This video, via cuckoomusic, is an informal review of the Stylophone S2 synthesizer and synth jam demo.
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.
The Stylophone S2 is now in production and retails for £299 GBP. See the Stylophone site for details.
Unique, quirky and exclusive. The Stylophone’s not bad either!
I wanna hear some Jazz on it. I want heard complex scales and chords being played.
It’s a monophonic synth (one voice) – so you’re not going to play chords on it.
excellent review! interaction is the part of the reason for even using hardware.
It’s a bit pricey for me but it looks like a great piece of gear. It sounded like the EG was working on independent oscillators, whatever was going on sounded great!
I really like the psycodelic blue ring that spins in tempo too.
The UI looks like a pain in the arse though.
It’s a bit pricey for me but it looks like a great piece of gear. It sounded like the EG was working on independent oscillators, whatever was going on sounded great!
I really like that blue ring that spins in tempo too. However, the UI looks like a pain in the arse.
A volca keys seems like a cheaper better option than this… or am I wrong?
That’s a reasonable question. This is a tasty-sounding beast and a bit bigger and more solidly built, but I think it’s overpriced – you could get all 3 Volcas for the cost of this unit, and the Volca sound is gaining a lot of fans. I think the Stylophone will undergo a fairly rapid price cut, but if they can sell it at $350-400 then it will definitely find plenty of willing buyers.
I’d sooner go for the Volcas myself, but I think it’s fair to say that the Volca series is ridiculously cheap, rather than the S2 is ridiculously expensive. At £300 it’s not much more expensive than a new MicroKorg or other VA, and it’s way cheaper than MiniBrute or MS-20 Mini.
I think a killer blow that Volca has over the S2 is MIDI in. There will be plenty of folk who would prefer a regular keyboard over the Stylophone keyboard, and CV is not as accessible as MIDI. Maybe they thought that would bastardise the Stylophone brand though.
I played one of these and was legitimately shocked by how good/fat it sounds. The controls are kind of wonky and take some getting used to, but it is playable. And for under $500, this thing is pretty incredible. It blows the Minibrute out of the water sound-wise IMHO. It is no joke.
Way over priced…… £299 and no MIDI, no USB… CV input only!! No thanks…….
Sounds great, lots of depth and bite and warm squelchy filters. But the price misses the mark by at least £150. Sorry, it’s a great little package of good sounding analog stuff…. but just too much money for what it does do. Especially when you compare it to the new Novation Bass Station 2.
I received mine today. I am NOT disappointed with the Stylophone. It is a MUCH fatter sound than other synths of this size, and it’s crazy-fun to jack it into your car’s aux port and crank it up. The controls are unlabeled, which is a little weird, and most have multiple settings, giving the thing much more flexibility than is apparent on the front panel. I see this as an excellent bass and lead box for the portable musician and an interesting addition to a modular as well (Yay, CV!). I’ll be posting a full review and video soon, but suffice it to say, it’s a huge-sounding little box.