coat out and tweak away.
Smugi splits your signal into 12 extremely musical bandpass filters, each equipped with it’s own lfo and three experimental effects: movement, flutter and feedback.
All controls can be automated and mapped to hardware knobs and faders for the ultimate hands-on experience (fun).
While extreme sonic manipulations are it’s forte, it sounds great as a mix device, too — as long as you don’t expect it to sound transparent. the germanium amplifier section of the original unit is captured faithfully and along with it comes a beautiful tone and lively saturation. or downright distortion, if you push it a step too far. and yes, please, do.
There are no presets (it’s an experimental filter, after all!) but i included some starting points to get the creative juices flowing. most of these come directly from settings observed on archive photos of the iconic studios from the 50s and 60s.
Smugi is available to PC and Mac users (VST3, AU and AAX).
For more information on Smugi, click here:
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