Let me say right now that I'm going to give a brief synopsis on the capabilities of the Synergy, there is so much variation of controls, sound, colours and effects that only a four hour demonstration could begin to cover all the possibilities.

The Synergy has a 74 key, E to F keyboard, it's a polyphonic, all digital instrument with the keyboard having touch control of both amplitude and timbre. The Synergy consists of 32 digital oscillators each having its own amplitude and frequency envelope, 24 voices are pre-programmed with any four available at any one time. Add to this an external cartridge which again has 24 voices, a double footswitch for sustain and sostenuto (the footswitch also operates the portamento) a two way pitch bend and modulation joystick, a voice assignment section which allows seven modes of voice availability, vibrato and random sampling, a sequencer with four track capability and approximately 1860 note storage which records polyphonic and polytimbral nuances and last, but not least, stereo outputs where each voice can be assigned separately and for live usage a program storage where up to 8 different sets of 4 voices can be allocated. This, very simply, is the Synergy!

It is atypical of synthesisers generally available in that you do not build the sound from source, a weak term is preset-based, the programmed sounds are set by a large music computer in the USA and as a point of interest you can purchase extra sound cartridges and, if you want your own sounds analysed and put on cartridge, this can also be done.

Switching the Synergy on you will hear a fan whirring to circulate the air around the small onboard computer, the cartridge slots into its sockets and the switching from programmed tones to cartridge is from a touch-lite switch with an LED to confirm operation. Most of the switches have numerous functions and the mode of operation can be seen by how the LED reacts. The LED might be off/on/slow flash/fast flash plus the parametric knobs are non operational, that is unless the effect is already stored in the memory until the respective LED above the knob is lit.

The Synergy is capable of remembering all changes and will store them whether it be on cartridge or onboard, the changes can be altered at will or you can restore the program to its original definition.

The Channel Assign allows each voice to be processed through four modes; mono/left/right/phase left to right, here the touch-lite switch has two LED's to show operation of the stereo assignment. The switch is initially off, producing mono, press once and the sound emerges from the left channel with the left LED lit, press twice and the sound is directed to the right hand channel with the right LED lit, press a third time and the sound will phase between both channels and the LED's will flash alternately. As you can program each sound to remember its channel assign setting once you begin playing with more than one sound, you have an idea not only of tone but of aural spatialness.

The voices are available from two banks of 12 switches and each sound has its own characteristics of touch sensitivity. This control of key touch is vital as it allows you to 'feel' what you are playing as you would relate to an acoustic piano because you can alter the moments of amplitude, timbre and the sensitivity of both. You are able to have very fragile sounds when playing soft legato and full dynamic tones when playing staccato or a heavier playing action. Let's take a look at a few sounds to expand on this concept. Voice 4 is a Rhodes type of effect, a pure tone with the tyne bar harmonics perfect, when playing soft block chords a lovely mellow sound is obtained, a harder action and the timbre sharpens. Voice 7 is called T2Organ, its sound derived from the Crumar model of that name, a jazz organ with thick clean flutes with a 2 2/3 percussion.The interesting effect here is that while playing lightly produces the organ note with a choral rotary effect, a heavy action gives the tremolo rotary spin, the great thing is that your bass line can be choraled and your solo runs can be in tremelo. Voice 13 is a flute with a good combination of timbre and breath effect available on the keyboard. Voice 17 is a bass and has a well-defined accent to it, Voice 23 is chimes and the variety of tone is increased by the touch key enhancing the timbre and the harmonics. Voice 24 is called Delay 7 and is a percussive tone. When played lightly the echo is slow, when heavy it repeats quickly. Other sounds in the onboard program are Danel/Horn SX/Q/polySyn/String/BS08/Reed/Trumpet/Jazhorn/Spook/Cathorg/Lindas/Nasalfuz and Harpscd — a tremendous variation.

When switching over to the cartridge you can facilitate the sounds from the same bank of switches. The voices range from Clavinet type/Percussive synth effects/variations on strings/Synthorn/Clarinet/Echo Falls. Voice 24 is a dramatic filtered slow attack which then falls away to a high filtering in oscillation and then slowly falling again, a little like a jet engine after eating a curry! The amount of modulation and movement is startling and with the touch sensitivity you can catch the effect at various parts in its envelope.

So there are some of the sounds. What can you do with them? Well, for starters you can add any combination of four together and store them in a 'save' program. This of course adds a completely new depth to the voices, for example by pressing the save switch you can push voices 4, 7, 13 and 17 and then by pressing Program 1 these combinations will be stored, ready at any time. This memory is retainable so if the unit is switched off they will still be there when you switch on again, this goes for all effect programming bar the retention of the sequencer. To add to this variation you can work with the Voice Assignment Modes.

The way I have been explaining the Synergy so far has been in terms of either Single-voice or Multi-voice modes, but by using the voice assignment you can process the voices in seven ways. By pressing the voice assign switch you will see an LED travel through Unison/Rolling/First Available/Key Split/Float Split/Split-Rolling and Split First Available. In the Unison mode all the LEDs are off, i.e. when one key is pressed all of the voices which you have selected will play together. Switch once and you are in Rolling mode, every time you play a new note another voice will come in, so if you have selected voices 4, 7, 13, 17 in that order then they will roll in that order and you are able to select in what combination you wish the voices to roll. First Available is similar to rolling but works on the basis that if you play one note and hold that note down whilst playing the next note, sound 7 will come in and sound 4 will remain and so on. Get my drift? The Key split is self explanatory but you can set it to any position on the keyboard and you have the choice by the way you select the order of the voices which sound is controlled from lower or upper halves of the keyboard. I'll leave you to wonder about the other options!

The Vibrato section consists of three parametric knobs to control delay, rate and depth. However there are hidden within these controls the capacity for random sampling and, depending on what type of vibrato the voice has been patched with, the use of periodic or aperiodic vibrato.

The portamento is capable of smooth slides, smooth slides with retriggering and a semi-tonal slide, these effects are devastating when used with broad chord progressions.

The last item I'm going to mention is the sequencer, a most capable machine — you can record your first track, play it back while recording the next tracks, right through four tracks, you are able to play a sequence, change it into even steps from real time and have that sequence continually looping while other lines play into it in real time. By using the transpose switch you may use the sequencer to play your bass riff and you can transpose just by pressing the root you require and still be playing your solos and chord structures.

Well there we go; I've left a lot out and in doing that I have not done the Synergy justice. The Synergy is a delight to use as a creative composing tool or in a live application; its versatility is infinite. It does need understanding properly to be able to get the utmost out of it and this applies in particular to the allocation of the oscillators in respect to the voices. For the price and in comparison to what else there is on the market at present, if you want to grow musically you cannot ignore the Synergy.

£3444.25 Inc. VAT