Modal Electronics Argon 8

M
odal Electronics
are a Bristol-
based synth
design company
who already
have a solid
range of
well-respected synths, ranging from
their smaller four-voice virtual
analogue Skulpt, through the
monophonic wavetable-based Craft,
to their flagships – the 002 hybrid
poly and 008 analogue poly. Having
the lower-end and higher-end
markets covered with these models,
different sources (so a single
wavetable oscillator may contain
several different waves in itself).
These sampled waveforms are placed
into the lookup wavetable and can
then be modulated smoothly or
abruptly in various ways using LFOs,
envelopes or any other modifiers
found onboard. Whilst you can
achieve ‘normal’-sounding static
waveforms by keeping the wavetable
position static, modulating the
position and other aspects, or using
modifiers across the tables, can
result in amazing evolving textures.
Argon 8 has 120 wavetables
onboard to use as oscillators. There
are 24 banks and five morphing
wavesets and the wavetables span
virtual analogue, waves from Modal’s
own 002, retro wavetables, formant
and maths-generated tables, and
more. There are four of these
oscillators per-voice (two pairs of
two) and eight voices (giving 32
oscillator in total: a decent amount
of power). Then there are eight types
of oscillator modulation including
Phase Mod, Ring Mod, Amp Mod,
Sync+Ring Mod, Hard Sync, Window
Sync, Phase Inverter and Phase
Shaper. Not only this, you also have
32 waveform modifiers, which allow
you to fold and mangle the
wavetables/oscillators even further
(these include Mirror, Cubic, Half
Rectified, three resample modes and
more). Rest assured, there’s vast
processing power available here and
lots of ways to harness that power
too. Deep is one word to sum things
up, and the resulting sonics are as
wide-ranging as you’d expect!
Build and design
This amount of power is always going
to be a tough thing to mate with an
intuitive interface, but Modal have
done a decent job of it in the main,
through using as much direct control
as they can fit into the small amount
of available space, in conjunction
with using shift functionality (which
is listed under each button and knob
where applicable). There are some
frustrations, like having to press the
patch button before you can select a
sound with the cursor/select knob
and also selecting the top and
bottom lines in the display can be a
little tiresome and haphazard with a
clickable knob, but after a small
amount of time it does become
second nature and you overlook
these minor points. For those who
want to go deeper, there is also a
nicely-designed Modal app (in
suitably matching industrial grey)
that lets you access everything within
the Argon 8 engine on your computer
or tablet over USB.
Looking further into the overall
aesthetics and design, the Argon
certainly looks and feels great, with
unique design language. There are
lots of nicely curved surfaces and the
whole machine is made from steel
and aluminium, thus it’s very
weighty, built for the road and nicely
portable. The knobs and switches all
there was an obvious gap in their
product line which needed filling
with something a little cheaper (but
still with bags of power and with a
high-quality build and sound in
mind). Filling that gap is their latest
synth, the digital, polyphonic Argon 8.
So what’s the Argon 8 all about
then? Well in a word: wavetables! To
quickly summarise this form of
synthesis: imagine a single cycle
waveform that instead of being just a
single saw or square, is instead a
lookup table of several waveforms
together, often sampled from many
THE PROS & CONS
+
Very solidly built and
nicely compact –
which makes it great
for gigging
Fairly priced
considering the
features/sonic power
available onboard
Sounds unique and
can cover a lot of
varied sonic ground
-
While it’s compact,
this means a lot of
secondary
parameters for
each control
The effects can suck
life out of the sounds
if you’re not careful
No 4-pole filter
Modal Electronics Argon 8 | Reviews
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FMU354.rev_modal.indd 83 21/01/2020 12:01