Endless Sonic Journeys

exotic and far out sounds for everyone

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Endless Sonic Journeys

exotic and far out sounds for everyone

Grab a synth and join our open beta!

Feel like participating in the design conversation? Head on over to our community forum.

Introducing the Believotron Wanderlust, both an exciting and innovative sound creation platform, and a solid musical instrument that is open and extensible.

It does't matter what level of musicianship or technical knowledge; whether you have loads of gadgets or you're frugally evaluating one tool; the Believotron Wanderlust has an exciting journey for you.

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Featured

PRO AUDIO

Build the perfect workflow. Add just the right effect. Layer rhythm, leads, samples, and get that perfect sound. Quickly change between configurations, and build new tools to help you make that track hot.

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Home Studio

Full featured workstation at a mini workstation price. Replaces midi keyboard, sampler/sequencer, arpreggiator, drums, and even the computer if you're on the go. Open hardware means an ecosystem you can rely on, and constant innovation for when you want to bask in the firehose of new. Open software means sharing an ever expanding array of patches.

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DJ / Live PA / Live EDM

We're from Chicago. We grew up seeing some of the most amazing sets with two turntables and a 303 or 808 blasting out a seamless psychedelic rhythm. The Wanderlust can add more fluid, arresting, and dynamic rhythms. With the sampler, you can keep bringing back that hook that drives the crowd wild, over and over again throughout your set. Or play a synth on top of the tracks you know and love.

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Singer / Songwriter

Enjoy rapid song sketching with automatic chords/progression, appreggiator, and backing rhythms. Quickly throw down sound loops and layer them. Use your favorite samples to back you up. Add as much or as little sound processing to your unique voice.

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Live Performance

Whether you're the keyboard player in your band, a vocalist that wants to layer sample/sequence, a rhythm guitarist that wants to add amazing accompaniment, or a drummer who wants to blast out something new, there is something for every musician.

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Performance Art

Whatever your message, say it louder. Add nuance, color, vibrance, distortion, chaos, cacophony. With the limitless patching system and the ability to control external motors and visuals, you can defy convention and bring your message to new dimensions.

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Modular Synthesizers

If you're into modular synths, this is the perfect addition. It's got 140HP Eurorack format, audio in, out, midi in/out/through, and enough analog in and digital controls to build CV interfaces and make weird instruments to keep you up at night. Add keyboards, LFOs, sequencers, arppreggiator, and knobs, knobs, knobs!

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Synth Wizards

Forged from magic itself from a bygone time, Synth Wizards have seen just about every incarnation of sonic gear and will appreciate the feature density of the Wanderlust. Having features similar to all the great synths combined with the digital sequencing is enough to put your biggest synth fan into a wizard trance. Level up!

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Art Installation / Experimental Sound

Connect any number of sensors and inputs to control the sound. Use capacitance to detect distance, a PIR sensor to trigger on motion. Connect an optical resistor to make an effective theramin. Use the SD card to store samples and create the experience you envision!

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Lightswitch Raves

Explore the deepest sounds in your cocoon of light and song. Some of you are never getting in front of a crowd, but that doesn't keep this from being a super fun way to unwind on a Friday. Chase the bleeps'n bloops and control some LEDs to the timing of your loops!

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Hardware Hackers

You don't have to go deep to enjoy amazing sound, but if you want to there is a full open source toolchain and documentation to explore and expand. Build the coolest machine the world never new it wanted.

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Programmers

Whether your're an embedded, systems, or web developer; what better way to use your programming chops, than to help program new sounds and new ways of interacting with music and time? Open source means rapid development and sharing. Rapid sharing means more cross-pollination and even stranger mutations.

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Jawdropping on the go

Whether you're a one person bicycle sonic juggernaut, a member of a drum and tuba marching band, or just a sonic stunt queen, the small form factor is portable enough and can run on the same external batteries that charge your phone. Bring your auditory masterpiece out in to the world.

