The Piston Honda Mark III is a dual morphing wavetable oscillator with waveshaping audio inputs and unison detune. The three axis sliders create a waveform for each selected oscillator to play from the internal “cube” of 8x8x8 16-bit waveforms, morphed at full resolution in all three dimensions (the oscillators may each play a different waveform). The voltage-controlled preset manager stores a bank of these settings to be recalled at any time, with a virtual fourth dimension of morphing when the manager is in “continuous” mode. An orange 128x32 OLED display displays the current waveform for the selected oscillator in realtime, its frequency, and the selected preset and wave selection. The rotary encoder changes system settings on the display, but it’s not necessary to interact with the display menus for any performance purpose.
I’ve heard every user suggestion about the previous MK II generation and fully modernized the design, now operating as a dual oscillator in the same 17HP space. The infamous aggressive character of the Piston Honda is fully present, with the added clarity of the 16-bit wavetable engine. The second oscillator’s frequency controls can be slaved to the first. Each oscillator has its own unison detune function as well, for a maximum of four stacked oscillators sounding at once. The oscillator can alternatively run as a nonlinear waveshaper, processing a dedicated audio input through the selected wavetable with voltage-controlled drive. When running in its normal oscillator mode, this input instead provides thru-zero frequency modulation.
Waveforms are selected from the internal memory of 8 collections:
* additive harmonic structures
* harsh LFSR progressions
* restored waveforms inspired by classic synthesizers
* special content from my favorite modular artists
You can load user wave data (16-bit WAV format) using the front-panel microSD card slot.
The Industrial Music Electronics Mark III series features shrouded power header with reverse voltage protection, and a small OLED display for each module’s edit facility. A voltage-controlled preset manager provides morphing control between 8 active presets per bank. CV inputs on digital circuits respond to positive and negative voltages.
