Superbooth 2022: Soma Labs’ powerful TERRA synth is cut out of a tree and sounds beautiful

SOMA Labs has announced a bizarre mictronal synthesizer called TERRA.

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Intriguingly encased in a varnished slab of wood cut from a tree trunk, the synthesizer holds 32 algorithms. Effectively, the synth can transform into 32 different instruments, each with their own unique sound.

SOMA says TERRA has an innovative 12-note keyboard, four dynamic sensors, and four pitch-shifting sensors that can sense and control timbre control and pitch shifts. The keyboard also has the ability to mimic the full range of a grand piano.

TERRA has a simple interface that lets you get hands on with its features and 96 presets quickly. These can be accessed via its knobs and unusual six-LED sensor triangle in the centre of the device.

It can create a multitude of sounds from “classical beautiful tones to complex atonal noise”, according to the SOMA Labs website, which are created digitally but with an added “natural” richness, thanks to the TERRA’s analogue section. There’s also an effects processor that lets you use it as a standalone instrument.

If that wasn’t enough, the TERRA also has “a three-axis motion sensor for creating a variety of different modulations by simple intuitive movements of your hands and body”.

The idea of the unusual design is to break away from the conventions of synthesizers and allow the instrument to be used more as an acoustic instrument, hence the wild arrangement and design of the keys.

Each instrument is entirely unique, due it being cut from the trunk of a tree. SOMA Labs states that the design is made to provide “a sanctuary for a natural soul right in the middle of the rumbling plastic world, a ground where you can breathe in and out slowly, and hold on to your roots.”

The manufacturer has not yet determined a price for the TERRA synthesizer. You can sign up for their waiting list to receive the synth here.