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Touring Machine

When you're done writing songs in the studio or on the couch, taking this portable synth on tour is a dream. Take this synth on a plane, train, or tourbus and capture the magic of the road.

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Maker/Hacker spaces

Wire up bananas to control distortion, pitch-to-motor control, or perhaps an LFO that changes by proximity detection. Hackers and makers will get lost in an unfathomable maze of contagious creation.

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Music Teachers

Create new ways to teach music, song, and sound. Take abstract concepts such as pitch, rhythm, and accent and create controllers for budding minds. Create a wireless controller for each student to show how the individual components build up into a whole. Build a fun, engaging experience for our future songwriters, producers, and performers.

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Scientific Demonstrations

Add more engagement to your science demonstrations. Change motion into sound. Show temperature as tempo and pressure as pitch. Add knobs that not only control physical properties, but also song and melody that can wow students into understanding.

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You

You're you're own strange. Quiet or loud. Social or reclusive. Expansive or reductive. Or anywhere in between. You make this planet interesting in your own way. Lite a fire and don't look behind.

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21st Century Interface

Everyone is different, pick the workflow that works best for you. Use the existing settings and customize to your heart's content, or you can design a brand new way of working with the machine and share it with the community.

Instrument / Patch Management

System ships with an SD Card preloaded with an ever evolving range of instruments
Download an up-to-date set of core instruments
Extensive community instruments
Develop your own
Sync files with github / gdrive / dropbox / icloud and more
Modern private version control for musicians that want to protect their work
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Ever Evolving features

Zero Programming: New Adventures in community instruments
Zero internet? Use an SD card. DIY or buy from literally anyone with a good idea and a charming experience
Sync directly over USB
Easy Graphical Modification: You will love how easy it is to find and understand the synth logic, and make the changes you need to improve your workflow. Making a mistake is harmless and experimentation is encouraged.
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Dynamic Control / Dynamic Sound

Every control on the Wanderlust can be routed to any part of the synthesizer model, to configure the machine exactly how you want it, flipping between settings with ease.

It's the flexibility of modular synthesizers, but with the magic, speed, and accelerando of a microcontroller.

Dynamic Control Routing

Change the target of any control. Use a knob to adjust an LFO and with the tap of a button, that knob can be reassigned, cycled, or toggled to any control in the patch. Swap out one control, a row, or the entire UI. Learn more > >

Control Sequencing

Program / sequence / record / loop values for any parameter. Layer. Raise the attack on the start of every measure, lengthen the release at the end. Build emotion and expression into your sound. Learn more > >

Sequenced Control Routing

Change how the controls are routed in time. Start by setting up the knobs to control Attack / Decay / Sustain / Release. The sequencer can automagically change the knobs to control phase / chorus / echo / flanger during certain bars / measures. Learn more > >

CONTROL Sequence Live RECORDING

Add expressiveness make your sounds more dynamic. Record pad taps, knob turns, and joystick jostling, live. One-shot / Loop / Toggle / Timer-Counter playback for the perfect dramatic punctuation or emotive texture. Modify recorded values on the fly either overwriting or returning back to the recorded value. Program in your perfect performance and then push the edge on every playback. Learn more > >

STATE MACHINE CONTROL SEQUENCING

Create new instruments that can quickly change states and become more mellow, more abrasive, more muted with the touch of a button. There are plenty of knobs, but often you'd like to turn five of them at once. Like wailing hard on a saxophone, quickly pushing your instrument to extremes expands the dynamic creativity. Learn more > >

Control Freak

Enough controls for a pod of six octopi

Control Freak

Enough controls for a pod of six octopi

Polyphonic MIDI

Meander along a melody / lure with your lead / rumble out your rhythm. Connect a controller and enjoy these features.

Responsive / fast action
Capacitive Touch: No moving parts to break
Key lock
Auto-Chord
Arpeggiator
Alternative Tuning
Reassignable
Live Sequence Recording
Rhythm Generator
Pair with joysticks for velocity / expression control
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Axoloti Core Audio Platform

We can't say enough good things about this open source gem. It's very feature packed. It's easy to use / modify and the clear leader on microcontroller audio ecosystems.

