Those familiar with my reviews might have sussed by now that, when describing multifunctional modules, I do my level best to avoid that most lazy term, ‘Swiss Army Knife’. But when it comes to anything as multifaceted as the Expert Sleepers Disting NT, I think I might need to make an exception!
The original Disting offered 16 different algorithms, each delivering its own CV and audio process. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the name ‘Disting’ is ostensibly a bastardisation of ‘this thing’ because, well, what else would you call it? Now, five models on, comes the Disting NT. Devotees will be pleased to know that Os has pledged to migrate all the functionality of previous models into the NT, but considering what it’s capable of, even that feels like it won’t come close to plumbing the potential of this thing (see what I did there?). As for the ‘NT’ in the name, I’m informed it doesn’t officially stand for anything. So I’m going to here declare — what with it representing such a monumental new chapter of the Disting story — that it can only stand for ‘New Testament’; a turning of the page. A step into a wholly new era of Disting.
The New Testament Disting’s immediate distinguishing factor is of course its interface, with a panel expanding upon that of its predecessor by almost a factor of three. The Disting EX boasted a small OLED screen; here that more or less doubles in size to occupy a sizeable portion of the NT’s faceplate. It’s accompanied by controls constituting three knobs, two encoders and four buttons. A USB‑C port has appeared on the left side of the panel, and there is copious I/O constituting 12 inputs and six outputs. The module also ships with an expander for incorporating TRS MIDI and a brace of extra outputs. Whew! All controls being assignable, these are not labelled (save the numbered jacks), and as such the Disting NT has a sleek, minimal look to it.
Expert Sleepers’ ambition and precocity with the NT is evidenced by the fact that by the time you read this review, the firmware I’m currently working with will almost certainly be out of date. Already numerous revisions have been released, with more in beta, and things show no sign of slowing down. If it wasn’t clear, Disting firmware updates saliently consist of new function algorithms, the list of which is already too long for me to exhaust here. But before getting to those in and of themselves, it’s important to note that, whether with five or 50 algorithms in the picture, the foundation of the NT is its workflow, and this is clearly an area into which much R&D energy has been poured.
Home View
The NT’s ‘home’ view renders its algorithms in a list, not unlike plug‑ins in a DAW channel strip. With signal flow displayed as moving from top to bottom, you simply choose an algorithm and instantiate it. Once more than one is in the picture, you can reorder, duplicate or delete algorithms any which way. Since these are so varied — some are instruments, some are functions, some are effects, and so on — it’s for you to configure each, often down to a fine level of detail.
Each algorithm can either ‘replace’ its input signal (that is, like an insert) or add to it (like a send), and of course there are myriad ways to route signals, either internally or via the NT’s jacks. You could have three independent signal paths running from three different inputs to three different outputs. You could also use the NT’s physical I/O to insert another module into any stage of the signal chain, not just at the beginning or end. You could reserve one or more outputs for a complete voice entirely of the Disting’s own making, with its respective signal routing all happening internally. Once you’ve got a configuration of algorithms to your liking, you can save that as a preset. With so very many options, it would only be limiting to try and map algorithms’ parameters into knob‑per‑function configurations, as it would also be to limit how an algorithm can be patched — finding patches that a developer never dreamed of is one of the joys of modular, after all.
In this way and more, the Disting NT’s innards do feel somewhat like they are on display — no Teenage Engineering‑style pretty pictures here — you can almost see the lines of code churning away underneath. This might be because the screen’s display resembles the startup sequence of a PC in the ’90s, or perhaps it’s the fact that each active algorithm’s live CPU usage flickers on the right‑hand side of the screen. It might also be the fact that in many instances, more than one panel control can change a given parameter or access a particular screen, which I found occasionally makes it difficult to settle into a fluid workflow and leads to some slightly haphazard navigation at times. Since a module like the Disting NT will invariably be menu‑heavy — to say the least — knowing exactly where you are at any point is key, and the NT’s menu‑diving can quickly feel a little ‘thickety’. This said, there is visual help available for navigation, and a method of sorts does eventually emerge: essentially it’s best to default to the two encoders for navigating menus, and to the three knobs for parameter changes.
Algorithms
As for the algorithms themselves, as I say, I could never exhaust the list with this modest column space. Suffice to say they range from the utility (such as tuning, clocking, mixing and MIDI interfacing), through the conventional (various oscillators, noise generation, sample & hold, LFOs and the like), all the way to the generative and wildly creative. There’s a slew of spatial effects; from simple reverb to the Expert Sleepers classic Augustus Loop, a deep tape‑inspired stereo delay with huge scope for syncopated sonic obliteration. There’s also a reverb harvested from Mutable Instruments’ Clouds — in fact, there are full iterations of both the Mutable Plaits and Rings in the offing, because why not? The USB‑based algorithms mean, among many other things, that the NT can be rendered a 12‑channel audio interface if desired. There’s a sequencer, a fixed filter bank, a very well‑equipped looper, and several types of sampler. One of my favourite algorithms is the Kirbinator, designed in collaboration with synthesist Simon Kirby, whose very cool functionality happily belies its distinctly dorky name. Described as a “stochastic audio processor”, the Kirbinator chops, stutters, reverses, repitches and slices audio according to a set of deployed markers and probability values.
Previous Distings have been magnificently multifunctional, but with its rebooted interface, extensive I/O and plug‑in‑style workflow, the NT takes things to a whole new level.
“What is missing from the NT arsenal from your perspective?” Os asked me in a recent email. Good question. Argh, I may as well go for it: the Disting New Testament is nothing less than the epitome of Swiss Army Knife modules. Swisser than a wheel of cheese on skis. Previous Distings have been magnificently multifunctional, but with its rebooted interface, extensive I/O and plug‑in‑style workflow, the NT takes things to a whole new level. It’s priced at the premium end, but don’t let that fool you: considering the legions inside, it’s nothing short of a steal.