Fully bereft of longstanding Generationlength Audioequipment Stockpile tendencies (through being autofictioned into rationalizing everything, then publicly stoned for doing so) I celebrated a Cotton Anniversary milestone by getting in on a pre-release round of this wonderful, wonderful handheld.

It is really, really something; utter catnip for the music boffin of a certain age that came up through the C64/Amiga/130XE/1040ST era (speaking of which I’m finally friends with Emile “Dr. T” Tobenfeld on Facebook after sending him yearsworth of requests; will propose the Spinal Tap style mock-rockumentary of his life starring Double Leopards, Religious Knives, & sometime Model Home member Mike Bernstein shortly) & followed this vertical throughline all the way to, say, Bloody Fist.

I have never, never ever been more motivated to memorize the documentation of a thing as quickly; you absolutely need to do this as there are a meager 8 buttons as the sole tactile control regimen & the keycomboing does carry on in Draconian proportions. That said, once you wraparound your thumb-eye-brain cöördinations you are rewarded in myriad ways.

Lurking within the (impressively solid!) metal chassis are a proper USB Typ-C Gerät MIDI / audio / charging interface & minijack TRS connections for both MIDI in / out & stereo audio in / out. There’s a tiny MEMS microphone (ala the Audiomoth), a pair of smartphone-grade stereo speakers (in a quiet environment you theoretically wouldn’t even need headphones for basic composition or assembly, although the frequency response is beyond meager). I learned just now while looking at the documentation that the screen is actually a “High quality 3.5” IPS display with capacitive touch” – had no idea it was a touchscreen! Not that this changes anything.

Internally there are multiple instruments: a fully fleshed out sampler, “Macrosynth” (ake Emilie Gillet’s Braids; itself with 34 separate models), FM Synth, Hypersynth, audio passthrough for the onboard effects, etc. There are also endless inline Sequencer & Instrument FX Commands that get deep into automations & even generative concepts, and this is where my inner child & present late-stage decrepit wonk meet; I’m already making breakcore with nonrepetitive basslines & sprinkling linear automations that resolve in prime-number cycles and honestly in that moment all is right.

I say this often in respect to the Euro world, but when a piece of gear starts to dictate, to you the owner & operator, what & how music is being made its (often) time to step back and take stock of why it’s in your life in the first place. There have definitely been moments, already, where I simply could use more resolution (its measly 24 PPQ feels positively embryonic) but then I take a breath and listen to what it’s actually doing based on what I’m putting in & it’s often some glorious miasma of misaligned chaos & brutality & honestly it’s just all so beautiful & dareisay soulful.

I can only imagine what my 18yo mind would have made of this Retrofuturist microminiature wristcommunicator slash beatstudio back then; it’s frankly incredible how far we’ve come w/r/t embedded computing power, and that this sort of enterprise is even viable at such a small scale (a single person is essentially overseeing both software & hardware design & development along with fulfillment; insane) is something to embrace. An absolute masterpiece.