Modal Electronics Argon8 – new Wavetable-Synthesizer with 8 Voices

Modal Electronics introduces the Argon8, an amazingly impressive (and really affordable) 8-voice wavetable synthesizer. Aside from the 3 octave keyboard, the instrument offers everything you’d expect from a full-blown polyphonic synthesizer: lots of oscillators, lots of modulation routings, arpeggiator, quantized sequencer and much more …

Argon8’s completely new sound engine enables extremely complex synthesis creation that we believe is hitherto unprecedented at this price point and even for products that are much, much higher.

The Instrument:

Polyphony

– True 8 voice polyphonic
– Mono-timbral

Oscillators

– 32 high resolution wavetable oscillators, 4 per voice, with 8 types of oscillator modifier including: Phase Mod (FM), Ring Mod, Amp Mod, Hard Sync and Windowed Sync

– 120 carefully crafted wavetables split into 24 banks of 5 morphable waveform sets, covering virtual analogue classics through to cutting edge EDM and many from the original Modal 002 as well as a whole range of mathematically generated tables. Additional PWM bank and 4 noise/modulation banks accessible on Oscillator 2

– 28 static wavetable processors including de-rez, wave folders, wave shapers, phase shapers and rectify that can be applied to the 120 wavetables to give a mind boggling array of permutations and new waveshapes

Keyboard

– FATAR TP9/S Full size 37 key keybed with both velocity and aftertouch

– 1.54 inch large OLED display – that provides instant visual feedback to the user at all times of playing/editing

– Multiple keyboard modes, Mono, Poly, Unison 2, unison 4, unison 8, Stack 2 and Stack 4

– Inbuilt sophisticated programmable arpeggiator of 32 steps with rest capability with up to 2048 steps before repeating

– Glide/Portamento with both legato and staccato modes

Filter

– Two pole morphing resonant filter
– Filter can be morphed from low pass, through band pass, to high pass

Modulation

– Hugely powerful “Mod Matrix” with eight assignable slots with four additional fixed routes, 11 mod sources and 52 destinations

– A 4-axis joystick that can be assigned to a huge range of modulation destinations and virtually ‘locked’ when desired

– Three dedicated envelope generators for AMP, MOD and FILTER that can be accessed independently or all three simultaneously including negative (reverse) versions

– Two Audio rate LFO’s with tempo sync (one poly, one global). Polyphonic LFO can sync to frequency divisions

 

FX

– Waveshaping distortion’
– Three incredibly powerful independent and user configurable stereo FX engines that can create sophisticated Delays, lush Reverbs, Flanging, Phasing, and Rich Choruses

Sequencer

– Real time sequencer with 512 steps with input quantise and four recordable / editable parameter animations
– All time-based FX, LFO’s and sequencer arpeggio can be either clocked internally or externally

Storage

– 500 patch memories, all fully editable and ships with 300 factory programs and 200 user patch spaces. Patch upload and download through the free MODALapp
– 100 sequencer presets and 100 FX presets

Connectivity

– Analogue clock sync in and out (configured to the KORG / Teenage Engineering specification)
– MIDI IN and OUT
– Full size quarter inch jacks for stereo audio outs, headphones and external control such as sustain and expression
– 3.5 mm stereo input with ability to route incoming audio through the FX
– Class compliant MIDI provided over USB connection to host computer or tablet
– Optional software editor available for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android with VST3 and AU compatibility – MODALapp can be run within your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

Physical

Road ready Steel and Aluminium chassis

Width: 560mm – 22 inches
Depth: 300mm – 11-3/4 inches
Height: 120mm – 5 inches

Power: DC-9.0V-1.5A

Price

649 Euros / 579 GBP / 699 USD

Modal Electronics Argon8

8-Voice Wavetable Synthesizer

Price: 649 Euros / 579 GBP / 699 USD

Website Manufacturer:
www.modalelectronics.com

Filed under General

“Es genügt, einen Ton schön zu spielen” sagte der Komponist Arvo Pärt im Jahre 2005. Diese Aussage ist ebenso einfach wie ich auch exzellent: Es braucht kein Meer an Tönen, denn entscheidend ist der Klang. Dass so mancher Vintage-Synthesizer der 70er und 80er Jahre teils unerreicht hochwertige Klänge liefert, steht außer Frage. Doch tatsächlich leben wir “heute” in einer nahezu perfekten Zeit. Einerseits hat man – mehr oder weniger – noch Zugriff auf die Vintage Analogen, andererseits wird auch bei Neugeräten die wichtige Komponente des hochwertigen Klanges wieder zunehmend berücksichtigt. Doepfer, Cwejman, Synthesizers.com, MacBeth, Moog, GRP, Studio Electronics, COTK, John Bowen und andere Hersteller bauen hervorragende Synthesizer, die den “Klassikern” in nichts nachstehen. All diesen (alten wie neuen) “großartigen” Instrumenten ist Great Synthesizers gewidmet. _________________________________________________________ In 2005 composer Arvo Pärt said: “Playing one tone really well is enough”. In other words, it is sufficient to play one tone 'beautifully'. I agree with that. All musical efforts are focused on the sound itself. Although I studied classical music (piano and drums), it’s the electronic sound that inspires me. Synthesizers are the epitome of new sounds and exciting tonal spheres. Today, many companies produce high-quality - excellent! - synthesizers: Doepfer, Cwejman, MacBeth, Moog, GRP, Synthesizers.com, COTK, Studio Electronics, John Bowen and others. It's their products I'm really interested in ... apart from Vintage Synthesizers, which I have been collecting for 20 years. Subsequent to our former websites Bluesynths and Blogasys, Peter Mahr and I have now created GreatSynthesizers. We hope you like it.

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