GR-MEGA in stock, GR-1 summer sale, GR-2 progress
Hi guys! Hope the summer is treating you well. ☀️😎 Yes, this is a very GR-centric news update.
GR-MEGA
First of all, we’ve released numerous GR-MEGA updates over the last weeks. Mostly bugfixes, but also usability improvements. Get it from our GR-MEGA support page. 1.8 is due in September and we’ve put up a roadmap on the support page as well. Progress on 1.8 looks good. The phase vocoder sound engine is getting loads of new effects and a quality boost. Some leftovers from the 1.7 granular engine update are also in. If you have any must-have request for firmware 1.8, now would be the time to ask! Reach us at info@tastychips.nl, or via Discord. Adding audio or video examples is greatly appreciated!
And.. finally.. the GR-MEGA, after more than 2 years, is finally directly available from our webshop! Both silver and black. No more waiting list. Well, it may take 2 or 3 days for a unit to be completed, but that’s it. 🙂
GR-1
We’ve slashed the price on the black GR-1 by about 200 euros for the remainder of the summer. These are the last of the GR-1’s, ever! We are are keeping spare parts for long term support, but at this point we don’t have more than a few dozen GR-1 units that can be built. Get them while stock lasts!
GR-1 Granular synthesizer (Black Edition)
The GR-1 is a granular hardware synthesizer. Creating textures, characteristic sounds, drones, soundscapes, and pads has never been easier. When you are working on a unique sound, it’s always nice to have hands-on controls to easily dial in the sweet spots. The possibility to quickly adjust any parameter of your sound is necessary to adapt to the workflow of any user. Trace every adjustment you make with the built-in 7″ full-color display that is typically only found in top-class synthesizers.
3 in stock (can be backordered)
GR-2
As you may know, the GR-2 qualification model is nearly complete. Ideally, we would already have started producing the first batch, but so far we have only received the touchscreen components. The casings should follow early next month (we hope). We have done our best to get USB C as reliable as possible, and now it finally seems to play really nice with Macs. The audio CODEC was replaced with a modern widely-available type, ready for mass production. The rest of the week we will perform more reliability tests. So far, everything looks great. We’ll keep you posted.
The firmware is moving along nicely and we managed to squeeze in a few usability features like dropdown lists, which leverage the GR-2 touch screen (also available on GR-MEGA with external touchscreen, of course). Resource-heavy features like standalone multi presets from 1.7 carry over to the GR-2 quite nicely, even if its storage is slower. Touchscreen menus don’t conflict any more with musical gestures. Everything looks peachy.
Production
The plan: production will commence next month. Meaning we’re exactly 1 month behind schedule. The first Kickstarter units can then hopefully be shipped in October.
Loads of people have asked us when pre-orders will open. Our official answer: once we are absolutely sure that the hardware design is ready for mass production, and once we have all the parts for mass production. This should precede actual production of the first batch.
Pre-orders open: early September
Kickstarter batch production: mid September
There’s a minor parts shortage right now, caused by all the planned AI data centres, so we have to stock up in advance. We are nearly ready with securing the most critical parts. We expect the last ones to be in next week. We’ll then have enough parts for the first 10-12 months of production runs.
Other stuff
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