Studioworkers

Why always think of the good, old days, if you’re looking for juicy analog sounds? Why put up with our rickedy old favourits from the houses Moog, Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Roland or Korg? Why bother with all those plugs in Midi-CV/Gate-connections, if you can have it all easier, less complicated, state-of-the-art and at a reasonable price? The Red Square is a synhthesizer for those, that cherish the fat sounds of those days, but don’t want to sacrifize the comforts of today. The Midi interface is all integrated, and if this great deal one day strikes, economical spare parts can be had.

Although the Red Square has little resemblence to the classic generation, a great deal of the circuit arrangement is similar to the Moog Prodigy. The 5 HE big Brit looks like a real gentleman. Metallic red with 50 chrome jacks and 31 black knobs give it an air of importance and whet the sound designer’s appetite.

Not enough hard wiring

With a prearranged modular system it would seem obvious – in order to start out right without a patch cable – to standardize run-of-the-mill wiring (that is, keyboard-CV connected to VCO and in following through the VCF, all controlled by the envelopes). In the Red Square e.g. VCO1 is prewired to the 24 dB Lowpass-Filter and connected with the AR-envelope. the whole thing is nurtured by the built-in Midi-Interface. The pre-wiring is a little scanty, in my opinion: the VCO2 could easily have been included along with the solitary LFO and the ADSR-envelope 2 (perhaps connected to the filter?) – that would have been really practical, especially since there are classic models existing for successful prewired half modular systems: ARP2600, Korg MS-20.

Laziness is the father of all economy

Along with ergonomic considerations, laziness also plays a role – designers are human – and it does happen that useful prewiring simply doesn’t get done: it’s either forgotten, or too expensive, or too complicated. Probably something like this is at the bottom of Analog Solution’s decision to do without more expensive prewiring.

Dual VCO, but never unison

Let’s look at the sound modules: VCO1 sounds really juicy in all its waveforms (triangle, saw and pulse). Those who want more can also activate the sub oscillator (pulse, one octave below). The four waveforms can be individually mixed, and there is a glide function in addition. The tuning knob allows variable tuning within the range area of a fifth. Pulling the knob transposes the VCO down two octaves. There is also sync-in, which is great. That’s about it on the oscillator side.

VCO2 is identically organized – except for the sync-in – and is tuned one octave lower. It’s equipped with the same detuning possibilities as the VCO1. The two VCOs are therefore never in unison at the same pitch – unless you don’t care about the warranty, open up the instrument, and manually change the circuit to give it a practical open-tuning beyond the quint/octave limits. In my opinion, they could at least have included a descent octave range knob (16′, 8′, 4′ – something in this direction)!

Modulating ok – but how?

Decent sound can be made with the OSC-Sync, although a couple of modulation sources would definitely be of practical use. If you patch the ADSR-envelope onto the pitch of the synched VCO1 you come up with sounds you can use. If, however, you use the LFO for the same purpose, the results are rather drastic: the intensity of the modulation can be adjusted (on the VCO board), but neither can the pitch be sufficiently heightened nor is there a possibility to modify the offset of the LFO.

We also look in vain for an additional VCA for controlling LFO intensity by the single envelope, or for use as a simple mixer (to combine different control- and audiosignals). That was probably too expensive.

What’s left are three multiples, which are primarely capable of splitting audio- or control signals (if e.g. the LFO is supposed to simultanueously control the VCO pitch and filter cutoff, in which case the LFO out plugs into a multiple as do also the VCO-pitch and filter-cutoff. If, however, ADSR and LFO are supposed to modulate the pitch of VCO1 together, this is not possible on the Red Square – unless per chance a proper modular system is reesting right beside it, which is generous enough to do the job.

Externally usable Midi-to-CV/Gate-Interface

I found the ring modulating tantalizing and useful for creating sounds with a large share of non harmonics. The Sample-&-Hold-Module is also seductive to experimenting. Great too, the fact that the MIDI interface is easily appplied to other analog voltage controlled synthesizers, it having three separately installed control voltages for pitch, modulation and accent (velocity) and trigger-out.

