Detail of the Terci and Kith Ruina, cozily settled side by side.

Terci Ruina is a triple distortion, providing countless ways to alter sound. Each distortion is different, and each features its own input and output, allowing for everything from simple saturation to complex, cascaded shaping effects. Offering a Feedback, Feedforward, and Fuzz design each with a single tone control, Terci Ruina provides a straightforward means of creating an enormous array of effects. In NE's own words, this is not the module to go to if you want pretty, warm distortions: but it'll tear things up in an instant, if you desire.

The recently-released Kith Ruina takes a different approach. It borrows inspiration from guitar tone stacks, intentionally leveraging this classic topology to create an unabashedly mean variety of distortion options. Featuring an independent drive and three-band EQ, Kith can do everything from subtle drive to crushing bass and screeching highs. The drive section is normalized to the EQ's input, making the classic distortion-into-filtering scheme immediately accessible. However, like in the Terci before it, each section can be used completely independently—allowing the creation of more novel effects, insertion of other processors, and more. We eagerly await the distortion modules to come...

Sinc Bucina doesn't offer a direct control for cutoff: the openness of the LPG is always controlled via the internal envelope or ping controls. The integrated envelope offers attack and release time controls for creating specific shapes, while the ping input induces the classic all-decay "plucked" LPG response (if you don't know this sound, check out Until Spring by Morton Subotnick...it's everywhere). Sinc Bucina can switch its filter response from 0dB/Oct (VCA-like response) to 6 and 12dB, making a variety of filtering effects possible from subtle to more dramatic. Oh, and the envelope itself has a direct output—making it easily possible to use as an ASR envelope for any application, whether or not the LPG itself is in use.

Sinc Bucina makes an excellent pairing with complex oscillators and other traditional sound sources—but it truly comes to life with extreme, abrasive timbres. The filter's strengths become far more apparent when they have a lot to bite into, providing a clearer picture of what makes the Sinc Bucina so special.

Cursus Iteritas Percido and its predecessor coexisting harmoniously (or maybe inharmoniously?)

CIP, like its older sibling CI, produces wavetable-like effects by employing uncommon synthesis methods to generate complex waveshapes in real time—timbres ranging from smooth to destructively abrasive. Wavelets and Walsh transforms abound!

The key difference with the Cursus Iteritas Percido is its integrated modulation routing. It includes an envelope generator with dedicated send level attenuverters for every synthesis parameter, enabling independent level control for the modulation to literally everything. This is the same type of modulation routing that made the Loquelic Iteritas Percido so distinct from the original Loquelic, but the CIP adds a further level of control: the MASTER BLASTER.

The MASTER BLASTER can be thought of as an attenuator for the envelope signal prior to the send attenuverters for each parameter. Essentially, it is a master envelope level attenuator that enables one-knob control of the global modulation state, complete with CV control (and even a dedicated MB offset output for synchronizing changes to other modules). A simple idea that provides intuitive and flexible performance control, MASTER BLASTER is kind of genius.

And like all NE sound sources, the CIP offers voltage control of everything...a black hole for control voltages and gates that just gets cooler and cooler the more modulation you throw at it. Just add some gates and random voltages and you're set.