When Vermona released the Perfourmer in 2002, they took an unconventional approach to analog synthesis by building four complete monophonic synthesizers into a single desktop unit, letting you treat them as independent channels or blend them together in unexpected ways. It's the kind of design philosophy that rewards hands-on experimentation rather than menu diving.
Each of the four voices is a fully realized synth with its own VCO, VCF, VCA, and LFO. The oscillators deliver six waveforms including sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth, plus a white noise generator, with pitch adjustable across a 13-semitone range. The 4-pole lowpass filter has resonance and variable keytracking, shaped by a snappy ADSR envelope that can swing from 1ms attack to 40 seconds of release. Every voice gets its own LFO with four waveforms that can modulate oscillator pitch, filter cutoff, or amplitude independently. The front panel gives you direct access to every parameter for each channel, which means no hunting through menus but also a fairly dense control layout.
What sets the Perfourmer apart is its flexibility beyond traditional polyphonic playing. You can run it in six different modes mixing monophonic, duophonic, and polyphonic operation, or engage FM mode where two voices modulate the other two for deeper tonal territory. There's also a filterbank mode that lets you feed external audio into each channel's filter section, turning the whole unit into a four-channel processor. Individual outputs for each voice plus stereo main outs give you routing options whether you're tracking into a DAW or running live. The unit measures roughly 43.5 by 31.5 centimeters and weighs about 3.7 kilograms, making it a manageable desktop piece despite its feature density.
The Perfourmer has developed a devoted following among sound designers and experimentalists who appreciate its unconventional architecture and the tactile immediacy of having four separate synth engines at your fingertips. It's not the most intuitive machine for beginners, but for anyone comfortable with analog synthesis fundamentals, it opens up creative possibilities that traditional four-voice polyphonic synths simply don't offer.
