At Superbooth 2019, Novation introduced the Summit – a new flagship synthesizer that essentially combines two of their Peak synthesizers into a knob-filled keyboard.
The Summit can be used for subtractive, FM and wavetable synthesis, and pairs flexible wavetable oscillators with analog dual filters, distortion and VCAs. The multitimbral engine enables merging and combining of two complete and independent patches, or you can use it as a 16-voice synth.
Specifications:
Synth Engine
- 16 note polyphony (dependent on voices used per note)
- 2-part-timbral
- Layered, Split, Dual Bi-Timbral Modes
- 5 Voice Modes – Mono, MonoLG, Mono2, Poly, Poly2
Per Voice
- 3 oscillators
- 1 noise generator with HP filter control
- 1 ring modulator
- 2 LFOs
- 1 amp envelope and 2 mod envelopes (ADHSR + looping)
- 1 filter
Waveforms
- Sine, tri, sawtooth, square / pulse, plus 43 wavetables of 5 waveforms per row
Filter
- 1 state variable OTA filter per voice
- 12/24dB slope
- Low-pass / band-pass / high-pass / dual filter (separation of each 12dB filters)
- dual filter: LP > HP, LP > BP, HP > BP, LP + HP, LP + BP, HP + BP, LP + LP, BP + BP, and HP + HP
- Pre-filter overdrive
- Post-filter distortion
Modulation
- 16 modulation slots per patch
- 2 sources per destination per slot
Mod Sources
- Direct (depth)
- Modulation wheel
- Aftertouch (polyphonic and channel AT)
- Expression pedal 1
- Expression pedal 2
- Keyboard velocity
- LFO1 positive
- LFO1 bi-polar
- LFO2 positive
- LFO2 bi-polar
Pricing and Availability
The Summit is expected to be available in Sept 2019, priced at 2.199,99 €. See the Novation site for more info.
For many, a $4k Quantum is a mere pipe dream, here’s some great $2k consolation. I know that part of anyone’s “my sound” is made up of several instruments that grabbed them above the rest of the field at the time. I can pre-hear the groaning over this one being only bi-timbral, but shuddup; its a serious player’s synth like the Prophet XL or a CS-80. Its a centerpiece instrument that you play over or through your multi setups and sequences. Impressive!
That filter split thing is intriguing… Sweeps from 12db Lp into 12db HP are sweet
The Peak is really a great synth, This, though, makes me think it could end up as a classic.
They’ve improved the UI, which was already pretty good. And the possibilities for sound design are massive.
There are just some fantastic synths out now. Like you suggested, the Quantum is killer, maybe Waldorf’s greatest synth ever. The Yamaha Montage has developed into a great synth. The Kyra looks like it’s going to be massive. The Prologue looks more and more interesting, as developers add more plugins. And that’s just getting started.
“flexible wavetable oscillators”
Tha’s false – you cannot upload user wavetables into an onboard RAM !
We are in a golden age of synths. And this particular specimen is excellent. It even allows the sound of other synths (even one that allows custom wavetables) to be processed through it’s envelopes, filters and effects. And yet we are seeing weak arguments over the semantic range of the world “flexible”. LOL
The last thing I want is swappable firmware, flashing ROMs etc. I just want a good selection of waveforms.
Have known about this for sometime now and had a long play on a prototype a few weeks ago…. This really IS one hell of a machine. Incredible versatile and just sounds awesome.
The feature list mentions poly AT. I’m guessing it will RESPOND to polyAT, but the keyboard is probably monophonic AT? Or, perhaps it’s that sad workaround where you can set the single note that monoAT will transmit as polyAT. Still, even if it just responds to polyAT that’s something.
Great to see their implementation of an aux out so you can have dry out and separate FX. Also, fantastic to see the audio ins that can go through FX or filters. That was sadly missing from the DM12.
This sounds nice.
great synth, but summit is a laughable name. why not gathering or meeting?? *facepalm*
Is English not your native language?
The word ‘summit’ can also mean ‘the top of a mountain’, just like ‘peak’.
Best new synth of Superbooth?