Synth Waves is our new column about synthesizers, sound design and the people who make electronic music. Each edition looks at what's new in the synth world and what it means for producers.
October usually brings a wave of synth announcements ahead of the holiday season, and this year is no different. In the first two weeks of the month, a tube-driven Eurorack voice, an analog formant synth built in a limited run and a hardware instrument that sings in syllables all appeared. Taken together, they show a clear trend: synth makers are moving past the "more oscillators, more knobs" race and focusing on character, voice and expression.
Here are the five releases we've been listening to and what each one says about where sound design is going.
Tubes in the rack: Erica Synths Das Kleine Fusion
Erica Synths has built a reputation on mixing vintage circuitry with modern modular thinking. Its new Das Kleine Fusion goes further: it's a complete Eurorack synth voice built around vacuum tubes, so you don't need a wall of separate modules. Noizefield reports that it's priced at €1,800 and available now through Erica dealers. That puts it firmly in the premium tier.
Why does it matter? Tubes add the harmonic saturation and slight unpredictability that plugins spend a lot of CPU trying to imitate. A voice-in-a-module also helps producers who want an analog sound without first learning to patch a full system.
The voice as an instrument: AnalogFX LARYNX and Olydian VC-01
Two of this month's most interesting announcements are about the human voice.
The Dutch maker AnalogFX launched LARYNX, an expressive analog formant synthesizer. It openly pays tribute to the rare Synton Syrinx of 1982, a monosynth from another Dutch company. According to proaudio.de, the first production run is limited to 50 units at around €1,249. It combines formant synthesis with modern expressive control and Eurorack integration.
At the more experimental end, Olydian Musical Instruments showed the VC-01 Voicecrafter, a six-voice vocal synth that can play and sequence 380 syllables, so the machine can actually speak or sing. Synth News notes that it pairs formant synthesis with consonant-vowel samples, has a three-octave mechanical keyboard and a long-step sequencer. Price and release date are still unannounced, and pre-orders are planned for next year.
Both instruments point the same way. AI vocal tools are everywhere, but some musicians want a voice they can play with their hands, in real time, and shape note by note.
Polyphony goes modular: Hampshire Janus and Apollo
Eurorack has traditionally been a monophonic world: one patch, one voice. UK maker Hampshire Electronics, already known for its eight-voice analog Vulcan module, is pushing polyphony further with two digital voices. Synth News details the 10 HP Janus (£219 for the first 25 units, then £239) and the 19 HP Apollo with MIDI (£329, then £349). Each has two independent eight-voice engines, twelve synthesis types, a chord engine, an arpeggiator and stereo effects.
For modular players this is a real change. Chords, pads and full harmonic parts no longer need a separate keyboard synth alongside the rack.
Hybrid power on the desktop: UDO DMNO ON
UDO Audio's DMNO ON brings the DMNO synth to a desktop format. It has two complete hybrid engines with FPGA-powered digital oscillators feeding analog filters, 8-voice polyphony and two-part multitimbrality. Synthtopia reports that its Play Modes go well beyond splits and layers into Random, Chaos and Cascade configurations. It also has CV/Gate, a USB audio interface and optional ONM control modules. It's expected soon at $2,850.
Hybrid designs like this are now arguably the sweet spot: the stability and precision of digital oscillators with the warmth of an analog filter path.
What this means for producers
Three takeaways from this month's releases:
- Character beats specs. Tubes, formants and analog filters are back as selling points. Producers want sounds that feel alive, not just clean.
- The voice is the new frontier. From LARYNX to the VC-01, makers are treating vocal synthesis as a playable instrument and not as a post-production effect.
- Modular is growing up. Polyphonic voices like Janus and Apollo turn the rack into a complete instrument and not just a lab for experiments.
At Xdripia Waves we see the same pattern across genres, from techno to synthwave. The tools are becoming more expressive, and the most interesting music comes from artists who treat technology as a creative partner. Sometimes that means a vacuum tube, sometimes an FPGA, sometimes AI.
Coming up in Synth Waves
In the next editions we'll dig into sound design techniques, firmware updates worth installing and the albums pushing synth music forward. Got a synth, a patch or a release you think we should cover? Tell us at @xdripiawaves.