Syrinx

One of the rarest analog synths from the Netherlands, with only about 325 units hand-built between 1982 and 1984, born from founder Felix Visser's frustration fixing an EMS Synthi-A—he decided to craft his own voltage-controlled dream machine instead.

At its heart, two Curtis CEM3340 VCOs deliver saw, triangle, square and PWM waveforms, with hard/soft sync, FM, a sub-oscillator, ring mod and noise generator feeding a mixer section. Filter duties fall to three voltage-controlled options—a 24dB/oct lowpass plus two bandpass peaks—that patch in series or parallel for formant-like vocal tones, each with independent cutoff, resonance, envelope, key tracking and LFO mod. Dual ADSR envelopes and LFOs (triangle/square) shape everything, controlled via a dense front panel of sliders and switches, a 44-note (3.5-octave) keyboard with velocity, portamento, and that signature left-side touch-pad for bending pitch, modulating LFO rate or more. Housed in a sturdy black (or occasional blue/red) case around 40 pounds, it's pre-MIDI but CV/Gate ready, outputting mono audio with a raw, expressive edge like a Minimoog meets ARP Odyssey.

Players love its versatile, aggressive leads and basses—Aphex Twin, Vince Clarke and Air have coaxed magic from it—but tweaking the vast controls without patch memory means overlays were a must for sound hunting, and rarity keeps it a collector's grail.