Korg releases phase 8 for $1150 launch edition
https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/namm-2026-coverage#korg-phase8
Technically very impressive but also very much not for me. Kool to see something different and would probably be worth demoing if that’s an option.
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Hey @Artificer , given that I’m only after the clean output from a UPS, could this do the job? Or do I need to step up to something like an APC to get cleaner power? I’ll still be running my plug strip out of this, so 2-3 outlets should be enough. Or is it better if everything in my system (including computers) is on that cleaner power?
You’re correct that the VA rating doesn’t matter, that’s just for the battery on those. Unfortunately neither of those are probably going to be your best option. There are three types of UPS systems:
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Standby, which is what both those are. It passes AC directly through unless it drops below a certain threshold, in which case it switches to battery. The cheapest option. You might actually see some small benefit from these as running through it’s internal stage filtering is probably better than nothing, but it’s not going to do a whole lot to clean up noise and voltage swings.
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Line-interactive. This is probably what you’re after if you want clean power. It actively conditions and filters the power coming in, which leads to much cleaner output, longer battery life and can actually pull up voltage during brownouts without switching to battery.
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Double-conversion. The premium option. Power comes in, gets converted to DC and fed to the battery, and then DC back to AC for the cleanest, baby-soft power you’ve ever seen. You definitely pay for the privilege, and it chews through batteries faster.
One option would be to buy the cheapest one, charge it up, plug in a synth and yank the UPS power cord so the synth is running on the battery (you’ll want to mute it since they’re obnoxious when they don’t have AC). That should be clean power as a test. Added benefit you now have a functional battery backup for things. If you want to try a line-interactive model, that’d be you best bet, but it’s more expensive just as a test.
It should also be pointed out that conventional wisdom is not to attach power strips to these things. It’s really not as big a deal as people make it out to be (“you’ll instantly burn your house down and kill kittens if you even think about it”), but they are designed to split the load amongst all their outlets. In practice there’s a lot of leeway there, but trying to jam a bunch of really power hungry equipment (I really don’t think your synths qualify because they’re not vintage with linear PSUs) onto a single plug isn’t really what they’re designed to do. If you go the PSU route long term, just be judicious about how you hook things up and split things between outlets if possible.
Sorry for the long response, there’s just a lot of nuance with these things that aren’t explained in the Amazon listings and I don’t want you throwing money around and being disappointed or misled with the outcome.
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lol yeah, people get a little overzealous about these things. As a kid we even had commercials on TV showing outlets with power strips plugged into them catching fire XD
Just don’t attach things like space heaters, electric kettles, 3D printers, etc to them. Pulling 1500W through something built as cheaply as possible is not a good idea.
My UPS actually has a lot of outlets, too. 6 of them are battery-backed, the rest are just powered. It’s pretty handy
(removing 3d printers, they don’t consume much power at all)
An ex-colleague got into business by becoming one of the best Ronald Tape Echo repair people on the planet. He then decided to make a Tape Echo that’s better than Rolands. If you haven’t seen it yet, here is a shameless plug:
Absolutely gorgeous unit and includes CV control and balanced I/O. Hefty price tag but will last a lifetime. All made in Australia.
Also makes FET compressor and Spring Reverb Pedals.
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I remember seeing the Sound on Sound review a few years ago. I just got my dream BBD delay, so hopefully analog tape delay will be in my future in a few years. But yeah, as someone who keeps a passing eye on high end music equipment, this is a unit that stood out to me.
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I just got the Ksoloti Gills kit from Thonk, and it’s been a blast making weird patches for it. Here’s a little midi synced cross modulating bleep bloop generator I made last week:
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a pocket operator-sized tracker o.O
Been doing some more research on this. The individual tape head outs are insane. Get a little mixer for this and you could go crazy. Or build a eurorack around the outputs of this thing and do something insane….
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Studioproject VTB-1Preamps, 2 Units with OpAmps and Tube modded.
What’s being run though them? It sounds like it’s rounding off the glitch elements nicely in the midrange.
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A bunch of modular controlling the 4ms stereo sampler through a kaos pad. Second layer is a tilda instruments Röntgen. The preamp is set to 50% tube drive. It actually adds a lot of harmonics to the sound. What i feed into the preamps normally sounds much duller without them.
The unmodified version of the preamp also sounds less exciting than this. I couldn’t identify the tube sound really from the original china tubes.
In case anyone asks themselves this: Burr Brown OpAmp Mod and switched to Sovtek Tubes.
I fished another one of these preamps from ebay and modded it.
