SteamPipe from Erica synths and 112db is unlike most synths. Rather than having a linear signal path with simple or complex oscillators and filters, Steampipe pairs an exciter with a tunable resonating filtered delay feedback loop, – or chaos in short – and gives you plenty of hands on touch points within that feedback loop to explore a broad range of timbres.

Steampipe goes all in with physical modeling synthesis, it has 8 voices and it can model acoustic instruments like bells, flutes guitars, marimbas, but also lets you stretch and shape its characterstics to create instruments that don’t exist in the real world, or interesting effects if you connect external audio to it.

In this video I take a detailed look at how it works, along with pros and cons compared to the competition:

TIMELINE:

0:00 Intro

1:50 Overview

3:50 Connectivity

4:15 Build

5:15 Steam

6:00 Exciter LPF

6:30 Steam env

7:00 Pipe

7:20 Feedback

7:50 Polarity

8:10 Push

9:45 Tuning

10:10 Harmonics

11:15 Split

12:10 Saturation

13:15 HPF/LPF

14:10 Overblow

15:30 Reverb

16:40 LFOs

17:50 LFO as env

18:55 MIDI devices

20:10 MIDI mod

21:00 EXT audio

22:10 Misc

24:00 Pros & cons

27:50 Presets