TEURI Review
Lese just released their latest effect Teuri, a “morphing cellular distortion”. What the hell is even that? you may ask, well I’ll explain shortly. Teuri features 13 different distortions, a pre-gain coloration stage, a dedicated bias section, resonator and four LFOs. The 13 distortions can be arranged in various cells that act as a sort of 2D crossfading/morphing system. Each cell is gain matched for smooth blending, but it seems to mostly be crossfading between distortions, it’d be cool if there were some various blending modes for different textures.
The cellular distortion matrix is the core standout feature to Teuri. You can load up to ten distortion cells, each of which can contain any of the 13 distortion modes with its own settings. This means you can set four quadrants with entirely different distortion modes, or a handful of the same distortion with unique settings, or any combination you can think of. The XY position can be modulated with the LFOs, but it’s worth noting that controls within each cell can be modulated as well.
Motion is an obvious use for this, but I do wish there were some envelope followers or especially random LFOs. That said, motion isn’t everything, this cellular system allows you to set up presets that host a range of preferable textures where you can manually drag cursor around until you find the best position for track. This cellular grid system reminds me of the mapping system from Topos in some ways, but with some more experimental flavors.
The 13 distortions offer a nice range from subtle mixing to harsh extreme distortion, to colorful experimental sound design. The first distortion, crush gives you that classic bit crusher distortion. Fuzz, Warm, Tape, Diode, Valve, and Transform all offer unique warm “analog” textures. Unfortunately “phase” seems to simply be a subtle phaser rather than the phase distortion I was hoping it would be. Folder on the other hand is a lovely wave folder. Lattice sounds like a subtle notch filter. Ring mod and shifter provide some wild tonal transformation. And the last “distortion” mode diffuse is a cluttered diffused cluster delay reminiscent of a cheap reverb. Between these options there’s plenty of sound design to explore.
The bias section seems flexible, but I have to admit I can’t quite figure out how I’d use it in my own sound design. There’s also a pre-gain coloration section for shaping your tone prior to the distortion, this can have a pretty drastic impact on the resulting texture. Finally a powerful resonator can be applied to the signal (also before the distortion). This resonator has a cool “cascade” mode which seems to be a feedback matrix with up to eight stages that can be spread apart for some more atonal resonances.
I kinda skipped over the UI, if you’ve read any of my previous Lese reviews, I adore their UI. Teuri is no exception, however, I think a more orange/yellow color scheme would fit the mood of this distortion better. I also would love to see slightly different colors, or maybe even simple patterns to texture each cell, especially if they could be coordinated with each distortion type or relate to the parameters within each cell in some way. I also think that navigation arrows are a necessity when it comes to larger collections of effects types like this, I’d apreciate being able to click through each distortion one by one rather than pulling out the menu each time. Having made such a long wishlist, I do think these are all very subtle UI desires and the over all sound and experimentation contained within Teuri is impressive.