Dato Duo
An open source, family-friendly synth designed to be played by two. Si Truss buddies up…
Whenever a new compact or affordable instrument appears on the market these days, there’ll be some that deride it as a mere ‘toy’, no matter the quality of its sound or extent of its feature set. In the case of the Dato Duo, however, this dynamic is reversed; despite being pitched on Kickstarter primarily as a familyfriendly educational tool, beneath its colourful surface lies a deceptively well-spec’d synth/sequencer combo.
Duo has a two-sided interface for playing by two people facing each other, but can also be operated solo. It’s designed so newbie synthesists can tweak its various knobs, buttons and sliders without any sonic mistakes, by offering control over the synth engine and sequencer pattern but confined within rhythmically and melodically-pleasing borders. One side of the interface controls the synth itself, with central sliders for adjusting the oscillator waveshape, filter cutoff frequency and amp release. These are joined by an assortment of buttons/rotaries for triggering incidental effects such as delay, accents or bitcrushing, as well as tweaking glide, pulsewidth and resonance settings. There are also a pair of touchstrips which trigger a basic, noise-based percussion synth.
The sequencer side, meanwhile, features a spherical step sequencer (with no defined start or end points) along with a pentatonic button keyboard with arrows for nudging its range up or down by semitones. This is joined by rotaries controlling sequencer speed and gate length, along with a pair of buttons which can briefly boost the sequencer speed or cause it to jump to a random step. It’s fun to tweak and experiment with, although it can be pretty unpredictable and tough to make sense of.
In the official literature, Dato – the Dutch development team behind Duo – shy away from talking in too much detail about the specifics of the synth engine in order to keep the focus on hands-on experimentation. However, beneath the enigmatic descriptions and cartoonish parameter labels lies a monophonic 12-bit digital synth engine which pairs saw and variable pulse wave oscillators. Sonically, this punches well above what you’d expect from something pitched as a ‘toy’ instrument; it’s capable of gritty, punchy lo-fi synth tones aided by a quality digital filter and well-chosen effects. The Duo is deceptively ‘pro’ feeling on the connectivity front too, with pulse sync in and out ports that can be hooked up to hardware such as Korg Volcas or Teenage Engineering POs, along with MIDI in and out connections, the latter of which allows the Duo’s intuitive sequencer to be routed to external gear. Rounding off the connections is a micro-USB port, used for power (via a supplied adaptor) and firmware updates. It’s worth noting too that the Duo’s firmware is open source.
The Dato Duo is a success on two fronts. It’s a great little fun, educational device for sharing with a younger generation. It’s simple to use and almost impossible to do anything wrong with, yet remains creative enough to feel like a properly engaging instrument. Because of that, it’s also a cool little sound maker which plays nicely with proper studio gear and can create some great gritty synth tones. At 329 euros it’s not cheap for something of its size and capabilities – but for that you are getting something the whole family can enjoy.