UK’s Synth Restore has announced the Aurora AR57 – a new 3-oscillator analog synthesizer.
They note that “This isn’t a clone of a classic synth, this is an ORIGINAL design, and is not based on any existing product.”
Here are the details:
Features:
- 3 analogue oscillators (tri, saw, pulse)
- 2 sub oscillators
- low and high pass 24db ladder filter
- ADSR, with auto trigger.
- VCA gate mode.
- LFO (tri, sq, saw, random) routable to vco, vcf, pwm. Any mix of LFO waveforms.
- Modulation wheel routed to LFO depth.
- 3 octave keyboard, with portamento.
- VCF cross mod (by vco 3)
- Hi freq. LFO rate (ring mod. effects).
- Germanium transistors in key audio path.
Audio demos:
It’s priced at £995 and is currently only available in the UK. See the site for more info.
via Mitch
Is it a discrete synth?
Yes. It will never question any of your decisions in front of your friends and won’t say revealing things about your sex life when you’re having dinner with your girlfriend…
Looks cool. I bet the difference between germanium and regular silicon transistors is clearly audible in the mp3 demos via crappy computer speakers.
Teasing of course. Well, a tiny bit.
Seriously though, very cool to see a new British analogue synth.
Goku,
I am thinking the same thing. Perhaps one of us can contact the company and ask to make sure? It is pretty rare that a discrete analog synthesizer comes along… If it is made of discrete components then it is surely worth every penny just for its potential life span and ease of repair…
quote
…”I bet the difference between germanium and regular silicon transistors is clearly audible in the mp3 demos via crappy computer speakers….”
hum…many musicians have hi-quality speakers connected to a good sound-card….well…I hope so….
And a £2000 4 voice polysynth next please.
WHAT,.. NO MIDI,.. ?!?!?!????
It does have CV though.
Desktop/Rack version would be good.
the website says… “no midi because this is a players synth”… since when are the two mutually exclusive?… I’ve had some very playable synths with midi for 30 years…. not once didi midi degrade their ability to be played.
Sorry, clicked wrong icon, I totally agree with you. I clearly need MIDI on my mouse.
Agreed! I’m getting pretty grumpy with all this no MIDI/no patch memory “players’ synth” hoopla.
I’m a synth player, I play them live, midi and patch memory make a thing more playable. Maybe there’s a good (read: financial) reason some companies are keen to leave out the little digital niceties, but I have to disagree when they go on as though it’s a selling point, or evokes some kind of nostalgia… I’m sure guys back in the day were furious when patch memory was introduced, and they could no longer haul 5 minimoogs to every show
yeah, ‘financial reasons’ is the same conclusion I came to- if it really was a design philosophy why include cv inputs and say you can control it with a converter? they just don’t want the converter inside the unit. I don’t have a problem with their decision just don’t try to sell it a a feature..
I think it sounds great, but the lack of MIDI is a deal breaker for me. In fairness though, so’s the 4000 miles of mostly ocean that they won’t ship it across.
Really lads, would including a Kenton chip kill ya? 😉