Cong Burn Strokes v13.3

At first glance the 2024‑vintage Strokes looks like its MIDI‑only predecessors. The four programmable note lanes and accent lane still dominate the interface, surrounded by pattern and note choosers, the Matrix and Weights modulation sources, Shares randomisers, and the colourful Scope, which visualises modulation values in real time. The multiple page choosers and Voice Modulation section at the bottom point to vastly expanded capabilities elsewhere though.

Strokes has evolved from a clever MIDI sequencer to a sophisticated and original instrument in its own right.

When Strokes by Cong Burn (aka UK‑based software developer, producer and label owner John Howes) was last reviewed in SOS just over a year ago it was a VST3 and Audio Unit plug‑in for Windows and macOS, with an iOS‑compatible AUv3 version on the horizon. It was also a sequencer, pure and simple, albeit an unusual one, with multiple drum‑machine‑like trigger lanes, algorithmic generative features, and step‑driven modulation sources that ran inside your DAW, playing or modulating other virtual instruments. I thought it was brilliant, though you had to think laterally and know your DAW’s MIDI routing capabilities inside out to get the most out of it. One trip around the sun later, and what a change there’s been. So much so, that Strokes is easily worth another look.

Same Strokes/Different Strokes

Strokes of 2024 (currently v13.3) is a development of what came before, so in fact there’s still masses in common with earlier versions like the one I reviewed at www.soundonsound.com/reviews/cong-burn-strokes. That’s still worth a read if you want to get up to speed on some of the fundamentals here, and especially the ins and outs of the unusual Matrix and Weights modulation sources and the Shares randomisers. Also, because all of what follows now is new, there’s a lot of it, and some of it is pretty wild!

While the ability remains for Strokes to act as a MIDI sequencer and generator of MIDI CC messages, the headline news is that it can now run in a self‑contained manner as well, generating its own sounds.

Crucially, all eight note channels can either play back one‑shot or looping samples (mono or stereo, up to 32MB, in every audio format I tried including AAC and FLAC), or they can load one of the 24 synth engines of Mutable Instruments’ classic, open‑source (and sadly discontinued) Plaits Eurorack module. There’s everything from virtual analogue tone generators, through FM, additive, wavetable and granular oscillator types, to physical modelling, speech synthesis, synthetic drums and a chiptune oscillator. All the synthesis models load instantly, and they’re controlled with just four parameters that vary between models.

The Voices page, seen here in one of the new alternative colour themes, is Strokes’ onboard sound‑generation engine room. Each of the eight note channels can generate MIDI, replay samples, or become one of the 24 synth models of Mutable Instruments’ classic Plaits module. All channels have an identical, simple but flexible synthesis architecture, and accept multiple modulation streams.

Common to sample and synth channels alike are a clutch of other sound‑influencing parameters, including attack and release times for a simple attack‑decay envelope, a multi‑mode resonant filter, channel gain and pan position, and sends to the onboard reverb and delay. Those are fine by the way: in character the reverb is sparkly and spacious, the delay quite dark‑sounding. Both can be usefully modulated, but you’ll need to look to external alternatives in your DAW or iPad host to achieve more ambitious treatments, or even a ping‑pong delay effect for example.

The synth engines are just the start, though. Each channel/synth can also now accept up to nine simultaneous modulation streams, controlling various basic parameters like pitch (which is always constrained to scale notes, user‑selectable, to keep things musically coherent), envelope decay, and send levels. Additionally you can modulate specific parameters for each synth engine (clearly named in the interface, rather than being labelled generically, thank goodness), and for sampler channels modulate the sample start and end points, and bit‑depth and sample‑rate reduction. Modulation sources are the Weights and Matrix sources I described above, the accent channel, the channel’s envelope generator, and three preset mixes of the envelope and keyboard tracking.

Stroking, Not Drowning

Essentially, where Strokes of old already had an ability to generate interesting material that tended to be different from what you might generate conventionally, working in a more linear fashion in a DAW, the new features magnify that hugely.

The onboard sound generation is key in this: it’s just so much quicker, more immediate and convenient to work ‘in the box’ than have to configure virtual instruments in your DAW or iOS host, and it helps that the Plaits synth models frequently sound great, often with a sort of raw, contemporary character.

An alternative ‘B’ view of each voice reveals a note quantiser and additional modulation options.There’s also something unique about Strokes’ modulation scheme. Unlike conventional grooveboxes that might utilise LFOs, programmable pattern sequencers and recordable knob movements (and so on) to enliven repetitive pattern data, Strokes has nothing this traditional or predictable: modulation streams are always fundamentally interrelated to note data, and consequently notes...