Stylophone S2 A Fully Spec’d ‘Super-Fat’ Analogue Synth

stylophone-s2-british-synth

The iconic Stylophone pocket keyboard, played by everyone from David Bowie to Kraftwerk to Orbital to Gotye, is getting the ‘pro’ treatment.

Dubreq Ltd is introducing the Stylophone S2 – a ‘fully spec’d’ analogue synthesizer, designed and built in the UK.

While the original Stylophone is a fun instrument, the Stylophone S2 offers much more sophisticated features, including dual analog oscillators, a state-variable filter, a flexible LFO and even control voltage inputs.

Here are the details:

stylophone-s2-synthesizer

Features:

  • The Stylophone S2 features the traditional Stylophone metal keyboard, but 3 octaves long and playable with an included wire-free stylus or by finger touch.
  • Portable (308mm X 120mm X 26mm and less than 1kg/2lbs in weight).
  • +/- 2 octave shifter
  • All analogue signal path
  • British style 12dB/octave state-variable filter
  • Dual all-transistor voltage controlled oscillators
  • Sub-oscillators for ‘super-fat’ bass
  • Eight waveform LFO with a 14 octave range
  • An auxiliary-input to use the filter and envelope-generator for other instruments
  • 1/4” output jack socket
  • Internal speaker and headphone socket
  • CV and Trigger input sockets.

Stylophone S2 images:

The Stylophone S2 is priced at £299 UKP or $479 USD. More details are to come, via the Stylophone2 site.

via Matrixsynth

29 thoughts on “Stylophone S2 A Fully Spec’d ‘Super-Fat’ Analogue Synth”

  1. Seems a little steep in spite of the obvious novelty aspect. (And to beat the dead horse laying across the price point argument: minibrute is $50 more)

    That said, I want one. Because of the obvious novelty aspect.

    1. This company goes to the trouble of a launch countdown, and yet, no videos or even sound demos. Just a photo of a new instrument .It’s like selling a painting over the phone. (?????)

    1. I think you’re comparing very different things. But i’m totally agree to the people who says that there’re many analog synthesizers for that price: w. pulse, minibrute, minitaur, vermona, mfb…

      1. Because i have very little in the way of gear that uses CV.
        And if this thing has got a sequencer i’d like to clock it using midi..

  5. I was excited until I saw the price. No thanks – for that kind of money, I’ll get the Minibrute I’ve been lusting after or an iPad. I bet it’s a fun little gadget, but it’s terribly overpriced IMO.

  6. I’m not sure how successful this will be. Here’s why. I personally like the Stylophone, and have _always_ wished that someone would produce one with an extended key range. To have one that also has a wireless stylus and a decently spec’d analog synth inside is a huge plus. But at nearly $500? There’s no way, and I’m the ideal audience for this thing.

    If it was $200 I would immediately buy one. If it was $250 I’d probably buy one but with some pause. The short story is I want to feel okay about carrying this thing around everywhere in a backpack, whip it out, have some fun, and not feel too guilty if it took a few knocks over time. At $479 the guilt-free fun just isn’t happening, and it’s lost its appeal.

    1. CV gate out definitely. It would totally sell out to the modular crowd.
      In… not so much. It just means you have to use up more cv/gate resources,
      which means even more equipment to run the thing synced up.

  8. Just looked on their site and this little beast seems to be a quality piece of kit – not a plastic toy like the original. £299 for a ‘quirky’ but proper dual VCO synth doesn’t seem so bad after all! I’d like to hear some sound samples though.

    1. Exactly! It doesn’t seem quite so bad for a handmade all analog mono.. Saying that i’d certainly be more likely to buy for £100 less/

  9. Somewhere recently, some young synth fan (or maybe not so young) must have wished on a falling star for more analog synthesizers of many varieties to be made… Was it you? (Way to go!)

  10. I think I’ll stick with running my original through a monotron – £50 all-in. This thing’s got more features than that set-up, but no stylophone’s ever going to be worth £300! The whole point of a stylophone is that it’s cheap and cheerful.
    I agree with Elwig – if it had MIDI, maybe it’d be more interesting – I’ve not got a CV keyboard. Even if it had MIDI, is it really worth blowing £300 when a bit more saving up would get you a minibrute, or a minitaur?

  15. It looks like Ben Fisher is involved with this project. He still owes me a synth that I paid him for YEARS AGO. Many other people had the same experience. Only give these people your money if you want to throw it away.

  16. http://www.stylophone2.com/abouts2.html

    “The S2 in it’s final form has been a true labour of love. The electronics has been crafted by British synth designer Ben Fisher (creator of the cult ‘BC’ series of synths) and the external appearance of the S2 has been designed by Stylophone heir Ben Jarvis alongside Ben Fisher. “

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *