While there are already a few software programs with Hainbach's name and stamp of approval, if you were to have bet me (that is, if I were a gambling man), I would have said that Hainbach's first collaboration on a piece of hardware with his name on it (minus the sadly sold out Hainbach Pro Signature Series Waveform Blank Panel!) would have either been with companies like Tektronix, Brüel & Kjær, or some long defunct Russian nuclear test equipment outfit. I thought for sure it would be the latter, so imagine my surprise when Joranalogue announced Collide 4, their collaboration with the aforementioned German electronic music composer/performer. As everyone knows, while it looks (and is) cool to be able to make music with decommissioned atomic-aged test equipment, that sh$t is heavy, questionably (at best) reliable, and not the easiest thing to sync up with one another. Imagine trying to get your 50s Danish spectrum frequency analyzer to play nice with your Stalin-era plutonium regulating anti-lock decoder (I made that up) in order to get a good dance floor kick sound. Is it the challenge, or the potential of sounds you're after in that scenario? If it's the challenge, knock yourself out, but if it's the sounds ye seek, save yourself the backache, heartache, and a lot of room and dip into Collide 4.
A "quadrature spectral computer" (does anyone other than Hainbach and Joranalogue know what that means?!!), Collide 4 is as dense in sound as it is in looks. A faceful of knobs, jacks, LEDs and switches, Collide 4 is more than just an homage to vintage atomic-age top-secret lab equipment, it is, as stated by Joranalogue, "a modern lock-in amplifier that fits into the palm of your hand."
Well, at 20HP you must have big hands. For those not in the know, a lock-in amplifier is was used only for testing, to lock on a specific frequency that's lost in the crowd, filter it out, clean it up, and amplify it. It's like the sonic version of Where's Waldo? if Waldo got dressed in his requisite red and white getup after being airlifted out of the mall.
Joranalogue also states in the manual that Collide 4 is:

"20 HP, 30 mm deep. Over 600 components, yet a fraction of the weight and size of a vintage Model 124A lock-in amplifier unit."

