MusicRadar Verdict
This is a great little box that would pair nicely with any of the current crop of mini-sized drum machines and synth modules including Bastl’s own. Get patching and you may be able to weave a little magic on your audio.
Pros
- +
Core effects are massively extended with the patching features.
- +
Portable (battery-powered).
- +
Decent bang for your buck.
Cons
- -
Small footprint can make patching and tweaking fiddly.
- -
Some features will require you to keep the manual close by.
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What is it?
For over 10 years Bastl has been creating a whole host of modular and standalone sound devices in kit and off-the-shelf form. The latest of these is the Kastle 2 FX Wizard, which aims to live up to its ‘magical’ title as an all-round effects box. The name suggests that it might follow in the footsteps of Kastle 1.5, but whilst there are some similarities in terms of format and approach, the Kastle 2 is a new and different beast entirely – and as the name suggests, moves the focus from synthesis to effects processing.
The unit itself is small (about the size of two packs of playing cards) and is powered by three AA batteries or via the USB-C connector. Incidentally, the latter is only for power and firmware updates, so don’t expect any sophisticated audio or MIDI interfacing on this front.
Alongside the aforementioned USB, the rear panel has four mini-jack sockets for audio and analogue clock sync duties. It’s also good to note that audio ins and outs (as well as internal processing) are all stereo.
The top panel is populated with knobs and the odd switch (one dedicated to a ‘shift’ function for accessing additional parameters), and if that were it, it might be considered reasonably spacious. However, the area in-between is filled with lots of extra text and a plentiful supply of miniature patch points. These are where – with the help of the 10 supplied patch cables – you can divert, subvert and expand on the regular signal flow of the FX Wizard. Outputs are labelled with a white outline, but it’s fair to say the smaller your fingers and the better your eyesight, the easier you will find using the ‘Wizard’.
Pricing
- Launch price: $199/€160(excl. tax)/£165
Kastl 2 FX Wizard was announced in mid-November 2024 and then made available to order from the end of November, priced at €160 excluding tax, directly from the Bastl Instruments website.
Prices haven't shifted too far from the original launch price online.
Each unit comes with a pack of 10 short jumper wires included. Batteries are not included.
Performance
Now we have our bearings it's time to plug in some audio and get tweaking. The effects themselves are generally derived from the internal delay, down-sampler or VCA modules which are then routed to an adjustable low- or high-pass filter. From there it gets mixed with the dry signal and routed back on itself via a processed feedback path (all adjustable). The result is nine different (colour-coded) effects taking in delay, modulation, freezing, panning, crushing, shifting and more.
Given some of the quite diverse range of effects it is worth noting that the Time and Feedback controls vary their function depending on which is selected. Luckily Bastl provides a small, quick reference booklet for recalling these and some of the more hard-to-remember features and functions. The effects themselves are all very usable out of the box, but it is once you get patching and use the LFO, Pattern Generator and Envelope Follower that things get more unpredictable and interesting.
Verdict
If you are a Eurorack user, then FX Wizard might be a nice addition to your setup (albeit with its own system of cable patching), but we can see this being most popular with desktop synth and drum machine users looking to expand their setup without going full modular. It also offers a very compact way to get into patchable effects processing, and would therefore be a great addition to Bastl’s own instruments like the Kastle Drum and Kastle 1.5 synth.
Hands-on demos
Bastl Instruments
Alternatives
Specifications
Key features | 9 FX modes (delay, flanger, freezer, panner, crusher, slicer, pitcher, replayer, shifter) Stereo audio processing at 44kHz/16-bits LPF/HPF Filter LFO Tempo generator Pattern generator (tempo synced) with GATE/CV output Envelope follower Analogue sync input and output USB-C (firmware updates, power) or 3 x AA battery 10 patch cables included |
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