Hackable / Open / Cross Platform
SD Card
Midi In / Midi Out / Software Midi Thru
1/8" Audio Out Headphone / Laptop Jack
1/4" Stereo Input Jack (line level with up to 55 dB digitally controlled analog gain)
1/4" Audio Line Out (digitally controlled volume, DC-coupled)
USB Host
Control parameters via PC GUI interface for development and performance
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Action Grip Knobs

Master the future with enough knobs for two octopi. So many choices, it's designed to make you a grabby, handsy, twiddle-wizard.

ulti-track sequencer
Dynamic Control Routing to any feature of the synth model
ADSR Envelope
LFO Single / Chain
Pitch / Volume / Expression
Chorus / Flanger / Phaser
Cutoff / Resonance
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x-Y Analog Joysticks

Add just the right extra flare. Spice up a sequence. Explore new directions with these fluid analog controls.

Piano Velocity / Expression
Echo / Chorus
Cutoff / Resonance
Tempo Jitter / LFO Speed
Pitch Bend
Remapable to any synth control
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OLED Menus

Enjoy haptic feedback like you've never seen. Not just a fanciful dazzlement, understand what is going on inside the synthesizer.

Parameter Display
Step Sequence
Map to any synth parameter
Literally brilliant </pun>
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Creative new ways to play

Discover and create a whole new world of sound. Creative orchestras, strange new instruments, impactful installations. Use motion, light, and even sound itself to control the instrument. Translate those into physical motion and add to the wonderful genesis of new art.

Featured

Brave New Keytar

Our experimental keytar is sure to knock your socks off. Battery powered and ready for the stage. Get in front of people and start thrashing with the 8 channels of faders on the "fretboard". Bring new sounds to new places!

Motion Interactive

Entrance your audience as physical real world motion is translated into sound. Many different sensor types, source code, and online tutorials allow you to make an impact on a budget, or orchestrate computer vision controls, like a full-motion theramin. It's as simple as a drink with a maker friend to go from sketch to solution.

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Light Sensing

Make an incredibly slow piece that tracks the light from the sun. Use flashlights to control intensity. Cover sensors with your hands like a light-theramin. Discover strange sonic patterns as you use filters and different high-frequency light sources to melt your mind.

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Brave New Touch

Bring sound controls to a place they've never been. Whether you're making a banana piano, a baguette saxophone, or a room full of touch pads and capacitive fields you'll find a new way to blow peoples minds and delight their senses.

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Motion Control

Elaborate mechanical contraptions are within your reach. Use solenoids to build computer controlled drums. Build artistic backdrops and let motors and gears tell a story. Interface with the physical world and do something no one has ever thought of whether it's as stupid as a synthesizer that dispenses candy every time you play it or a robot that can draw a bow across a violin.

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Audio by Axoloti

We have so much respect for Johannes Taelman and his open source project, Axoloti. We found many wonderful audio engines during prototyping, but I wanted to go on just ooooone more search before settling on a particular solution. I couldn't have been more lucky in my entire life. We went from working on a single rigid synthesis engine that required reprogramming to alter the controls to a fully graphical programming system that incorporates the magic of arduino-like functionality. Find out more at axoloti.com

Featured

Johannes Taelman: Axoloti

We couldn't do a better job ourselves explaining the wonderful platform he has created.

Axoloti Hardware

So many features. So versatile. Midi In / Out, Audio In / Out, SD Card, USB Host, reprogram with PC on USB.

Axoloti Patcher

An open source wonder. Use easy to understand blocks and connect them together to create complex instruments. The software automatically connects to the hardware and installs your instrument patch. You can manipulate the controls in the software in real-time and later transfer that control using external hardware controls.

Robust User Community

An amazing, helpful group of people. Questions about patching, hardware interface, enclosure design, sound / audio are answered within the vibrant user threads. It's really a model of open source sharing and expanding of the ecosystem.

