Mine has been ordered! 
Ridiculously excited to try it out.
Watching the last video, i am amazed how expressive this synth is, ( we already said how great it sounds ) with a bare minimum of controls – keyboard, mod wheel, one knob and some buttons.
He didn’t touch the pitch wheel as far as i remember.
This thing is way cool.
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This thing sounds incredible.
I’ll post more details when I can type on a keyboard. Absolutely love it though!
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Ok, so I don’t have any audio recorded yet. I’ll post some as soon as I can get everything cabled up. I just played on it for several hours last night through my 701s.
This is a very interesting synthesizer.
What it isn’t, is a Hydrasynth. If you’re looking for super deep programming, you’ll want to look at things like the Hydra, modular, or an FM/PM synth (Essence, Digitone, Yamaha, OPSix, etc.) Or a deeper wavetable synth. The M, XT, etc. come to mind.
What this is, is a synthesizer with a novel approach to synthesis, that has basic, yet very direct control with lots of cool expression options within this tool set. It also sounds absolutely huge and incredible. It can also go from noise, to chip tune, to dare I say Oberheim territory. It’s amazing how many different types of sounds you can get out of it with the fairly small currated set of tools and parameters.
The interface becomes simple and transparent within about an hour of use. I was making fun patches of my own after an hour or two. Everything is a button press or three away.
The filter is as good as any other state variable polysynth filter that I’ve heard. I would maybe give the edge to something like the ARP 1047 or Serge VCFQ, but this one bubbles, sizzles, and behaves exactly as you’d expect a high quality state variable filter to behave.
When creating more traditional subtractive tones, this sounds very much like an Oberheim synth to me. Which is a pretty huge deal coming from this method of synthesis in an all digital synth. It’s the sort of thing where you can just sit and play it, and enjoy the sounds coming out of it.
Then, you start playing with the bit masks, and modulation, and you can add digital sprinkles over those subtractive sounds, or go full digital insanity, or calm it down to some nice chip tune sounds. It can sound very much like a PPG, especially when you toss a bit of bit crushing on from the effects.
The effects sound lush and extremely nice, though they are limited in their parameters. All of them seem quite useful, add just the right amount to the patches, and while I wish I could dial them in with a few more added parameters, I haven’t gotten anything short of beautiful sounding results.
My natural inclination when I get onto a synthesizer typically is to dig deep, and while the breadth of available sound shaping tools on the Mask is far beyond adequate, and actually quite impressive, my usual approach doesn’t apply here. With everything in reach, carefully currated, the approach is a lot different from other synths.
It reminds me a lot of the SID chip, Ensoniq DOC chip, and other synths from the 80s in what’s available, except for two things. It’s FAR easier to program good patches, and it sounds better than any of the synths that I can think of with similar features from that era.
I would not use this synth to replace something super deep like the Hydra or modular, but it adds so much to a setup that includes those types of things. Being able to build a gorgeous sounding patch, and then PLAY it in ways that you generally wouldn’t on other synths without a ton of careful programming is absolutely amazing.
It’s also built like “insert your tank analogy here”.
I love this thing.
I’m still trying to decide on what my setup is going to look like, but this is going to be the center of it for all things played manually. I’ll probably keep my Digitone keys for sequencing, my Syntakt will be on percussion and such. I think this is probably a well rounded and nearly perfect setup. I’m just trying to decide if I can keep the Grandmother since I love it so much, and go three layers of keys. With my current studio arrangement, that’s a bit of a tall order, but I’m going to try. 
Anyway, if you’re looking for something that makes beautiful sounds and won’t take you hours to make the perfect patch, and go into territory that any one particular synthesizer generally won’t do, then I’d highly recommend this. It’s a beautiful instrument. It could easily be one’s main polysynth.
Some of the tones I was getting out of it also reminded me of the Solaris a little bit. Programming the two is obviously night and day, but some of the tonal qualities sounded similar to me. The Mask is a BIG sounding synth. I’m actually thinking of ways to slim it down for a mix aside from using band or high pass filters.
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How do you like the keybed?
The only thing that would make it better is if it were PolyAT. Otherwise, it’s top quality. Feels like Fatar TP style, ala Sequential to my fingers. It’s exactly how I feel that synth keybeds should feel.
