2019 has been quite a lively year for us: a lot of things have happened, many others have changed, but, most importantly, everything is going to become a springboard for what will happen in 2020. We can’t wait to disclose what we are working on – but in the meantime, enjoy a short recap of what happened this year.

First, it came FALISTRI

Early in January, we released FALISTRI, our Movement Manager. With its polymorphic nature of CV generator, modulation section, and sound source, it made a huge leap forward towards our idea of ‘Frap Sound.’
The most beautiful thing that happened, however, is that it instantly got a life on its own, so to speak: musicians from all around the world developed new ways of using it that went way beyond our expectations, and that made us incredibly proud.

At this point, we had a mixing device, a complex filter bank, a versatile random generator, and a multi-purpose module that could act as a modulator and oscillator, plus a couple of utility modules such as 333 and 321. It’s a good start, but we still missed something actually to start talking about a ‘Frap System’. Then…

Superbooth 2019: USTA was revealed

In May we attended the Superbooth fair in Berlin and we revealed a couple of working prototypes of the USTA. The development took a fair amount of time, but it was worth the effort: we presented a four-track sequencer, packed with features but as much user-friendly as possible.

Caterina Barbieri, one of the greatest artists in the contemporary electronic music scene, showcased USTA with a beautiful performance that highlighted its main features.

The response was great, and we collected a great amount of feedback from all the people who came by our booth. This gave us a lot of energy and motivation to carry on our project, so that it would become available after the summer, as anticipated.

The USTA sequencer: the brain and heart of the Frap System

USTA was launched a few months ago and it sold out almost immediately.

Just like FALISTRI, experienced a great interaction between the musicians and USTA, and we immediately saw some great musical content flourishing all over the world. We got a lot of constructive feedback that lead us to release a new firmware with updated features after only a month.

Some closing remarks about 2019

It would be deceiving to say that we aren’t proud of the commercial success of these new product, but the true pride lies elsewhere.
First, we implied that a long-term goal is to have a sort of ‘Frap System’ with a consistent design and sound, and the new ‘Tools’ that we released are two important tiles of this complex mosaic.
Secondly, another beautiful part of creating musical instrument is to see them being used in new contexts: this is particularly true in case of modular synthesizers, where musicians can (and should) pursue their own artistic idea and aesthetic, thus creating their ‘systems’. We heard FALISTRI being used to slice samples, and we saw USTA being used to sequence videos, and that was absolutely mind-blowing.
The most important part of this process, however, is the relationship that we are building with you artists, which are the best source of inspirations and motivation – very much needed, considering what we have schedule for the next months!

Frap Tools and beyond: road to NAMM

We have some great stuff ready to disclose – and we’ll present it all at NAMM 2020!

First of all, there will be a new module, and it will be an essential one. Something that we’ve been working on for the past year and that will fill a large gap in the Frap System. We can say that with this module, we will be “almost there.”

Another great news is that we will launch a completely new product line, with a dedicated company division. We can say that it’s still going to be “modular stuff,” but not in the way you may expect… Get ready for the newly born Frap Audio (also on Instagram)!

Keep your ears open because there will be so much going on in the next days!