BLL Instruments

Notes: It starts with a dream

We are all fans of synthesizers, their vintage sound, classic and modern at the same time, their ability to mix several timbres. We love the musical journey that transports us while listening to each new presets.

We also like guitar and bass. Standing or sitting, in your studio or on stage, playing on guitar or bass is this tremendous energy, this way in which the intensity of the playing is in total connection with the music you want to create. A sweet ballad, a melodious arpeggio, a hell of a bass line, a stratospheric lead, an awesome riff.

What if we could express all that but with a great synth sound?

The dream came true, and even more!

A modern synth played like a guitar or a bass

Elyra is played with the typical gestures of playing guitar and bass and all the energy that comes from it. You play with your whole body.

There are two strumming aera for strings, one dedicated to back and forth and another dedicated to bass and arpeggios.

Elyra is designed to be played by both right-handed and left-handed people.

You can also play it placed on a table or on your knees like a groove box.

A powerful and unique composition tool

With up to 16 voices polyphony, spread across 16 instruments/layers and with is powerful sequencer, Elyra is more than a groovebox, it is a composition tool.
You can have one instrument with 16 voices or 16 instruments with one voice and everything in between.

Because Elyra is battery powered, you can carry it anywhere with you and play for several hours.

You can play and sequence all your other instruments via MIDI port.

A sound engine is made for this instrument by Kodamo.

At the core of Elyra there is a powerful and beautiful sound engine created for by Kodamo.

It is a virtual analogue engine based on subtractive synthesis with just enough FM synthesis to offer a vast sound territory.

It has many parameters to sculpt and create a unique sound.

Electronics and wood

Elyra is made of electronics and wood.

The electronic parts are designed in France and comply with environmental standards and in particular RoHS.

The body of the instrument is made of wood. It is cut and assembled in France. The wood is only chosen from sustainable or recycled sources.

Elyra is built to last.

Raised touch buttons

All Elyra buttons are touch sensitive pads made up of a slightly raised area allowing the user to feel physical feedback.

This is capacitive sensor technology which offers an extremely fast response time of 2 ms.

There are 5 distinct areas on the main panel:

the fretboard composed of 4 * 12 pads
the strumming area separated into two types, A and B
two assignable sliders
an OLED screen with its wheel and its 8 contextual buttons

Guitar/bass mode

At first you need a double trig to play a note in Guitar or Bass mode: the hand on the fretboard selects the note to be played, and the other hand uses one of the two strumming areas.

Each one of the four strings has its own two strumming areas.

The strumming area A, is made of a long and very thin relief pad. It is ideal for playing back and forth on one or more strings.

The strumming area B, is a double pad surrounded by holes in the main layer, it allows both bass type playing and is ideal for playing arpeggios.

Elyra retains the essential subtleties of guitar playing, when a note has just been played you can also, like in guitar, slide to another note, or do a Pull-off or a Hammer-on without using the strumming area again.

You can use the slider with your thumb to bend the notes.

Elyra can be tuned according to your needs. there are basic tunings, like the first 4 strings of a guitar E, A, D, G, or any open tuning, or like a Ukulele.

You choose the root notes of each string, and the choice is specific to each track in one project.

Specifications

Fretboard: 12*4 capacitive pads (2ms latency)
Sound Engine: Virtual analogue + FM
Polyphony: 16 voices shared by all tracks
Multitimbrality: up to 16 instruments/layers
Presets: 256 factory presets
1024 user presets
16 presets per project
Oscillators: 15 waveforms including sine, triangle, saw, pulse and noise
Pitch envelope
Amp envelope ADSR + delay
FM: envelope modulator (osc 2) + feedback level
Filter: filter type : HPF, LPF
Filter slope: 2 poles -12dB/oct, 4 poles -24d B/Oct
Envelope ADSR
LFO: 2 LFOs, 5 waveform, speed depth, delay, retrig position, sync to BPM
Effects: 3 master effects with individual send by tracks
Effect 1: distortion/overdrive
Effect 2: bitcruch or chorus
Effect 3: stereo delay or reverb
Sequencer: a pattern = up to 256 steps per track, 128 patterns per project
max 999 project by SD card
Power Supply: 5v USB bus power supply
Memory: SD card

Size and Weight

Width: 435 mm - 17 - 1/8 inches
Depth: 170 mm - 6 - 11/16 inches
Height: 40 mm - 1 - 37/64 inches
Weight: 1.2 kg / 2 lbs 12,3 oz