Designed by Carmine Bonanno in the early '80s, this hybrid analog poly synth pushed boundaries with its computer-controlled brain, letting serious players craft wildly complex sounds that landed on tracks by New Order, Depeche Mode, and Trevor Horn.
It packs eight voices, each with dual analog VCOs plus white noise feeding a punchy 24dB/oct low-pass filter and VCA, both with dedicated ADSR envelopes—VCO1 can even bypass the filter for brighter timbres. Two super-flexible LFOs offer sine, saw, triangle, and sample/hold waves, routable to pulse width, cutoff, and more via four poly-mod banks, with sources like velocity, aftertouch, pressure, joystick, and footpedals for layered madness. The setup splits into a 61-key velocity-sensitive keyboard with aftertouch and a rugged 19-inch rackmount module featuring upfront knobs for cutoff, attack, LFO rate, and detune, plus a deeper computer-style interface for programming 100 patches, a basic arpeggiator, 1700-note sequencer, and ring mod. Stereo outs blast a massive 20V signal, with CV/gate, footswitch inputs, and expandability to 16 voices.
Though discontinued and tricky to program without synth chops, players cherish its striking, sweepy tones and modulation depth—vintage gear hunters still seek it for those one-of-a-kind analog textures.
