There’s this thing in drawing, where you add shading and shadows to the “nooks and crannies”—the space between objects—in order to make a drawing come to life. Without good shading, it can look flat and unrealistic, and this technique is more than an enhancement—it’s a necessity if one wants to make great drawings. Still, it’s never the main focus, nothing you may never even get a compliment for. It’s the details that make anything great, and I’ve always had a soft spot for such details. myVolts must feel the same because they’ve built a business on the nooks and crannies of electronic instruments; how they’re connected, housed, adapted, and powered. As you can guess with the name of their company, the power issue is a big deal, and they have multiple solutions for various needs when it comes to powering devices. Their Step Up Explorer's Kit USB-C Power Supply, what could be considered their flagship product, is perhaps their boldest tool yet, a step out from the nooks and crannies and into the foreground.
The Step Up Explorer’s Kit is a portable powering solution that consists of a 65W USB-C power bank, two USB adapter cables, and three Step Up Power Tips (9V center +, 9V center -, and 12V center +) to correctly connect to devices. Each tip has a small LED built into them to show power status, and the USB cables have a built in energy meter, which is pretty handy as well as being quite cool looking. Those three power/polarity options will cover most devices, and is enough to power things like an Elektron device, probably any pedal you can think of, and a smaller synth like an Arturia Microfreak or KORG MS-20 mini: basically any synth, tabletop instrument, or pedal that takes 12V or less. There is a 15V tip sold separately that will power a Eurorack setup as well, though I wasn’t able to test that out to see how well that would work, but I am curious about it. Overall, The Step Up Explorer's Kit is an attractive piece of equipment. Everything feels very well made, with the sleek black battery and colorful cable ends, and silky silicone USB cables all packaged in a streamlined black box.
I plugged in all sorts of pedals and tabletops synths for a bunch of different durations and it worked flawlessly, not just powering them, but without any buzz or added hum. I wanted to see how much I could power and for how long, and though I am deficient in the tabletop device department, I was easily able to simultaneously power a Folktek Resonant Garden and the SOMA Cosmos with the 12V adapter, along with a Meris Mercury 7, the Meris Ottobit Jr., the Hologram Chroma Console, and the Vongon Polyphrase with the 9V- adapter, using both of the included USB cables and some daisy chain cables, one which myVolts had sent along with The Step Up Explorer’s Kit, and another which I had on hand. I loved not needing multiple adapters and a power strip (with an extension cord) cluttering up the space, and I actually took this setup outside (with a battery- powered guitar amp) using the Resonant Garden as my sound source, and had a nice little backyard session. Even the birds that were congregating around my feeder seemed to like it, and with no outlet nearby, it was the only way I was able to serenade the house finches and nuthatches without a big old mess of spaghetti cables in my yard. In this configuration, the 12V USB cable was reading about 15W while the 9V pedal USB cable stayed around a 4W power consumption rating. I played with this setup for almost three hours continuously until the battery fully drained and the 12V devices started to go dark. With the power pack on empty, I plugged it in to charge before bed and woke up to a fully charged battery.
I will probably end up ordering the 15V tip as it would be great to power a modular rig outdoors using The Step Up Explorer’s Kit. Of course, there are other options to do all of this already, but having a centralized way to power up various pieces of equipment is great. The Step Up Explorer’s Kit is a versatile and reliable way to power many things, a great tool for the mobile musician, whether you want to take your show on the road, the backyard, or to just make it easier to move off the couch to a different part of your synth dungeon.

Price: $149

myvolts.com