Black Corporation ISE-NIN Voice

“If you’re spending half your life hunting for obscure reasons to decry modern recreations of vintage synths, you’re not spending enough time making music.” Those were the words of Gordon Reid in his SOS review of Black Corporation’s ISE‑NIN synth last year, and to that I say: quite right.

Gordon was of course writing up Black Corporation’s eight‑voice recreation of the Roland Jupiter‑8; a polyphonic analogue powerhouse promising nostalgia and exploration in equal measure. Or, perhaps, more of a 70/30 balance. That standalone synth offered a clutch of mod‑cons but suffice to say its faithful recreation of the Jupe’s analogue architecture was its raison d’être, and this it did extremely well, as stringently demonstrated by Gordon alongside the real thing. Now comes the ISE‑NIN Voice; a single‑voice version of the ISE‑NIN with every single slider and switch found on its older sibling, presenting a complete Jupiter‑style semi‑modular synth voice in Eurorack form that happily makes up for the deficit in that aforementioned 70/30 balance. Rejoice!

I should point out at this stage that the ISE‑NIN Voice is a truly excellent recreation of the Jupiter’s architecture and sound. But have I long dreamed of being able to install a Roland Jupiter voice into my Eurorack system? Honestly, no. Am I glad it’s now there? Resoundingly, yes. Indeed, faithfulness to a predecessor for its own sake is — or, at least, should be — just one of many criteria one looks for when it comes to any synth of this type, and if I’m honest for me it often amounts to little more than a footnote unless I’m disappointedly buying it because I genuinely can’t access or afford the real thing. To quote Gordon one last time, “If you were to record the same track four times with contributions from a Jupiter‑8 or Arturia’s Jup‑8 V4 or the...