MusicRadar

A fantastic new approach to controlling CV hardware.

1 of 2 » View in gallery

• Review

For a one-man company, Expert Sleepers has certainly been busy over the last few years. Not content with creating leftfield plug-ins such as the Augustus Loop delay and excellent Minky Starshine additive synth, Andrew Ostler has turned his hand to revolutionising the way we integrate CV-controlled synths with our DAWs.

The Silent Way plug-in suite essentially consists of utilities for generating control signals to be sent to analogue synths, but it goes way beyond the typical CV and gate features of most hardware alternatives.

Not only does the software offer options that owners of traditional MIDI-to-CV converters can only dream of, but Expert Sleepers' own range of Eurorack format modules offer input and output options to suit everyone.

"Silent Way opens up sound design options that'd be expensive, difficult or impossible any other way."

So, armed with a couple of pre-MIDI analogue synths and a stack of modular goodies, we set about seeing what it could do.

In a Silent Way

The heart of the product range is the Silent Way software plug-in suite, available for Mac (AU and VST) and PC (VST). Following hot on the heels of MOTU's Volta software, the concept is remarkably simple, allowing you to generate control voltages in your DAW and send them to analogue synths, modular setups or CV-controlled effects via your audio interface.

The ability to sequence CV synths is a selling point in itself, but Silent Way offers so much more than just basic MIDI-to-CV conversion. However, before we start using the software there are a couple of hardware questions we need to answer.

Since most audio interfaces block DC voltages at their outputs, Silent Way is picky about which hardware can be used straight out of the box (a full list of compatible interfaces is available on Expert Sleepers' website).

Alternatively, Silent Way's AC Encoder plug-in avoids the need for DC-coupled outputs but requires a bit of DIY work to convert the signal back into DC for your synths.

If you're not confident following the instructions to wire up cables or passive breakout boxes with built-in rectifiers, Expert Sleepers offer the ES-1 module, an active breakout box in Eurorack format which converts up to eight analogue outputs into DC control voltages suitable for your synths. It'll set you back £131 with DSUB input or £143 with quarter-inch jacks.

However, we decided to test the new ES-3 module, which works on the same principle as the ES-1 but accepts an ADAT lightpipe digital input rather than analogue signals.

For those of us with a spare ADAT output on our interface, the ES-3 is almost certainly more convenient than tying up eight analogue outputs. It's also one of the most friendly plug-and-play pieces of hardware you'll ever have the pleasure to use.

Simply hook up the Eurorack power cable, connect the Lightpipe input and everything works. If only all hardware was so simple.