I took @ModalElectronics’s advice and watched the interview with Philip Taysom:
Some interesting, and potentially pertinent takeaways: The design for Argon8 was laid out at the same time as Skulpt, and Taysom mentions that they actually designed several synths at that time. He describes building a framework that could be adaptable to a lot of applications (I assume this is the sort of DSP chipset guts? I am not an engineer, but the suggestion was that Skulpt and Argon8 shared some common factors, and in doing so, they could design more synths on this foundation without having to dive into R&D every time).
He also mentions that they have a few synths waiting to be released.
I feel like I should maybe go to bat for Modal on this one… I’m not saying that the Skulpt is the best built synth ever but for the price point… I’ve not had any problem. I wouldn’t say it was significantly better or worse than say Volcas or the like. I’ve found the encoders to be pretty accurate and the slightly looser feel of the cutoff on mines is pretty nice for one-fingered subtle tweaks. Mine survived 4 or 5 trips to my pals for jam session rattling about in a backpack with a good few bottle of beers each time and is absolutely fine. For the most part, it just sits on the desk and and does what I want it to…
We don’t have long to wait do we ? But speculation is a fun muscle to exercise.
The physical confirmation is certainly is very Argonish. But perhaps this is now the Modal look. So not sure is this an Argon or a Not-an-Argon ?
Does the color blue carry any significance for anyone ?
I blew the image way up to see if I could make out a name. No luck, I think they blurred that out. Again very similar to the Argon, are there more LEDs in the bottom row ?
So if it is an Argon, a simple variation, and something that is suspicious because of early reactions from Jackson, might be something like a polyphonic-aftertouch/MPE keyboard. That seems to be a mini-trend at the moment (Hydrasynth, Osmose) and there are sources for said keybed.
So another Argon variation might be in the voice structure/count. So perhaps multi-timbrality ? Or analog voices added like to make it an analog/digital hybrid, like between the Korg Minilogue and the xd.
If it is Not-an-Argon then different voice technology — IDK —samples and granular might be a popular choice if done really well.
Ha - I was just having fun. Lucky guess, maybe! My eyes have never been great, and now I’m old, so I didn’t even try to read fuzzy writing in that photo.
I’m pretty sure they said something about the form factor being set for several different products to keep expenses down. But it will be a new synth. Not an Argon variant.
In fact, we can infer from this, that this isn’t anything to do with Argon:
Yeah – until proven otherwise, I’m assuming this is a similar form factor with a different engine.
I think of the Roland Boutiques: all of them have the same basic structure/chips/enclosure/controls (with variations to suit the given synth), but the code they are running can produce very different results.
Modal’s a UK company, and Blue Monday is about the biggest dance hit that England ever produced. Blue Monday was recorded with a Moog Source. Ergo, it will be a monophonic analog synthesizer with membrane buttons, like we’ve all desperately been waiting for.
