Thought to originate from Middle English, the word "godspeed" more or less means "good luck on your journey.” In modular terms, maybe the "journey" where the luck may be needed is the journey from pitch to pitch, as in, "Good luck on your journey of staying in tune!" Well, Endorphin.es’s auto-tuning thru-zero VCO New Godspeed doesn't need no luck; when it comes to being in tune, it's got you covered quite well, thank you.
First, I need to say that New Godspeed sounds great. Just letting it drone on and on without any changing in pitch (again, no luck needed there!), just a static note, and tweaking the parameters through its various outputs yielded many incredibly rich timbres, tons of great movement, and dense layers of forest floor. But alas, I'm getting ahead of myself.
As a new version (it's easy to miss the "New" on the faceplate) of their compact, 6HP through-zero linear FM VCO, New Godspeed has fast and precise auto-tuning, where with the press of a button you can change pitch to the closest A, C, or G, and New Godspeed is quantized to semitones, so no matter where you are it always sounds in tune.
There are three simultaneous outputs on NG: an Odd/Even (outputs even or odd harmonics depending on the settings); Sine/Fold out (a pure sine out that offers up the familiar west-coast tones via Endorphin.es’s Furthrrrr Generator); and a square wave Sub oscillator out. A three-octave (-1,0,+1) select switch lets you easily shift octaves, a Timbre/Noise (with CV in) control goes from even to odd harmonics, and an FM Index control (with CV in) lets you add the internal "virtual" sine wave (of the same frequency as the oscillator) to the generated wave or you can patch an external sound for that purpose in the Through-Zero FM input. There's a Pitch/MIDI channel control (with a 4 octave range), and a light up Tune button where you press to go to the nearest A,C, or G note, and where you can also press twice to lock in the tuning, an excellent tool for live performance. Where NG takes tuning to another level is where if you push the Tune button after applying that particular note (A,C, or G) from the MIDI CV of your sequencer into the 1V/Oct input or the MIDI input jack (I'm assuming a CV sequencer isn't precise enough for this), NG's oscillator will play in perfect tune with the sequencer and you can be in tune with other instruments without pitch drift issues. And once you get where you want to be, you can lock the pitch so your clumsy tweaking hands won't accidentally bump you out of pitchy syncdom with your bassoon player. There are even some LEDs at the top to let you know where you are in terms of the tuning spectrum and its relation to NG.
The Tune button acts like a shift button for accessing the secondary functions of each control, and I really like this style of operation; it's two functions per control, which is better than one (um…duh?), but there's also not too much happening; no real need to remember anything, no cheat sheet or foldout poster needed, and no menu scrolling—perfect for a module of this size. The secondary functions for each control are as follows; the Pitch/MIDI control changes the input MIDI channel, Timbre/Noise adds white noise to the Even/Odd output, and FM Index/Sub Osc sets the frequency of the sub oscillator from -1 to -3 octaves at the Sub output. Note that the Sub out is normalled to the Even/Odd output, so if you don't want any sub in that output, you have to patch out of the Sub out to take it out of the mix at that point, which offers a lot of flexibility for beefing up your signal, and controlling that um…beef.
As I stated, New Godspeed sounds fantastic, so rich and warm, and it punches way above its weight. At only 6HP, with the three different outputs, superb tuning, tune lock, and so many options to alter sound (white noise, too?!), New Godspeed will surely be your partner on many stellar journeys.
Endorphin.es also sent over Plus 3, a totally passive desktop expression controller, which is a collaboration between them and Loopop. It looks simple enough—and technically is—but it's surprisingly useful. Plus 3 is divided by two (See what I did there? Some math humor trickery…), with two distinct halves, which are separated electronically; the left side features a slider attenuator, and the right side a red momentary pushbutton with Loopop's popcorn logo with a hold/latch switch for the button. You can use Plus 3 to hook up to a pedal with an expression pedal jack, a modular/semi with CV input, and even to unleash MIDI controlled parameters.
It's interesting to see this in action, a seemingly simple device that gets a lot of use. I could see various iterations of it (dual sliders, a knob controller, etc.), as well as more than one on a desktop, with some studio tape to designate assignments, to help bring hard to reach parameters, parameters from multiple synths/locations, and more frequently used features to be more hands-on. Using Plus 3 does something more than just make it easier and more convenient to control things; it brings important parameters to attention, to the front, and makes the organization of live shows more centralized. In a live setting, you could assign multiple Plus 3's for the most performable parameters and play them like a mutated mixer. I only had one on hand, but whether it was simply to patch a filter cutoff from my arpeggiated Pro-5 to be closer to my modular, using the momentary switch to bypass a pedal or desktop unit, or using the slider as a macrocontroller for tweaking various parameters at once, it was helpful (and more fun in most instances) to have a centralized control center, with something like my Keystep as the hub with Plus 3 like a sidecar.
Plus 3 is a lot more versatile than I would have thought initially, and after using it for a while, it's hard not to think of how it wouldn't be used. Now, a lot of my use cases, especially in my modular rig needed a boost of voltage for Plus 3, and so I patched a +5V signal from an offset module into one mono end of the supplied ¼" TRS to dual 3.5mm mono cable for that purpose, and this opens up a ton of possibilities. Mult that signal and you can control two parameters with the one control for more macro control. I found myself using the Expression side of Plus 3 for control over filter cutoff (with res high) and VCA amount simultaneously, for two-in-one timbre changes on the Malstrom Mandrake kick drum, and other instances like that. Even without supplied voltage, which I believe is the intended use for Plus 3, it can access so much, control so much, especially in desktop synths and devices that have the requisite expression pedal inputs, which are almost always (maybe just always?!) passive. Anything you can map to an expression pedal can be controlled by the expression side of Plus 3, many of which are hard to access otherwise.
The same ideas go for the popcorn pushbutton. While you can do a ton with it passively (freeze, bypass, sustain…), with voltage going into it you can get way more mileage out of it in a modular setup and use it as a gate, trigger, to open/close a VCA…. The hold switch effectively turns the button from Off/On to On/Off with the voltage flowing through or not, depending on the switch setting, offering even more flexibility and variables.
There's a lot to like about Plus 3. Like I said, I would love a version with a few more controls; double or triple maybe, and it would also be great if there was an input for offset to flow through the various controls, but obviously that's a different beast. As it stands, Plus 3 is one of those things that probably does way more than it was intended; it solves a problem or two, but also opens up a lot of doors.
I even found the build quality to be perfect, with the unit staying put due to the rubber feet used. Yes, this is the kind of boring attribute that so many times can go unnoticed (by both the designer and user), but as anyone who's had a controller go skittering across a work surface as you try to music with it, it's much appreciated, and one less hassle you need to think about.

Price: New Godspeed $209
Plus 3 $79

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