Polyend Synth Multi-Engine Polyphonic Synthesizer - Used

Polyend’s no-frills, no-effort-spared approach to designing and building its galvanizing multimode instruments is evidenced by the names of the company’s offerings. Synth is no exception.

Like the permutations of Tracker and Play before it, Synth — a multi-engine polyphonic synthesizer — is packed with a kaleidoscope of creative capabilities, stirring and teeming with electric fervor, just beneath the surface of its streamlined, minimalist interface. Synth blends a slew of synthesis styles, compositional tools, electrifying effects, and rhythmic capabilities into a highly customizable multi-instrumental machine, deploying eight synth engines across a 3-lane architecture, allowing you to control up to three synth engines simultaneously across an 8-voice polyphony.

With Synth, Polyend’s value proposition is rooted in the idea of limitation. The access modern technology affords to virtually every sound under the sun is great, but this often comes at the cost of focus. So, Polyend masterfully constructed Synth to thread the needle between a vast array of synth engines, effects, and tools, and a set of carefully concocted guardrails that emerge through its physical interfacing and virtual boundaries. You’ll never feel limited, but the limitations will always propel you forward, and its eight synth-engine styles form a flexible, voltaic foundation, from analog-inspired warmth and cutting-edge modeling to ferocious FM and morphing texturization.

• PHZ: Polyend’s multimode take on phase-distortion synthesis, teeming with tones and textures that span retro and modern modes; classic and cutting-edge sounds abound.
• PMD: Using state-of-the-art physical modeling technologies, this engine painstakingly simulates a variety of real-life instruments and sounds with inventive avenues of all-new sonic sculpting.
• GRAIN: This is your dual-mode granular synthesis engine. Its Burst and Cloud modes supply a formidable array of lush ambience, dynamic layering, and rhythmic textures.
• WAVS: “Morphing” is the key word to this engine, thanks to its multiple wavetables, alongside extensive scanning and phase-shifting capabilities, open a world of evocative, evolving spaces.
• VAP: This polysynth uses a dual-oscillator architecture that’s inspired by a multitude of time-tested hardware synths, perfect for rich, layered pads with plenty of dimension.
• FAT: A constellation of vintage-style ladder filters and three oscillators, teeming with expression and dynamism, letting you sculpt and contour thundering basses, ripping leads, and more.
• ACD: This ode to the iconic monosynths of yore gives you the roaring power of vintage monophonic synthesizers but with a suite of cutting-edge customization tools.
• WTFM: An FM synthesis engine that distinguishes its sonic palette by using a garrison of wavetable-based oscillators, eliciting complex timbres and textures

Synth’s galvanizing eight-piece array of synth engines provides a pliable, robust bedrock of near-endless sound design, innovation, and overall creativity. Still, Polyend’s commitment to spurring and inspiring artistry doesn’t end there. A triad of effects styles provides three lanes of customizable texturization tools, arming you with next-level possibilities to explore with every engine combination that Synth supports, including engine-specific effects, even when using more than one engine at a time. Additionally, each engine accommodates up to two LFOs — or six per scene — and 14 filters that span Low-pass, High-pass, Bandpass, and Notch varieties.

• MOD: This effects engine is your comprehensive source of all things modulation across choruses, flangers, and stereo-spanning envelopes, from mild to wild and beyond.
• DEL: Take on time with a pentacle of dual-delay models; these five distinct models of delay feature expansive sync capabilities and ferocious complexity to form time-bending madness.
• REV: This is your reverb suite. Its three modes — natural, plate, and warp — form a tripartite foundation of subtle spatialization and intergalactic expression, from quaint to cavernous.

Though Synth is a bona fide brawler of a synthesizer instrument unto itself, Polyend has endowed it with a comprehensive suite of track-building tools by way of its polyphonic 64-step sequencers and arpeggiators. Yes, plural (and polyphonic): each engine has its own polyphonic step-sequencer and polyphonic arpeggiator, each with extensive swing, groove, transposition, scale, chord, and timing controls, arming you with the ability to summon transformative, multidimensional progressions. What’s more, with Synth’s Scenes tool, entire arrangements and configurations can be stored and recalled in an instant, saving you the hassle of starting from scratch every time inspiration strikes.