As an off-the-cuff musician, I prefer to file unique music in my very own little house workplace/studio for my very own private use, and I take pleasure in experimenting with other ways to create attention-grabbing, generally unconventional musical compositions. Artiphon’s Orba 2 makes it simple to do precisely that. I’ve had a number of enjoyable with the tiny synth, and I can envision tons of how I will be capable of incorporate it into my studio, as a result of it isn’t only a gimmick.

I spoke to Mike Butera, a musician who holds a Ph.D in Sound Research, and the founder and CEO of Artiphon, a Nashville-based firm that designs good digital devices. These are “multisensory devices anybody can play,” in response to the corporate’s web site. Butera tells me he desires to make digital music extra embodied and tactile, and extra accessible to on a regular basis customers.

The Orba 2 is one in every of these multisensory devices: An ergonomically formed synthesizer you may maintain within the palm of your hand. Artiphon despatched me an Orba 2, and after I picked it up and began taking part in round with it for the primary time, I could not put it down for hours. I began out by pairing the machine with the Orba 2 app on my cellphone and experimenting with all of the devices and sounds preloaded into the app. Fairly quickly I had a sweet-sounding loop organized with a droning bass and a few killer ambient leads over a easy 4/Four rock beat.

The Orba 2 prices $150 and is on the market to buy on-line straight from Artiphon, via Reverb or at retailers like Guitar Middle and Sam Ash. It is simple to select up and play proper out of the field and requires no musical information to begin making some actually cool-sounding music. This unassuming little instrument is astonishingly versatile and so easy to make use of, it could possibly make a musician out of anybody — and may make for a novel little present.

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What’s the Orba 2?

The Orba 2 is the successor to Artiphon’s unique Orba machine, which launched in 2019. It is a compact synth, looper and MIDI controller that is in regards to the dimension and form of your common orange, minimize in half. The Orba 2 has basically the identical design and interface as the unique — with eight multifunctional pads radiating throughout the highest of the machine — however with enhanced performance all through. 

Maybe probably the most notable enhancement with the Orba 2 is which you can file actually any sound on this planet onto the app and play it on the machine. Strum a chord in your guitar, hum a tune, file the sound of a prepare whistle, snap your fingers — heck, you may dive into the ocean and file whale sounds to pattern in your Orba 2. (But when that is one thing you are really going to do, please simply be sure to use a recording machine that is waterproof).

The Orba 2 additionally provides an “automated quantize” operate which helps robotically line up your musical creation with the beat when looping music. Computerized quantize is a lifesaver if you do not have good rhythm as a result of you do not have to fret about being exactly in time — the software program takes care of that for you. 

It additionally provides you drastically extra looping time than its predecessor. The unique Orba solely allowed for eight-bar loops (as much as 30 seconds of looping), whereas the Orba 2 ups that restrict to 128 bars, or as much as 5 minutes of looping time. That offers you loads of time to create and loop an elaborate, complete musical composition consisting of drums, bass, chords (rhythm) and lead.

The machine consists of a regular 1/8-inch headphone stereo jack and a USB-C port for charging and connecting to your laptop or different machine (however you may as well join by way of Bluetooth). It is geared up with a 3-watt speaker on the underside, which is ample in the event you’re simply casually taking part in round with it in your front room, however you may need to plug your headphones into it to get the complete impact. 

The Orba 2 is suitable with iOS 11 and later, Android 9 and later, MacOS 10.12 and later, and Microsoft 10 (64-bit) and later. 

What are you able to do with the Orba 2?

For such a simple-looking machine, the Orba 2 delivers fairly a bit greater than what chances are you’ll count on, with sure limitations.

It is maybe finest used as a musical sketchpad that will help you develop and save your musical concepts. That is the place the Orba 2’s portability and expanded looping performance actually come in useful. It can save you your looped songs utilizing the accompanying app and construct on them later or simply play them again. And it is sufficiently small which you can have it in your desk or simply tuck it away in your jacket pocket and play it on the bus or within the park — at any time when and wherever inspiration hits.

Orba 2’s greater than 100 presets run the gamut of musical types, together with something from conventional synths, bass guitars, piano, violins and acoustic drums to online game sounds, beatboxing, hand drums, vinyl scratches and meditative, ambient sounds. Some presets throughout modes share the identical in-app art work, which means that they sound good when performed collectively. One in every of my favourite presets throughout modes known as 1981, which might ship some very nice Stranger Issues vibes. One other preset I like known as Ambeeant, which is ideal if you wish to create a composition that is supremely chilled-out and stress-free — like a clean late-night groove, or one thing you’d count on to listen to in a dimly lit shisha lounge.

