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Synton | Syrinx

Description

The Syrinx (by Synton, founded by Felix Visser) is one of the few analog synths to come out of The Netherlands. It's a monophonic lead synth in the same category as the Minimoog, Arp Odyssey, and Roland SH-7. But the Syrinx is pretty rare, only a few hundred were produced from 1983 through 1984. In 1995, 5 keuboardless version were made from remaining parts.

The Syrinx is a monophonic analog synth. It has no Midi and no presets.  The Syrinx is actually Syrinx 2, the first syrinx Syrinx 716  (1973) never came out.

The first serie has a black painted bend pad and it was presented at the Firato in red, white, (blank alu) blue and orange. The later models has a blue bend pad. There are about 300 Syrinxes. 3 of them are grey with white text, 20 of them are blue, 20 of them are red and the rest is black. It was distributed in the USA by Bob Moog.

Syrinx capabilities

Audio sources: 2 VCO’s, Divider, PRM, noise. (External audio in on last series)
Modulation sources: 2 ADSR’s, 2 LFO’s, modulation pad, CV in, keyboard (not on last series)

The syrinx is based at curtis ic’s

VCO-CEM3340, VCF-CEM3350, VCA-CEM3360, EGR-CEM3310,
OPAMPS  TL074 (or 4741), LM324 CA3140 and CA3080
CMOS IC  4001, 4013
Rotation switch Lorlin (fi CK1514 , CK1061 )
Potmeters  and faders Radiohm.  Potmeters: the Weltron WEP160KC(S)-12-50F1 is mayby a replacement for the radiohm potmeters.

"We have sold syrinx with an EH instant replay.  The syrinx was modified for using the with the instant replay.  You can play the instant replay with the syrinx and the output of the instant replay is processed by the syrinx."

There a arelso modified syrinx with extra CV inputs for the filter frequency and the ADSR parameters, Audio input for the filter,  CV input for controlling the modulation from the ADSR to the filter and VCA, CV input for the touchpad.

Due to the large number of controls, it is not always easy to reproduce a sound you’ve made earlier. So overlays were available to draw the settings on.

The Syrinx uses seven Curtis chips for VCO’s, VCA, RM, VCF’s and envelopes.

A final series of six Syrinxes was made after Synton went out of business. These were mounted in flight cases, and had no keyboard. A mid-nineties re-issue was a very rare rack-mount version with MIDI and external audio in.

Much of the instruments emphasis is on it's filter which also is a Formant filter as well as Parallel Bandpass filters. Visser's company started by making and selling Vocoders and he was interested in implementing a Formant Filter into the Syrinx.

The Syrinx uses seven Curtis chips for its VCO's, VCF's and envelopes. It has two analog VCO's, a sub-oscillator, Noise Generator and three flexible voltage-controlled filters. You can switch between the three filters for either a 24 dB lowpass, or two bandpass filters, and they can be patched in four different ways (series/parallel). Additionally the Syrinx has two LFO's, FM, PWM, osc-sync, 2 ADSR envelopes, ring modulation, portamento and a cool touch-pad that can control various parameters from pitch-bending to the LFO rate. The Syrinx's Mixer section lets you adjust levels for each VCO and the sub-osc as well as the Noise Generator and Ring Modulator. Unfortunately, being released around 1983, the Syrinx just missed out on MIDI and patch memory options.