PWM Malevolent

BUILD QUALITY

Feels sturdy yet light, fairly solid plastic chassis. Keybed feels very similar to Microkorg, in other words it's average at best. The knobs feel very solid..no wobble, and they have just the right amount of resistance. Patchpoints feel kind of sticky/mushy, never encountered this in other semimodular gear, so I can't say if it's good or bad. Joystick feels very cheap like it will brake if you're not careful..it's this very very light feeling plastic. Oscillators are fairly stable.



USER INTERFACE

The UI is well laid out, and it has legends printed below patchpoints to show the default signal path when no patchcable is connected. Even the synth is very small, I'd say even the person with large hands should have enough space to comfortably operate the patchcables and knobs. There are 5 short patchcables included, so I highly recommend you buy more (few 50 cm as well). I was pleasently surprised to notice, that the OSC-waveform buttons add/remove a shape, instead of choosing just a one waveform to be used at a time. Another interesting solution for a modular-newbee like me was, that you use FM1 as an filter envelope depth parameter.



SOUND

Tricky thing to descripe the sonic character of this one. Only other dual VCO synth I have to compare this with, is the Behringer Neutron. The Neutron sounds silky smooth compared to this..kind of like comparing a Moog with SH-101 or similar. The Malevolent feels almost like it has a mind of it own; it's dirty, glitchy, angry, cold..full of those kind of sweetpots, so even one millimeter of a knob turn can make a huge difference in sound. Most often I feel that twisting a knob between 7-12 o'clock results in adding saturation, and beyond that it quickly goes in to extremes. Think of the typical un-clinical sound of a VCO and multiply it by 5. S/R-ratio is poor though; even with oscillators' volume a at zero, there is a noticable noise (white noise) when playing a note. The filter is full of this sharp "burbliness" if you will, kind of inpossible to tame anything with it..like the lowpass filter..it just rather muddies the sound when used to extremes rather than removes higher frequencies if that makes sense. You can make some basic leads, basses, etc, but it's almost inpossible to make them sound smooth..this isn't the synth for those sounds. In my opinion the Malevolent feels at home for industrial noise, horror soundscapes, aggressive punk/rave, experimental modular type of soundscapes.

The easy and speedy delivery process to the UK was surprising, as I ordered it in the middle of the holiday season. Thanks, Thomman! There is a reason why they call it the Malevolent. The filter is something rather refreshing and different. The resonance behaves like any other. Right up to the 3rd notch. But after that, oh my...:D Naughty in the nicest way! Combine that with the lovely onboard Drive, and you can get some grittiness for sure! Hainbach would love some of the drones it can do. You can get some bread and butter tones out of it if you don't push it, but where is the fun in that? You should have other synths for doing the vanilla stuff! The patch points are spaced and pre-wired rather logically, easy to navigate and work with. The joystick is interesting, but I don't play live. It is a great 1st synth option for people who want to get into modular too. Works from USB, has a keyboard, MIDI to CV, eurorack compatible. Nice!

This synth is a monster. It starts to overdrive after about 12 o clock on the oscillator levels, the filter will self oscillate even before 12 o clock (you can beat this down some with more overdrive) and the FM on it gets wild. The synth is plasticky but felt sturdy. Keys were a little flimsy and I did have an issue with one of the keys at the end being able to be pushed up and down (if you pressed beneath the key and pushed upward, it would come up, but it still played fine) so a midi keyboard is a good idea with it. Otherwise, lots of fun to be had. As the name suggests, this thing is angry...dont go to this synth looking for your more traditional mono sounds, there are other synths priced similarly or better for that kind of thing. If you need absolutely over the top chaotic wildness, the Malevolent is for you. Thomann, as always, was quick and efficient with my order. Ordered from the US and got within a week!