You possibly can even create your personal presets by recording a sound or creating an instrument from scratch utilizing the separate OrbaSynth app, which you’ll obtain from Artiphon. Recording a sound is straightforward utilizing the cellular or desktop apps, however exporting the sound to make use of in your Orba 2 requires you to attach the Orba to your cellphone or laptop with a USB cable — which is not a very handy resolution in the event you’re out and about and need to file one thing and instantly play it on the Orba. Nevertheless, it can save you your recordings to export later in the event you file a sound in your cellphone and you do not have your Orba or a cable with you.

One of many issues I like probably the most in regards to the Orba 2 is its responsive gesture controls. The pads on high are touch-sensitive and reply properly to how onerous you faucet them. You may also maintain your finger on a pad to let a be aware or crash cymbal to ring out, for instance. Or radiate your finger inward or outward so as to add a little bit of vibrato or management issues like pitch or quantity. Different gestures embody spin, bump, transfer, shake and tilt — all of which can assist you increase the notes you are taking part in and make some actually cool sounds. 

I additionally like how Artiphon actually does a very good job of creating the Orba 2 extra accessible to nonmusicians by programming the lead presets to play the pentatonic scale. This makes it simple to create lead elements that match melodically together with your track it doesn’t matter what be aware you hit.

“The explanation we did that’s so you would construct up a bit beat after which take a solo on high, and no matter you press, it should sound good,” Adam McHeffey, Artiphon’s chief advertising officer, informed me in an interview. “It is all about immediacy and simply having enjoyable as you play. It is not about dumbing something down. It is nearly approachability and simply actually taking your thoughts off of it and simply having enjoyable.” 

If you wish to get probably the most out of the Orba 2, you should utilize it as a MIDI controller and hook it as much as a digital audio workstation like GarageBand, Ableton Reside, Logic Professional, Professional Instruments and Cubase. I related my Orba 2 as much as GarageBand and that is the place the complete potential of this little machine actually opened up for me by way of the totally different sorts of sounds and compositions you may create. I used to be capable of export songs from my Orba 2 into GarageBand, however solely as a single monitor. There would not appear to be a approach to export particular person tracks. So the easiest way to leverage GarageBand or another DAW software program with Orba 2 is to begin from scratch and create straight inside your DAW. 

Enjoyable, however not with out flaws

Artiphon has an incredible factor going with the Orba 2, however there are a number of inherent drawbacks in addition to some room for enchancment. For one, whereas altering octaves is straightforward and might be executed on the Orba 2 itself, there are solely eight keys to play with, which makes accessing a broader vary of notes significantly much less seamless than in the event you had been taking part in a standard synthesizer. It is a essential however unlucky tradeoff for the Orba 2’s compact dimension.

I additionally discovered the primary Orba 2 app to be quite buggy total on each cellular and desktop. It crashed typically, particularly after I was saving songs and making an attempt to load saved songs onto the Orba, which was irritating. The apps additionally misplaced reference to my Orba at random intervals, so I discovered myself having to reconnect or re-pair it with my cellphone and MacBook extra typically than I’d have favored. One other factor I discovered irritating was that I typically could not alter the quantity of particular person devices in my loops, regardless of the app exhibiting me the choice to take action. At instances I needed that I might decrease the quantity a bit on a booming drum beat I created to let the subtler components of my composition shine — alas, more often than not, the quantity would not budge from 78% it doesn’t matter what I attempted. This put an actual damper on my efforts to combine my compositions into one thing that sounded the way in which I wished them to sound. The software program has a ton of potential, so hopefully these little quirks get resolved in future updates.

The Orba 2 has added some glorious and helpful options that give it a serious leg up over the unique Orba, however one characteristic I hope could also be obtainable in future firmware updates is the flexibility to layer a number of totally different presets from every particular person mode on high of each other. For instance, it could be useful to have the ability to layer a number of totally different lead presets on high of each other in a single looped composition — say, in the event you wished to have a lead guitar half, but additionally a piano lead or violin lead. That might provide the means so as to add some cool dynamics to your songs. Presently, if you have already got a lead half looped and also you need to change the lead instrument to one thing else, the initially looped half will change to another preset you choose. Certain, you may work round this by operating your Orba 2 via your DAW, however it could be good to have the performance via the app as nicely. 

Is the Orba 2 price it?

General, I feel the Orba 2 is a wonderful little instrument in the event you’re an off-the-cuff musician (and even when you’ve got no musical background in any respect) and simply need a straightforward approach to create cool-sounding music at anywhere or any time. However skilled musicians will most likely need one thing with a bit extra depth and vary. 

The Orba 2 is exclusive, and it is nice for experimentation with a just about limitless scope of sonic prospects within the palm of your hand. It is a worthy addition to your house studio and can assist add some spectacular dynamics to your music. It is an superior software for developing with new musical concepts on the fly, wherever you’re. And it is simply plain enjoyable. If any of that sounds good to you, then sure, Orba 2 is price it and you need to give it a shot. 

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