If it were up to us, we would call 2022 the year Kobol, since in addition to the Justin Kennedy residencies and the MACBA Web Radio group, there are now three research projects on the RSF Kobol in the form of final degree projects by UPF students, supervised by researchers from the Music Technology Research Group (MTG). One of them proposes the construction of an instrument based on sound samples of the instrument. Specifically, the possibilities of continuous transition between waveforms of the Kobol oscillators, one of its most special features, will be explored. The project is carried out by Gustavo Castelo (student of Audiovisual Systems Engineering) and is supervised by Frederic Font and Perfecto Herrera. In 2 other projects, the characterization of Kobol components is proposed. Juan Pablo Ramo (Telecommunications Engineering student) will sample and model the oscillators, while Ricard Martín (Audiovisual Systems Engineering student) will sample and model the filter with impulse responses. These two projects are supervised by Xavier Lizárraga and Perfecto Herrera.

The 3 projects open avenues of virtual preservation of idiosyncratic features and sounds of the Kobol RSF synthesizer, a true museum piece manufactured in Toulouse (France) in 1979 and of which only a few hundred copies exist. The projects will also enable the creation of new virtual instruments based on sounds and technical characteristics peculiar to the RSF Kobol.