Strong filter

The filter is a powerful 24 dB LowPassFilter. The AR-envelope is permanently patched on to it; its intensity can be regulated. There is also a modulation-in for the cutoff frequency (for the ADSR envelope for example). The LFO sounds beautiful there, too – especially if it comes in the range of audio frequency, so you can fake FM sounds. Even the filter resonance can be modulated, whereby the intensity of all of these modulations can be adjusted.

In order to adjust resonance, though, you need a fine sense of feeling. The grey area between the first fading in and the transition to self oscillation is approx. between 3,5 and 4. Finally, there is another knob marked X.Mod in the filter section for routing the signal out of the audio out back to the filter as a source of modulation: a nice little thing, but no big deal.

The Red Square can be used as an effects unit. Just route a drumloop or a pad in the ext. in and off you go. Filters, ringmodulation, rhythmesizing… But here too you should not expect too much. You only have one filter characteristic, the modulation sources are limited, there is no module to analyze the audio signal (that is, no pitch recognition as in the Korg MS-20), no envelope-follower such is standard in other synths, no panning module, no phaser or spring reverb.

Pulse width? What’s that?

Yes, missing mixing modules remain a topic with the Red Square. The only components that can be combined are the four waveforms of the VCO1 (Tri, Saw, Puls, Noise or alternatively Sub) and in addition a waveform of VCO2 plus the ringmodulation signal. I could not discover anything else. Sure, it’s nice to know this is a real “classic” analog synth design, but it was not necessary to keep it that strict classic.

The ADSR is an advantage – compared with the SEM- and early Moog-envelopes, where decay and release were combined in one knob. However, this means the Red Square envelope is more versatile. On the other hand, pulse width modulation would have been a nice addition, too. Sure, no Minimoog or Moog Prodigy features PWM, but in the end it would have improved the poor modulation features on the Red Square a little.

I don’t wanna trump up and down on the Red Square all the time. It does have a really proper analog sound, I can’t emphasize this enough. In these days with inadequate native synthesizer simulations flooding the market and ruining the ears, this can not be valued enough. A pure sawtooth sound, minimally filtered and eventually synched, gussied up with the glide function, and you’ve already got those lightly shimmering solo lines and subtle sync sounds that made the Minimoog so popular. A really good deal.

Tweaking knobs is simply better for your fingers

The envelopes are not necessarily the fastest, but sufficient for all kinds of electronic percussion sounds. Sufficient in any case for basses, solo lines and percussive short sounds. The only sacrifice is getting along without those unpleasant little crackles made by extremely fast envelopes – let’s be honest, we usually find ourselves reducing those attacks of the extremely short envelopes, because the static gets on our nerves.

I also find fault with the envelopes of the Red Square. Why is a synthesizer of today, if equipped with two envelopes, not provided with two complete ADSR envelopes, istead of one ADSR and a reduced AR with switchable sustain. Look, who these days would want to do without a starter on a sports car in favour of a crank – with explicit mention in the user manual, that sports cars are for sporty people.

Good sounds from an inflated modular bag of tricks

The Red Square is a good sounding fully analog synthesizer. The modular, however, is an inflated bag of tricks that is more likely to impress users than it is to help them make music. With a little common-sense-wiring surely 95% of the sound patches could have been applied with 100% less spaghetti wiring in half the time. As a modular synth the Red Square offers little versatility and a lot of short comings on the control side. Versatility is certainly not its greatest asset.

Speaking of assets, a remark concerning the brand name of the Red Sequare. Company founder Tom Carpenter reckoned with the good reputation of the other british synthesizer brand Analogue Systems in naming his “Analogue Solutions”. He cleverly took advantage of the similarity of the two brand names in order to profit from the reputation of the longer exisiting “Analogue Systems”. This was clever of Mr. Carpenter, but it’s a pain for people like me who don’t remember names well, and constantly end up at the wrong web site.

Originally written by Bluesynths.
Review, pictures, sounds, translation: Curte Nolte
Layout: Theo Bloderer
Programming: Lawrence Eldridge