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Dave Smith Instruments Poly Evolver

The Poly Evolver Keyboard is the king of the Evolver line of performance synthesizers.

It is a four-voice synthesizer with a 5-octave keyboard, pitch and mod wheels, and a ton of knobs and switches in a clean, clear layout.

According to Keyboard Magazine’s review of the Polyphonic Evolvoer:

“Skeptics who insist that it’s too expensive just need to get an earful. It’s like a mint Prophet-5 plus a PPG Wave in a single reliable box that easily tucks under your arm and lights up like a night out on Coruscant.

The PEK is a player’s axe whose layout programmers will flip for. Whichever you are, this is nothing less than a future classic and a major event in synth design.”

Features

• Each voice is a complete Evolver with four oscillators per voice, two analog and two digital.
• True stereo signal path with separate Curtis analog low-pass filters in each channel for each voice. Each voice has its own independent effects (feedback, delay, distortion, high-pass filter, etc.).
• Highly accessible sound control for easy, intuitive operation: 78 knobs and 59 switches.
• Clocked, pulsing blue LEDs and hardwood end-panels.
• Each voice has an independent 16 x 4 step sequencer. Everything (sequencer, LFOs, and delay) syncs perfectly to MIDI.
• In Program mode, all four voices play the same sound. In Combo mode, voices can be allocated however desired: stack all 4 for a huge unison sound, split or layer the keyboard in any configuration, and/or play one or all sequences at the same time. Each voice can respond to a different MIDI channel.
• Multiple Poly Evolvers can be daisy-chained for increased polyphony. “Poly Chain” mode (with dedicated MIDI output) handles voice assignment overflow for effortless expansion.
• Each voice has its own stereo output in addition to the mix and headphones outputs.
• Stereo audio input that can be routed to any or all of the voices, enabling parallel audio processing of external stereo or mono signals. The output of one voice can be routed to the input of another for interesting double-processing effects.

Resources:

• Polyphonic Evolver page at Dave Smith Instruments
• Keyboard Magazine review
• Retrosound’s Prophet 600 page