Maker Hardware Friendly

The Believotron Wanderlust has survived an epic slew of brainstorms on how to connect to existing open hardware platforms. Literally any platform that has 0.1" center pins will be able to interface with both the Believotron Wanderlust and the Axoloti Core hardware. We've implemented the three most ubiquitous / informative platforms. Raspberry Pi provides the most advanced processing platform. Arduino / Genuino offers the largest number of projects. Adafruit leads in informative, respectful, and creative projects. We've created a relatively straightforward workstation with expansions for you to create mind-bogglingly weird controllers, or the most modern and new workflow imaginable. Motion, acceleration, light, heat, images. Leverage the extensive open community and participate in the party!

Featured

Raspberry Pi

WiFi, Full Linux OS, Graphics, Recording / Playback. Adding a Raspberry Pi to your Wanderlust and head off to charts unknown. Graphical programming languages like Pure Data and a powerful processor will give you unfettered creativity and programmability.

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Arduino / Genuino

Use the ample hookup locations to add the open source project that galvanized the community. Thousands of arduino shields and a soldering iron stand in between you and serendipity. Temperature controlled pitch? A peppy march whenever the sun peeks through? Upcycle any number of open source projects written for arduino.

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Adafruit Feather

We've added a footprint to connect to the Adafruit Feather line of hardware. Adafruit's amazing educational resources, coupled with their drive to enable women in STEAM makes their platform an amazing jumping off point to modify and add to your Wanderlust. Wifi, Bluetooth / BLE, SD Card, ARM, AVR, LEDs, OLEDs, and an amazing body of documentation to add control and feedback. Use the feather to transform this hardware into a unique experience.

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OLED Display

Charts / Graphs. Charts'n'Graphs. Show the inner workings of the synth. Remind yourself what that knob actually does. Avoid incomprehensible mazes of menus and create an interface that works for you. Adafruit is the leading supplier of OLED displays and offers an array of tutorials. Wanderlust is designed to give you a display that fits your budget.

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Smartphone Display

Combine with a Pi / Arduino / Feather to add responsive controls. Quickly switch between patches. Sample / Sequence, Record / Playback. Create your own snappy interface, or re-use from the community. Adding a GUI to your workflow will reap unfathomable sonic harvest. Instead of one fixed way of using the synth, you can create your own friendly interface.

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4x8 LED

The Adafruit Feather 4x8 LED offers you an additional 4 rows of multitrack feedback. Reconfigure the padcaps to control a drum sequence. Show controller envelopes. Use the display as a music sheet. A suggested performance with ample room for immediacy.

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Believotron

Pleasure Engineering

Independently, we feel the calling. We all remember the first time we fell in love with a sound machine and got lost in the twisty little passages, all alike. Hours would pass, grey matter would be throbbing with new connections. Neurons that fire together play together.

It's that feeling of wonder and discovery that draws us all to a lifestyle of synthesizers, gadget-boxen, and transcending electronics to provide the sublime.

Believotron is dedicated to designing open creations that delight. Not just Diet-Open with a handful of files released, but full assembly drawings, part-numbers, machine descriptions, and process documents. We think that the tools released last year are thousands of times more capable than tools released a decade ago and we would like to contribute to the accelerando.

Our senior engineer has been at it for 17 years. He's shipped well over a billion dollars of hardware: a garage door on a 747 for the NASA SOFIA project (Psst we found oxygen on Mars), Semiconductor Test Equipment (Your cell phone, your car, your toaster, your...), Electric Vehicle Battery and Fuel Cell test, and several start-ups in security, transportation, and communication. Daniel balances his obtuse creativity with a strong desire to create quality hardware and documentation and is looking forward to setting a new standard for open hardware reuse and interoperability.

Our network includes Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Manufacturing Engineers, Actors, Writers, Artists, Chicago, SF, NY, Austin, Salt Lake, Belgium, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Taipei (Saved best food for last #NightMarket)

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