Images and details of two new Novation synthesizers have leaked today, via listings on European gear stores: a table–top polysynth called Peak and a sequencer–based monosynth called the Circuit Mono Station.
Both of these are Novation’s first new synthesizers since the release of the Circuit early last year, and they are both incredibly intriguing.
The Peak, listed on GAK, is the biggest attention grabber with eight voices and analog–digital hybrid circuitry featuring what the product description calls “numerically controlled oscillators” plus wavetable oscillators. These seem to be digital oscillators that behave like analog oscillators, then run through analog multimode filters. The Peak appears to be featured on the next issue of Sound on Sound, where the text describes those oscillators as digital.
The Peak’s design is also quite interesting, with the different synth sections laid out like a modular synthesizer. There are distinctly delineated boxes for the oscillators, filter, LFOs, envelopes, modulation, and effects.
The Circuit Mono Station may or may not feature analog DCOs, but it does feature just the typical analog waveforms: triangle, sawtooth, square, and sample and hold. More importantly, it has a sequencer on board instead of a keyboard, meaning it may be, more or less, a sequencer–based version of the Bass Station II. It features grid control like the original Circuit, which contains two digital polysynths and multiple drum machines.
The Mono Station gives knobs and sliders to all of the essential synth controls, and does not seem to feature any effects. It looks like Novation is throwing its hat into the ring alongside the release of other sequencer–based analog monosynths like the Pioneer Toraiz AS–1 and Korg’s recent Volca offerings and Monologue.
This post will be updated as Novation details these synthesizers.
Update (1:30 PM Central Time, April 19): Novation has formally announced these synthesizers. The Circuit Mono Station is indeed a monophonic analog synthesizer based on the Bass Station, and will retail for $499. The Peak will featured a fully routable modulation matrix, with any parameter able to affect any other parameter like in a modular synthesizer, and will be listed at $1299.
Update (3:23 PM Central Time, April 19): You can preorder the Circuit Mono Station for $499 and Peak for $1299 now.
Novation Keyboards & Synths