ELKA SYNTHEX (1981)

Big analog synthesizer designed by the famous Italian engineer Mario Maggi, released around 1981 by the italian organ society Elka/ Orla

KEYBOARD 61 keys with no velocity, 36 knobs , 84 buttons and 6 levers on the pannel for sound editing... enough? on the right side there's a neat joystick for bending control and control over second LFO. Behind the monster there are many connection: tape I/O with micro-jack, midi I/O (if available depending on synthex release), sequencer sync I/o with switch to select masterclock, two audio outputs for sending voiceboards in stereo, one pedal control for Filter VCF and four footswitches input for Program up, Envelope Hold & Release and Glide control.

VOICES A total of eight voices polyphony are generated by four boards with two voices on each, splittable in two layers of sound: two detunable, syncable and crossmodulable (thus no depth between) DCO per voice- 16' 8' 4' 2' 1 feet octaves range and four differents waveforms: Saw, Pulse with PWM Square and Triangle plus a summable external White/Pink noise generator (with no control but gain)
The Elka Synthex is one of few analog polyphonic-structured machine able to boast deep bass, rich strings and complex magical electronic sounds, all in 30 Kgs of massive circuits!

VCF excellent multimode analog resonant filter based on Cem 3320 : LowPass with four poles, BandPass at one or two poles (6 oct /pole) and HighPass with Polarity inversion

LFO two Low frequency oscillator with frequency range from 0.02 Hz to 20 Hz: the first one has Delay/Start, Depth and four different waveforms (Triangle, Sawtooth, Ramp and Square) routable to the DCO Pitch and/or Pulse PWM and/or Filter (OSC1 OSC2 PW1 PW2 VCF)
The second LFO is simplier and triggered by the side joystick for real time performance: vertically it will act as a normal pitch bender, while horizontally it will increase - decrease the amount of LFO routed to DCO or VCF

Envelope two four stages EGs for Amplitude and Filter

MIDI Second and third Synthex releases feature a very basic Midi interface I/O : just "Note on" and "Note off" with no velocity (not even bender or modulation). The midi buffer is pretty limited and the early CPU can easily freeze for data overflows or unknown digital streams (such as SMPTE) ... in this case switch it Off .. and On! pronto!

SEQUENCER very good four tracks steps sequencer with 128 events each (saved in memory), a Gate knob for long or short Envelope and five dedicated functions buttons : Write, Beats, Rests, Split, Delete, Loop and Ready/ Reset
The notes can be recorded Real time or in "Step" mode and played back with transpose Shift and internal tempo knob or synched to an external clock (classical Pulse input beats divide mode switch). Very well designed and fun: you will make loops ideas and bass lines in a breeze !


FX a special stereo mode sends each voice to right or left channel and a three modes analog stereo chorus with no editing

MEMORY 40 ROM presets 40 RAM user and the "Pannel memory" (the sound actually on the knobs).No external storage nor Midi dump: the only way to backup your sounds is the tape Load /Save interface, but it is quite reliable and easy to understand

OTHER FEATURES Split , Double layer, Polyphonic portamento/glide polyphonic glissando Envelope controls hold On/Off abd external pedal Filter control

Massive polyphonic sound
- Sequencer
-Memories

- needs particular care
- basic midi
-High price

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