Winter Plankton ZAPS

Zaps – from Plankton Electronics and Winter Modular – is a versatile percussion synthesizer that uses the best of both worlds: digital control and analog sound.

Its versatility is based on a combination of different techniques like controlled randomness, morphing, locking synth voice parameters into so called slots and the complex sound generation itself. You can sequence the slots like presets, externally via a CV input. This makes Zaps not one drum module, but a dozen of them in one, because you can play a different one of the many stored sounds with each trigger. It's designed to create organic percussive sequences that can change over time and/or sound different with each beat.

The sound is generated by the digitally-controlled-two-oscillator-FM and AM-analog engine with two envelopes and cross modulation – the oscillators follow V/oct. Zaps has a huge amount of memory – each project contains twelve banks, each bank contains twelve slots, each slot contains one sound, all nicely organized thanks to the large display.

These are just a few things you can do with Zaps. Here's more info:

• Sequence Preset Slots externally for changing percussion or synth lines
• Add subtle randomness to any parameter, or go wild for unpredicted surprises on every trigger
• Morph sounds between Slots
• Assign accent to any parameter
• Randomly generate full banks of sounds
• Freeze/Revert the state of the module for careless editing during live performances
• Live editing of a single or multiple Slots simultaneously
• Generate melodic percussion or synth lines with the V/O tracked oscillators
• Use CV-in control of any parameter or CV-out control for external modules (control FX-sends or automate external-synth parameters)

SYNTHESIS

VCOs:

• Two selftuning triangle core VCOs with V/oct inputs, Thru-Zero-FM and Fine and Coarse controls.
• VCO 1 waves: Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, and Square.
• VCO 2 waves: Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, Square, Double Sine, and White Noise.
• VCO2 has two separate wave outputs, one for the AM and the other for the FM and the Mixer-Channel 2.

ENVELOPES:

• Two AHR (Attack, Hold, Release) envelopes with Retrigger-Function (0-15) and cross-zero detection (on/off).
• The hold time can be set internally or externally (Gate ON) for each envelope.
• Envelopes can be faded from logarithmic to linear responses.
• Each envelope can control the Pitch/Tone of the VCOs (Pitch Envelope), the amount of AM or FM (Envelope 1), the VCA for both channels (Envelope 2).

AM:

• The amplitude modulation goes from VCO2 to VCO1.
• It can be set in two ways: straight to VCO1 or through a VCA controlled by Envelope 1.

FM:

• The frequency modulation goes from VCO2 to VCO1 and from VCO1 to VCO2 (XFM).
• FM can be set in two ways: straight to VCO1, or through a VCA controlled by Envelope 1.

MIXER:

• Two-channel mixer for the two VCOs.

HIGH-PASS FILTER:

• There are two HPFs. HPF1 filters the mixer output. HPF2 filters the white noise.

DIGITAL CONTROL

STRUCTURE:

• Each project contains twelve banks, each bank contains twelve slots, each slot contains a sound.
• All projects are stored on an SD card.

RANDOM:

• Randomize values on a per trigger basis
• Independent random control for each synth parameter
• Set ranges to any random value for controlled randomness
• Relatively attenuate all parameter-random amounts with a single global random fader
• Populate slots or banks with randomly generated sounds

FREEZE/REVERT:

• Take a snapshot of the whole project, modify it and go back to the original state.

MORPH:

• Parameter interpolation between two slots on a per trigger basis.
• Control the balance between the two slots with one fader — crossfade style.

CV ASSIGN:

• Any of the six CV-connectors can be configurable as both inputs or outputs and set to different ranges (0/10V, 0/8V, -5/5V, 0/5V).
• CV-inputs can be internally attenuated
• Control almost any synth parameter, value, or setting on a per trigger basis. For example, Accent, Slot Selection, Morph assignments, Next/Prev Slot, Random Slot, Oscillator-Wave Selection, any of the synth parameters (Pitch, Release, AM, FM, Global Random…) or any of the random parameters (Random Pitch, Random Filter, Random Hold…)
• Output any parameter-CV values through any of the assignable I/Os
• Alt-fader-CV output for controlling external parameters, like Send-FX for each slot.
• CV-slot/Gate out — Useful for externally recording finger drumming.

ACCENT ASSIGN:

• Add dynamics by assigning the accent input to control any one of the synth parameters

COPY:

• Copy Slots (also between banks)

SNAPSHOT:

• Take a snapshot of the last sound heard (flatten the values for further editing), including the effects of CV-in, Morph, and Random. Very useful for easily creating banks from scratch.

EDIT ALL:

• Action over faders has an effect on the twelve Slots. Use hints: Live tweaking, homogenize, “tame” a Sound Bank, or modify all Slot parameters while sequencing the Slots via CV-input.

FILE SYSTEM:

Save, Load, Name, and Rename projects, banks, sounds and sort them into folders.