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Cool, record some audio when you can and congratulations 
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This sounds like it is right up my alley. Ease of use, great filter, can get into Oberheim and PPG territory. Looks like a winner.
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If those are important criteria to you, then I would say it’s a perfect fit!
In a perfect studio (in my world) I would say, one of these, some modular, a couple of mono-synths, and an Eletrkon or three would pretty much cover everything I could imagine doing. And maybe one other super-deep system like an XT/M/Iridium, Hydra, Essence, or something along those lines.
That would cover ease of sequencing, deep sound design, a beautiful instrument to play on, and the widest possible sound palette.
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I haven’t had a chance to look over all of the specs on this one, what are the modulation options like?
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There are four envelopes, two LFOs, two wheels, aftertouch, and there are a few other items. It has a modest mod matrix, and a ton of bit masks that can then be modulated. Between the two oscillators, you can get an absolute ton of different tones by combining the two oscillators using differeing masks, and various levels of animation. It’s better to think more along the lines of combining all these various things over a patch, and less actual mod-routing counts though. There are some interesting interactions that come simply from having a different mask on each oscillator for example that play off of each other before you even start touching all of the modulators. When you toss bit crushers or ring modulation on, you can get in to vastly different territory before even touching the four filter shapes etc. You can get FM style bells, but not by FMing the oscillators themselves, but applying a certain mask and then modulating that. So you can cover a ton of different territory, but using different techniques than your more typical synthesizer.
I almost felt like I was a bit constrained at first, because I was searching for parameters that just aren’t there. But when I realized how differently things are accomplished on this synth, and adapted to how things actually work, I was absolutely astounded by the variety I was getting out of it.
I will add this. I am a total chip sound, digital synth junky of the highest order. (well, ANY synth really, but I have an affinity for chippy stuff, wavetable stuff, FM stuff, etc.) This completely caters to that for me, while also sounding incredible doing subtractive OBish stuff too. So it basically checks every box for me, and then goes above an beyond.
For my sound designer side though, I still need some modular to dig into occasionally. (though I may pick up Hydra desktop again to fill that role on my desktop) When I work with modular I usually like to do it away from my other synths. I rarely combine the two.
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Very cool, thanks for the info. This one is definitely on my watch list.
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This synth sounds LOVELY.
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How long can the amp attack be?
From SFF and SynthAnatomy.
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It can be pretty long. I was mostly making plucky sounds on it so far, but I did crank up the attack for a minute on one patch. It was long enough to have to wait for the audio to slowly spill forth. 
I’m not sure what the actual timing is though off the top of my head.
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Thanks sounds like it is plenty long. I am coming from a Korg Prologue which has a max attack of 3 seconds - WTF!
Wow.
I think this is the first time I’ve wanted to buy a synth immediately upon hearing and seeing it for the first time. Of course I won’t actually follow that impulse, especially right now when there’s so little information about it out there, but something about its visual design and sound must’ve dug very deep into my lizard brain for me to feel that way.
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I just got it connected to my Bluebox, so if I’m lucky and finagle some free time this evening, I’ll post some audio.
There’s a million ways that it will be useful for me, but playing it is the best part. If you like to play your keyboard synths, this is definitely one to look at.
If it had PolyAT, I would call it 100% perfect within its niche. As it is with MonoAT, it’s still absolutely delightful. 99.333528% perfect for what it does and where it sits in the scheme of digital poly synthesizers.
Its way of doing things is different enough that could easily sit over or under a Hydra, Iridium, 3rd Wave, or an analog like a Sequential and provide enough variety to make it worthwhile.
Mine is currently layered with a Digitone Keys and Moog Grandmother, and I’m actually finding the triple manual setup to be very fun even with only two arms
Incidentally I can reach all of that from my chair despite how it looks in the photo.
I can’t program the Digitone that well from there, but I can play it fine.
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Beautiful. After the SFF video I think I’m back on buying this at some point over the summer.
Do you think there’s much crossover in sound with the digitone? Some of the early demos made me feel like there could be, but it’s starting to look like that might not be the case.
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