Dark Harvestator - new synth

We are very happy to announce the release of our new synth - DARK HARVESTATOR by Isn'tses

DESIGN AND CONCEPT
Dark Harvestator is a new synth from Isn'tses which is psychogeographically connected to Gruinard Island in Scotland, otherwise known as Anthrax Island. We are continuing along a similar vein to some of our other synths where the concept is centred around a historical, geographical horror aspect and anthrax is definitely a horror thing which we thought would make a good noise instrument. While reading about the island it seemed to beg to be made into a noise synth. If you look up either Anthrax Island or Gruinard Island you will find no shortage of pages to read through and videos to watch about the experiments that took place on the island just before the end of WW2. These were to develp a potential bio-weapon against the Nazis and German civilians but this weaponised anthrax was fortunately never actually used, as the war ended before they were required. The most controversial thing about the island being that once the experiments were finished it was just left there contaminated with anthrax for a long, long time. Access to the island was prohibited but this did not stop birds, sea animals or other creatures having access to and living on the island, there were also complaints from people living near the island about the anthrax being blown over by the wind. ​

We named the synth after the mysterious group "Dark Harvest Commando of the Scottish Citizen Army (DHC)" who left a sample of the contaminated soil outside a government related building as protest and to prompt the government to do something about decontaminating the island, therefore the name Dark Harvestator.
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The switch on the synth references the dates 1942-1990 which are the two dates representing the year the experiments took place and the year it was finally decontaminated.

We have several control knobs on the synth, labelled: BIO - WARFARE - ANTHRAX - SHEEP - GRUINARD.
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​What might not be obvious at first is that the components next to GRUINARD and SOIL are in the shape of a stupid robot man and a sheep.

Strange trivia: A mysterious fire occurred on the island before the decontamination period which may have actually helped rid the island of the anthrax bacteria but only with minor effect, the fire would have been more devastating to the birds and wildlife on the island than the bacteria.

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Below is a haunting video showing footage of the experiments. It's probably crucial to remember that during WW2 using bio-weapons or germ-warfare may have been a last resort and definitely would not conform to the Geneva convention but it does show how Britain may have been desperate in it's fight against the Nazis. Poor sheep, but if you compare it to other horrors of war taking place at the time it was probably the least of anyones worries. Incidentally it was far less devastating than foot and mouth disease in 2001 which killed about 4 million sheep, though it's still very jarring to see animals used in this way.

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ARTWORK
As with all our designs the artwork is done by Lisa, this time the initial drawing was made with white pen on black paper. The shape of the synth could be seen as an abstract mutated sheep on an island though the actual outline of Gruinard Island is on the back of the PCB.

Notice below the components are a man and a sheep.

SOUNDS
The sound had to be different enough from our other synths while still keeping the fat noise sound. For this we had the idea to use Arduino to program the chip, so the synth is part digital. We decided on an Attiny85 microcontroller chip to produce the sound, it's extremely tiny but quite powerful. Our code is based on examples from Rob Stave's very useful 'ArduinoComponentSketches' library which we have very heavily modified, databent and generally mutated beyond all recognition. This signal is then put through several stages of analog CMOS distortion and EQ control, giving it an extra-saturated noisy character rather than a standard digital/chiptune sound palette. The synth has a generous 5 knobs for controlling the sound; three to control the sound parameters, one EQ knob to shape the tone, and a master volume control.

​A couple of short videos of the synth, more video and audio demos soon: 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h5DJlohq7Nw

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/D_Ndp26OLRw

There is also an on-off-momentary switch for playable switching + randomising between different kinds of sounds, and a reset button which, in conjunction with the switch, swaps between two distinct modes, effectively turning the synth into either a more noisy sound or a more bleepy sound. If I were to describe the sound it's kind of very noisy and brutal with crackly wartime sounds, radio interference, the rage of the sea, and of course the Bacillus Anthracis mutating around. As with all our synths it is instantly playable and tactile where you can achieve subtle tones and drones or more savage harsh noise. It's lots of fun to build even for beginners to soldering.

The kit and fully built versions will come with full instructions.
The kit will come with all components and BOM (Bill of materials).

POWER
The synth is powered by a standard Boss-style centre-negative 9v DC power supply, and a 9v battery clip can optionally be soldered on for portable use.

Here are a couple of places to buy the power supply: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003B3HWFE

Battery clip: www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Power-Battery-Converter-Connector-cable
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The fully built synth and kit are available on our etsy store: isntses.etsy.com
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A DIY kit version will also be available and we should have them at our forthcoming workshop at Supernormal Festival