I have to admit I have a penchant for all things percussive when it comes to modular synths. The world of Eurorack and modular synths is awash with a choice of modules from an assortment of manufacturers big and small. Noise Engineering are one of those manufacturers who have been around for some time, and rightly so! Kris, Stephen and their Noise Engineering team have been at the forefront of Eurorack design, making some of the more interesting oscillators, effects and utilities. There’s no hiding I’m a huge NE fanboy. Their Basimilus Iteritas Alter (BIA) and Loquelic Iteritas Percido (LIP) are 2 of my all-time favourite modules – both percussion, both digital, and both capable of crazy sounds! This brings us to NEs recent platform called World of Legio – where one can change the firmware of the module to something completely different. Here we’re looking at their Tymp Legio, a palette of big digital percussion in just 6hp. The Tymp Legio I would label as the younger cousin to the BIA, full of drum sounds without a sample in sight! It also has a few clever functions including the ability to pass sound through it and duck your audio through the appropriately names Quack inputs. Is this the best digital 6hp percussion module yet, let’s take a look!
This is the rack used in this video. The featured sound is from Noise Engineering Tymp Legio. Here are the other modules and how they are used:
- Noise Engineering Basimilus Iteritas Alter – additional percussion
- SSF Entity Ultra-Kick – for kick drum support
- 4MS Ensemble Oscillator – side chained drone synth voice
- SSF Entity Ultra-Perc – even more percussion!
- WMD Metron – drum trigger sequencer
- Malekko Heavy Industry Voltage Block – CV modulation and sequencing
- Make Noise Erbe-Verb – reverb effect
- Noise Engineering Lapsus Os – attenuator
- WMD Performance Mixer
Here’s what Noise Engineering are saying:
Have you ever wanted a slice of the BIA pie when you don’t have room for the whole thing? Tymp Legio is for you.
Inspired by our love of all types of percussion, Tymp Legio isn’t your normal drum-kit module with samples or emulations of simple sounds. Instead, we took the challenge of a small percussion module as an opportunity to fit the drum sounds we wanted quick access to in 6hp. Tymp Legio’s simple interface puts a massive tonal and textural range under your control. The modes (Boot, Cat, Boing) are an onomatopoetic guide to the sounds each encompasses. Each mode is offset by three octaves, but dial them up or down for even more versatility. Toggle the Tang switch to select the palate within each mode that suits you. The Quack inputs will duck your audio to your percussion (or pass through in Boing mode), making Tymp Legio a fantastic performance-percussion module.
Tymp Legio is big percussion in a small footprint. That’s not all, though: it’s also a platform. Check out all the Legio modules at the World of Legio. Already have a Legio? Grab alt firmwares at the Noise Engineering Customer Portal for free.
Don’t forget you get access to the World of Legio. Easily update the firmware and change the function of your Legio module to:
Virt Iter Legio – stereo oscillator
Roucha Legio – multimode resonant filter
Librae Legio – stereo dynamics processor
More info here: World of Legio.