Well, I certainly hope so! Imagine trying to rack up a 20HP module that weighs about sixty pounds. Think your DIY modular case can handle that?! In keeping with both its heritage and the name of the company that's releasing it, Collide 4 is all-analog and is a Through-zero sine/cosine quadrature oscillator with so so many things, so so many features, it's hard to keep track of them all: there are dual ring modulators with LPFs, the pingable variable BP filter that can self-oscillate, pre and post-filter gain staging to keep levels in check, something called a Hilbert transform network (must be commonplace for those test/lab equipment musicians, right?), that shifts a signal 90°, and most importantly—CV control over everything, something I imagine hardly any (if any) of Hainbach's arsenal of lab equipment is equipped with.
There are many more attributes for Collide 4, but too many to make sense of here, and the most important thing is if you will be able use Collide 4 to replace everything in that one corner of your music cave, the one with all of the broken, heavy test equipment that you purchased on eBay right after seeing some of Hainbach's YouTube videos, the equipment that you're going to fix as soon as you get caught up on your work. Let me say it square: Kick that pile to the curb, because Collide 4 will take you places you didn't know you could go, weren't ever planning on going, and maybe don't want to come back from. This ain't your grandfather's lock-in amplifier. (Not that there's anything wrong with it…it's just so heavy!)
It was the pinging of the original lock-in amplifiers that piqued Hainbach's curiosity and expounded on his musical intuition, and with Collide 4, using it as a sound source (as opposed to a signal processor/effect, which we'll get to) is a good place to start. The left side of Collide 4 is the input section, with controls over gain and the filter. Collide 4 has an internal transient generator so that patching a pulse/trigger into the Ping input to get things going and getting the filter into self-resonance and then turning knobs at random, more or less (I mean, that's what I did…), you can settle on a spot for a moment and test out the various outputs for their different flavors. There are eight different output options located on the right side of the module. From top to bottom; Osc I and Osc Q (the sine/cosine outputs), X Out and Y Out outputs (which come directly from the LPF), the X-Y and X+Y are your ring mod-ish outputs (but can also be your outputs when you use Collide 4 in a phase shifting realm), and at the bottom are the Magnitude and Phase outputs, which use X and Y as coordinates on an axis, and with some mathematics translate those coordinates into sound. Whether or not you're good with algebra and geometry, while patching in real time this type of theory and academic nature of Collide 4 follows other Joranalogue modules like Orbit 3, in which the depth of the design can still be enjoyed by the randomness of turning knobs and switching switches, and in the case of the last two outputs, getting distorted signals and doing some waveshaping. I always feel like I've mastered a module when I can predict how it will behave, and even more so when I can explain why. I've still got a long ways to go with Collide 4…
Like the output section, there are a range of inputs with which to patch in CV or an audio signal. Pinging off of the um…pinging, and I was able to get everything from typical bell-like filter pings to fuzzy blasts of noise, sometimes in bursts, others in sustained drones. Running Collide 4 through a VCF to further tailor, muting it a bit, the sound of some of the droning was majestic. Patching various CV into it and you could get everything from VCA/trem stutters to subtle movement of the various parameters. I got a lot of mileage from the Time Constraint parameter, stretching the movement of sound from little to lots.
It's actually hard to describe how to use Collide 4, in some ways because a lot of what I was doing was just blindly exploring, and in other ways because of the various outputs; one output might be slightly buzzy while another is off the rails. I think that gives you a good description of how Collide 4 operates, and if this scares you, it shouldn't. Collide 4 has a lot of what makes Hainbach's test equipment tests (and music) so intriguing, retaining the same sense of adventure that you get with trying to make music out of a piece of equipment not designed to do so. The labeling, as is typical in Joranalogue modules, is very spot on—distinct and exact—so while I wasn't always sure exactly how I got somewhere, I at least knew what I was tweaking.
As a sound source, I found Collide 4 to be really rewarding when I was willing to put in some time, but the more time I put in, the quicker it became to getting sounds I was expecting/hoping for. If you're into apocalyptic sound design, Collide 4 is a must have. I can imagine the zombie hordes shaking some mean booty to basslines derived from this nuclear test equipment offspring. As an effect processor, it's hard to underestimate how touchy, yet rewarding Collide 4 can be. Using Joranalogue's RX2 as my input module for both a microphone and instrument, and singing through Collide 4 was akin to triggering a Geiger counter with my voice. If you thought screaming through your guitar's pickup was really something, you'll feel the need to take a decontamination shower after plugging vocals through C4. Patching CV to modulate various parameters, and you'll never hear your voice the same again. Running guitar through C4, brought so much unexpectedness that I am forced to say this: guitar players, you who like dirty, crazy, unconventional distorted tones…if you don't try playing guitar through this, you are missing out. Nasty…wait…NASTY fuzz on the low end, and yet, same settings, on the B/E strings, and I get gorgeous, yet unpredictable, hollowed out bells. With guitar I was surprised at every turn, and ditto when I plugged a digital piano in. On top of that, I thought I would try using Landscape's Allflesh to mix some of C4's inputs and outputs via touch, and more havoc was wreaked. I can only guess as to how one would feel if they were doing some radiation testing and any of the sounds that C4 made came out of them. It's like using a metal detector on the beach and hearing "Jesus Built My Hotrod" coming out of the tiny speaker instead of the beeping when you come across somebody's lost wedding ring or a Corona bottle cap. All of my "experimental" and "wild" distortion/fuzz pedals were put to shame by Collide 4, and I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm always hearing about how we're living in the Golden Age of synths (instruments in general, really), where all of these affordable, incredibly powerful, and interesting machines are available to all to make music with. While I am compelled to agree, I also find it somewhat interesting that we can all still be inspired by equipment from so long ago to contribute to the congratulatory heaps we ply ourselves with for living in this Golden Age. I guess in a way, though, it all adds up. If history does indeed repeat itself, I'm guessing that in about seventy years we'll see some humanobot hold up Collide 4 and talk about how big and heavy it is, and how we won't have to lug around gear like this anymore, as there's sure to be a virtual version of Collide 4 that floats in the air or something. No more lugging those dang instruments around! I've no doubt that Collide 4 will still be around seventy years from now to make music.

Price: $650

joranalogue.com