Synton • Syrinx
The Syrinx 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.
The Syrinx uses seven Curtis chips for its VCO's, VCF's and envelopes. It has two analog VCO's, a sub-oscillator and three flexible VCF 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.
They came in a variety of flavors over the years. Most were black, but a handful were blue, red, or white. Some later models had no keyboard and were mounted in a flight-case, and a mid-nineties re-issue was a very rare rack-mount version with MIDI and external audio in. The Syrinx has been used by Aphex Twin, Xpando, Air, Vince Clarke, Depeche Mode, and Electronic Dream Plant.
