Colapso is a synth that plays the periodic table – somehow

Ever heard of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle? That’s Werner, German theoretical physicist, by the way, not Walter, chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin.

It basically states that it is impossible to accurately know both the position and momentum of a subatomic particle simultaneously. 

“But Sam, I read this site for stuff about music production. Why are you banging on about theoretical physics?”

Well, because Portuguese plugin and soft synth developer Imaginando has just made a synthesizer based on exactly that principle.

“Sound works the same way. To hear pitch, we need time. If you shorten the time window, the sound stops being continuous and collapses into an impulse,” explains sound designer Lucas Palmeira. “Between those two extremes there is a whole sonic territory, and that is where Colapso lives.”

It sounds pretty out there, but the next bit probably won’t help…

Imaginando explains that the behaviour of atoms is such that “when an excited atom collapses, it gives off light in a few sharp colours”. Colapso apparently plays that light as sound. You can choose from 22 elements of the periodic table, and its measured emission spectrum becomes the timbre of the sound and the basis for your oscillator.

Then there’s additive, granular and subtractive stages set up in series, with up to 16 partials per oscillator, pitch synchronous grains and then a filter. Colapso allows eight voices with up to three oscillators per voice, Poly, Mono or Unison with detune, glide and legato options.

There’s also four drawable LFOs, four drawable envelopes, plus four macros with polyphonic aftertouch. In terms of connectivity, Colapso allows for two insert effects, one send effect and a bus compressor, too.

And, because you’ll probably need it, there’s a Help mode which explains the features of the synth in basic terms…

Price-wise, Colapso is available now at a launch price of €69, rising to €89 from 1 November. You can also grab the Studio Bundle, and get Colapso and Imaginando’s eight other desktop licences for €399. There’s also a rent-to-own option, allowing you to pay €8.90 per month for 12 months, and fully own the licence at the end of the period.

Learn more at Imaginando.

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.