0-Coast a.k.a. No-Coast comes forth from Make Noise, makers of Maths and many other well known modules.

0-Coast grabbed the attention of many modular curious synth nerds and beatmakers in January of 2016 at NAMM. This small little desktop synth with patch-able and modular sensibilities seemed to be one of the trending topics along with a couple of other self contained modular inspired desktop synths (i.e. Moog’s Mother 32 & Studio Electronics’ Tone Star).

So whats so special about the 0-Coast? Well, its a semi modular desktop synth that fancies itself as the intersection of west coast synthesis and east coast synthesis. It’s a Triangle Core Analog VCO that features a triangle wave and square wave. How the 0-Coast is patched can lend itself more to west coast synthesis.

West coast philosophy uses additive synthesis and FM (frequency modulation). While the East Coast philosophy leans heavily on subtractive synthesis. The square wave on the No-Coast, when patched accordingly, can modulate the oscillator thus creating the west coast sort of synthesis.

The 0-Coast has 13 Sources and 14 Destinations. It’s easy to patch by itself and just as simple to integrate into your larger modular rig if you have one.

The thing that I found profound about the 0-Coast is that you get bits of circuitry that can be found in a gang of Make Noise modules. For instance, the slope generator are very similar to channels 1 & 4 of the Maths or Function modules.

The envelope circuit was inspired by the Model D. The Dynamic circuit is a none resonate low pass filter VCA inspired by the Buchla 292. That basically means that the signal “gets brighter as it gets louder.”

The 0-Coast has a very unique character with a  few tricks up it’s sleeve. The overtone feature does some additive synthesis that creates additional harmonics on the tone of the 0-coast. There is something about it that has a bit of DPO flavor to it. If I’m not mistaken the square wave can modulate the other when patched properly.

At any rate, I’ll let Bana Haffar & Eric “Rodent” Cheslak do the explaining in the following video

0-Coast Perfect Circuit Premiere Overview Event

For those that aren’t so indoctrinated just yet into the modular world the 0-Coast can be played like a monosynth. Also, it has a decent midi facility as well that allows you to control it via midi and access some extended sequencer features.

Played like a traditional monosynth

Features

  • 2 Channels of MIDI to CV and MIDI to Gate
  • Dual mode MIDI Controlled Arpeggiator
  • Sync to MIDI Clock
  • Compatible w/ Eurorack Modular Synthesizer Signals
  • Patchable w/ 13 Sources and 14 Destinations
  • Triangle Core Analog VCO
  • Uncommon Timbral Animation using OVERTONE & MULTIPLY
  • Unique Transistor Based Low Pass Gate DYNAMICS
  • Voltage Control of all circuits
  • External Audio Input for combining w/ outside sounds
  • Headphone and Line Level Amplifier
  • Small Rugged Steel Enclosure

0-Coast may be sighted in the wild as Perfect Circuit seemed to sell the last of their lot during the event a couple of weeks ago. 0-Coast is still out of stock at Perfect Circuit so good luck finding them available out there. None the less, it’s certainly a dope unit and I can’t wait to get my hands on one!

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