I finally got the time to put some volts through the Chimera bC9 that arrived last week, using Logic and a Kenton USB Pro Solo.

One thing you’ll want to be aware of if you’re considering buying is that in order to play the bC9 in a traditional melodic way you need to first map the external CV to pitch (hit the black key and twist the yellow VCO pitch knob), then adjust the CV amount knob so that an octave of input gets you an octave of output. It’s a delicate process and, to be fair, not what the bC9 is really designed for (at least as far as I can tell; I’ll check in the near future with Ben @ Chimera if there’s a way to lock it to a conventional “tuning”.

My first impression is that the bC9 is going to be more broadly usable than the bC8, simply because the ability to feed it sequences introduces a note of predictability. Playing with a bC8 tends to be a treasure-hunt for weird noises that can be hard to duplicate, somewhat like playing with a BugBrand BoardWeevil. With the bC9, the fact that you can fire it with timed and pitched sequences means that detuned, chiptuney arpeggios and a whole range of IDMish melody lines are possible, making it more mainstream usable and less of a special effects machine.