Another experimental offering from Soma Labs promises retro sounds at an affordable price. Greg Scarth puts it to the test.
What do we expect from a musical instrument? It’s a question which Soma Laboratory are more keen to explore than most synth brands. In fact, to call Soma a synth brand is an unfairly reductive description of a company which produces everything from experimental drum machines to sequencers and synths both analogue and digital. The Soma Laboratory Rumble Of Ancient Times is the brand’s latest offering, a unique digital synth inspired by retro video game sound.
The Rumble Of Ancient Times (RoAT) is a typically quirky little box, with a design best described as functional: all exposed microswitches, sockets, printed circuit board and rotary pots. Power comes via four AAA batteries inserted round the back, where you’ll also find the unique touch of some instructions for various features; we’ve seen tips printed on synths before, but it’s much more common to have them on the front panel than the back! It’s an unusual but charming setup, with a simplicity to it that doesn’t intimidate and encourages you to get stuck in.
The sound of the RoAT is hugely endearing. It’s a simple-looking synth but it packs hidden depth, with a built-in sequencer and surprising versatility from four sound oscillators and 32 ‘registers’ (i.e. parameters) which can be adjusted by accessing seven ‘pages’ (i.e. sets of registers). If that sounds complicated, it’s really not., but you will need to consult the manual to get started. Once you get used to the way registers are accessed and adjusted, you find that you can push the RoAT into all kinds of different sonic territory. The unusual sound engine encourages you to experiment, but what’s just as exciting is using the Chaos button to randomise registers. Attack and release times, system settings and the registers of the current page are kept static while the rest are randomised, meaning the results can be quite different depending on how you approach it and which page you select while engaging Chaos.
The obvious approach with the RoAT is to create knowingly 80s music, leaning heavily into the chiptune aesthetic and embracing the 8-bit character. With that said, there are far more options than just the obvious retro stuff. RoAT can happily do deep, lo-fi bass, gnarly pads with detuned oscillators, or a weirdly distinctive take on acid when you crank the resonance. Various algorithms allow you to adjust the way that the sound is routed within the synth, vaguely similar to the algorithms found in classic FM synths like the Yamaha DX7. It’s a little simpler here, but switching algorithms can have a similarly profound impact on the sound of any patch, so it’s worth switching and seeing what happens when you subtract oscillators from each other, or mix them in different ways. You don’t necessarily need to understand the exact way things are happening in the background, but like so many other experimental Soma instruments, the RoAT encourages you to try things and see what happens.
At just £138, the Rumble Of Ancient Times feels like a bit of a bargain. It’s a synth with a distinctive character and an endearing sound. The menu-based editing system won’t appeal to everyone, but if you’re willing to gets your head around its workflow, the RoAT has a lot to offer. Compatibility with the sync used by other compact instruments like Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators means the RoAT could happily become part of a compact, portable studio setup or a convenient live rig.
Greg Scarth
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