MusicRadar

• Review

Patching

Patching is a big part of the fun to be had with the Kraftzwerg. It's quite safe to try any combination as nothing can really be damaged when plugging in a cable.

There are 37 patch points on the top panel, plus four more on the back for handling CV, Gate Pitch Bend and Mod wheel. It's definitely worth learning the internal routing first, but breaking things up with the cables can lead to some pretty crazy noises being spewed out. The LFOs in particular can be called upon for all kinds of cross-modulation up to audio rates, and can also be plugged into the mixer and used as a noise source.

Pitch Bend and Mod wheel can be used live, or as part of a MIDI sequencer pattern which opens things up further, and of course, any other modular synth can get involved just by patching it in any way you wish.

Summary

Without any patch cables, there's plenty of room for tweaking, and the high contrast white on black labelling makes it easy to see what's going on. Even the knobs for the dual ADSR, which are quite close together, leave enough space for tweak-happy fingers.

All that can change when patch cables come into the equation. Like any other modular system, cables can get in the way a bit, especially if they have to go from one side of the unit to another (eg, patching one of the ADHSR's into the LFO CV).

"The Kraftzwerg is ideal if you have a portable computer setup, a cramped studio or do a lot of live work."

There are a few omissions to the line up that it would have been nice to see. First up there's no internal glide, so you will have to use a glide enable CV keyboard. Oscillators are short of a sine wave and there's no manual PWM.

Sound wise, the Kraftzwerg has a bright top end, exhibiting a harder tone when cranking the resonance.

There's no doubt that this synth beats a lot of the competition when it comes to size and price. Obviously, it's an enticing proposition to get such a capable modular in such a small package.

The Kraftzwerg is ideal if you have a portable computer setup, a cramped studio or do a lot of live work. In fact, it's good for any occasion where analogue purity is a must, but it's just not practical to take a full-blown modular cabinet.

Listen to what the Kraftzwerg in action:

Stacked filter sweep

Filter FM

Bleep mods

Ring mod plus osc sync

PWM arp