Mutable Instruments Stages Announced

Olivier Gillet is a man on a mission. Not content with releasing two outstanding products in one month (PLAITS and MARBLES) Mutable Instruments today announced the rather interesting and thought provoking STAGES. We all know that when Mutable Instruments announce something, people pay attention and that is because of one simple, fundamental reason; Olivier always brings something new and unusual to the table. In a marketplace where there's more choice than ever before, you have to do something special to garner the attention of the masses....Olivier does this very well. Stages (for my two penneth) is one of the most interesting modulation tools to hit the market in the last couple of years, and here's why I think that (exhaustative spec read off begins in 3, 2, 1....) Stages provides 6 channels (dubbed segments) of modulation, each with three possible modulation types, that can be mixed, looped and triggered in ways that haven't been possible in a single module space before.

• The blue represents the RAMP function, which slides one voltage into another, to create portamento or slewed type effects , this is very handy for smoothing a transition of an envelope into another modulation and you don’t want a sudden transient change.
• The yellow represents the STEPPED function, which allows you to shift from a starting voltage to a CV controllable destination voltage, which can be held until a trigger is received. This section is pretty handy for creating sequencer style functions.
• The red section is the HOLD section, which as the name suggests holds a voltage for a given amount of time, this portion is where you’d dial in the sustain of your envelope.

Each stage can serve as any of the above functions, but since each channel can be looped or re-triggered in an LFO, or a complex EG and so much more. With some clever patching some very long and complex modulation signals can be produced...and did I mention that you can tether 6 of these together to form even longer and more complex modulation results.....should you ever need that. End of spec read off.... :0) So you can start to see the picture here, STAGES coupled with MARBLES inter-modulating each other could be the backbone of any generative or performance orientated system...STAGES is the third module release from Mutable and we can't wait to see what's next...surely the new Clouds is due soon.....eh? For more information about Mutable Instruments, Eurorack and Synthesis in general, speak to our in house synthesizer expert Tom Lewis (Look mum, I'm on the internet!)