Instead of knobs, touchless sensors react to your fingers, while sensitive microphones pick up your singing, whistling or tapping.
If you bang on the table, whistle, touch a fork on the wall, turn on a forklift, operate a piledriver, it all becomes music.
Listening and interacting with Gecho while meditating will balance your emotions and helps you to be at peace with yourself.
A hand-made, digital, polyphonic pocket synthesizer controlled by buttons, sensors and a magnetic ring. Whenever you power it on, it becomes a meditational tool, source of endless music from your environment... or an amusing sound processor reacting to your voice, other instruments and various objects that make sound or noise.
Let it play chord progressions in the background while you practice, or be an instant inspiration when you get stuck while composing.
Listen to textures, vibrations, magneticfields and infra-red light. Connect it to other small synths, DIY projects and gadgets.
Learn basic DSP coding, invent your own guitar effects. Implement tuner, metronome, drum kits or colourful VU-meter. Code sound and touch triggered games, follow tutorials, learn and have fun!
This device is the result of collaborative effort of three family-owned businesses in three European countries, initially supported by a community of over 500 KickStarter backers.
Made with passion at every step. By buying this product you are supporting sustainable development and innovation of pocket synth line.
Staggeringly good fun! The design, portability and novelty value of the self-generating music patches were what first got me interested in the Gecho loop synth. This is no toy though. Aside from the synth voices, hidden inside the Loop Synth’s unassuming little box is serious studio potential for those prepared to experiment and dig a little deeper. Combine the line input and proximity sensors for example, and you have a powerful fx processing unit. The built-in microphones are of a surprisingly high quality and when coupled with patches from an ever expanding list of algorithms make a unique source for drums, pads and otherworldly samples that sound like literally nothing else I can think of. If that’s not enough, there is a truly trippy granular sampler, a chip tune patch, a gesture controlled drum machine and MIDI coming in the next version. Love it.
Mark Salisbury, Tetrahedral KitesWhat an unusual and unique product! I would first like to start by saying that I discovered this synth by chance randomly on youtube looking for reviews on small synths. After doing a little more research I discovered that this device was actually a successful kickstarter campaign in 2017 which happened to be so popular that the creator of this project - Mario was making more. Simply due to the unusual and uniqueness of this device I simply had to have one.
Now that I have the device purely by luck from a cancelled order as again they sold out in less time than it took me to realise, I definitely have no regrets about buying this. [...read more]
First is the design: a lovely hardwood oak box with a carved logo on the lid not only looks fantastic on any shelf or mantel piece it also serves to house the little synth nice and safe and the box actually functions as part of the synth itself. Closing the lid whilst using sets the parameters to maximum and makes the mics super sensitive which can get interesting.
The rest of the bits you get when buying this are fantastic too – everything from the box design to the little cheat sheets and bits inside, this is a lovely one man band hand crafted item clearly made with a lot of passion.
Second, the synth: sat on a small (and I mean small) circuit board you turn it on, press a couple of buttons and begin messing about. That’s the only way to describe this synth. You have proximity sensors that will change live sound as you hum, breath, shout at the extremely sensitive microphones (and I mean sensitive. It will pick up on a mere whisper!) You have an input jack that you can fire sound into for audio processing (I have tried with pocket operators, an 0coast and a korg and you can get some really wonderful sounds out the other end). Then there is cord programming, a magnet sensor and various other weird and wonderful settings to try out. You have 2 output jacks (for headphones or straight into an audio interface and into a DAW). You can turn off external audio if using the input, or leave external on for even more odd effects! I especially like the granular sampler which changes your voice, a sound - anything into harmonics for some very interesting effects – or even just to sit with headphones listening to other worldly sounds around you for a means of “chilling out”.
So is this a useable synth or just a gimmick? It depends on what you are looking for and the definition of useable or gimmick is.
I have a Digitone which I would say is the most useable work horse I own. But I have other bits of gear that are on the cheap scale that I have always wanted to audio process without using Ableton’s effects or buying a specific pedal OR – more importantly getting a mortgage for a load of eurorack stuff. So for me and what I want it for it’s very much useable. The sounds that you can get away from the external processing for me are useable too: like for sound effects on a track or something else. And generally this synth begs to be played with and fooled about. It’s a great inspiration tool. This is not a gimmick – more of a niche product that is very unique. It won’t be for everyone tastes , however if you are looking for something totally different that stands out in a saturated world of companies making pretty much the same synths as they did 10 -20 years ago (digitone…come on it’s a dx7 really :0) ) then I can’t recommend this enough.
Proud owner here. This thing is amazing. Spent the first few days just getting lost in the ambience of all. When I sat down with it properly after watching some of your tutorials and found myself entering chord sequences from whistling, humming and using notes from a keyboard I was absolutely blown away by the scope of this magic box. It’s a thing of beauty, aesthetically and aurally!
Simon Gould, Cheese Shop Spoon on BandcampI got mine a couple of days ago and simply love it. I can't stop playing around with it and trying all the different channels. It's just so amazing sitting there and getting every noise translated into music. I'm not a musician, but I don't have to be. I already recorded a couple of tracks just with the sound of my kids playing and shouting. And on top of it, it is a real piece of art. The box just looks beautiful and no one would ever suspect what's inside.
Ronny Ecke, Kickstarter backer of the first production runThe Sound is super beautiful... like you said better than the YouTube videos. Dedicated physical controls are still king in the musical world though. The Gecho's tactile tapping, scratching, whistling, and waving really are an innovative interpretation... I don't find myself wishing it had a knob or fader. I love the responsive LED levels for the proximity sensors.
Cameron Leggett, graphic designer, pressman & electronic music hobbyistBacker #21 here from California. I just received my Gecho Loopsynth in the mail today and WHAAAAT?!?! I am having so much fun with this that I haven't put it down for hours. This is by far the coolest gadget I own or have ever owned in my 31 years here on Earth. I am not so tech savvy yet that I can program music into this thing but what you have already installed in here, and the attention to detail, the pick ups, the flippin design on your board and the box and everything just screams about your passion.
If there was anything that ever fulfilled that desire to literally escape while going nowhere, this is it! Everything about this shows that you truly put so much thought and care into the design and function and that's what makes me proud to have backed this project so early and I cannot wait to show it off and take it with me everywhere.
Jonathan Martin, Kickstarter backer of the first production runI am the proud owner of the Gecho #077 and so happy to have this new friend! It is a lovely, adorable, little creature. Only NOW I can understand why you were saying that it is not meant to be played live... it is not a synth, it is really a living creature born for meditation and hypnosis! And it is so addictive that it is not possible to stop playing with it! :) Once again I have to congratulate you for your fantasy and imagination.
Stefano Azero, Music producer and performer at a034.it
