Dreadbox Chromatic - a rainbow of modules for a fabulous price

28 Sep 2019 by Robin Vincent | Approximate reading time: 3 Minutes

Dreadbox Chromatic · Source: Dreadbox

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We caught a glimpse of these in the promotional video for the Autophon but now they are official. The Chromatic range from Dreadbox are colourful, fun, useful and are all under €100.

Chromatic

This is a rather wonderful departure from their previous value range called White Lines. Not everyone is going to like this brave step away from the traditional black and silver of Eurorack but I for one most certainly do. The chosen palette is groovily vintage and reflects a bit of Moog and a bit of friendliness that Eurorack can lack with its serious engineering and electronics for grown-ups.

So what do we have? We have the first 6 modules with more to come:

Hysteria

A “Performance VCO” with a single output but lots of wave options and an interesting voltage controlled wave shaper. It has a Quantize button which will pull the pitch to scale so it’s always in tune if that’s what you want. There’s a Pulse output to use as a clock and a hard sync input. It’s only €99.

Dreadbox Hysteria

Eudemonia

It’s a multi-functional filter, mixer and VCA. It will mix 3 sources into 1, has a high and low-pass filter and an exponential VCA. The low-pass filter has a 1v/oct input on the cutoff which is very cool. Eudemonia is €89.

Dreadbox Eudemonia

Nostalgia

This is a 3-stage delay module based on the delay from the Erebus. There are 3 delay circuits in series with separate outputs for stage 1 and 2. There are 2 different feedback controls and can go from 3ms up to 1 second. For some reason it has a sine and square wave LFO and you can even plug a guitar in if you wish. These are turning out to be not your standard sort of value modules. Nostalgia is €89.

Dreadbox Nostalgia

Ataxia

It’s a dual modulator in the guise of a function generator, envelope or LFO. It has Rise and Fall, ADSR and a Delay-Rise-Fall LFO. There are two trigger inputs and Time controls and level control over the outputs. Very useful for €89.

Dreadbox Ataxia

Dystopia

Dystopia, as you’d expect, generates a bit of noise and then bit crushes stuff. It also includes a high and low-pass filter and you can use the digital noise generator as a source of randomness. €89.

Dreadbox Dystopia

Utopia

This is all sorts of CV things. It’s a mixer, an attenuator, a buffered splitter, a voltage controller LFO and a distortion unit. All packed together for €79.

Dreadbox Utopia

Colourful

These all look completely awesome. I’m surprised at the level of complexity and functionality built into each module, they all make themselves so useful and interesting in all sorts of situations. I would love a bit of colour in my rack. Should be available in time for Christmas.