Enough with the blah, blah, blah – here’s a video that features 20 patches that explore the range of the Novation Peak synthesizer.
The sounds are a mix of patches created completely from scratch and patches that are heavily tweaked versions of the presets. Only the Peak’s internal effects were used.
Check it out and let us know what you think of the sound of the Novation Peak!
Beauty! But then, Novation has had it nailed for years. I had a running joke with a pal about him leaving me his Nova in his will. The Peak is like a Nova turned sideways and enhanced with More. I’m happy to see it appearing in quite a few rigs, because it strikes me as a keeper you plumb for years. I like realizing that a synth grabs me so much, I start reaching for controls on instinct. The price point on this one is also a serious draw. Thanks for the proper demo where we get to *hear* varied things clearly.
i´m not interested. the lack of multitmbrality is a deal breaker for me. my 4-part multitimbral virus snow was cheaper and sounds better imo.
Pointless post….
As usual…
Really nice tones and demo, love what Novation is doing these days !
I purchased the peak last year, whilst owning a nova and bass station 2 I thought it may just edge on these but with more polyphony, and initially had hesitation purchasing but I’m glad I did, it’s a beautiful instrument that expands on those and does so much more
The Peak is an impressive synth. I hope they consider a keyboard version, and of course greater polyphony would be great.
Imagine two of these synth engines in a keyboard where you could do splits or layering!
Don’t really hear anything I couldn’t cover with the boat load of soft synths here .. but having all those knobs is cool. If someone gave me one I’d certainly find a use for it.
If you prefer soft synths, why the need to check out hardware demos and then try to justify your preference?
The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.
Kind of like a SQ80 with a better form factor and control but lack of multitimbrality is a big minus/oversight.
Completely different technologies, completely different form factors, completely different capabilities…
But, yeah, they’re both nice synths and both underrated.
Well the hybrid digital oscillator + analog filter architecture has a nice history that Ensoniq is certainly part of.
Nice to see modern hybrid synths like this one (Peak) as well as the Prophet ’12, Deepmind, etc..
But the Ensoniq synths had keyboards and polyphonic aftertouch!! I’d like to see that come back too.
(And as nice as OLED is I still miss the beautiful vacuum fluorescent displays.)
Would be great to hear sounds with evolving wave-tables – have Novation sorted user wave-tables yet? This thing should be like a Waldorf Blofeld with analogue filters (or the ultra-rare Waldorf Q+). Love the FPGA technology which allows for FM & distortion without aliasing.
Agreed – music synthesis really is a killer app for FPGAs. I think the distortion effect may be analog though.
Just checked Novation’s website: the Peak still only has 17 wave tables – that seems really limiting, compared to the Blofeld’s 100-odd + user wave-tables. This feels like a missed opportunity.
I wouldn’t care too much about multitimbrality, though.
That’s something you can do quite easily in an update, if they ever want it.
It’s not those features you can’t change because that’s hardware
This is not exact when applied specifically to an analog or part analog synth. the analog voltage necessary to “set” a voice parameter is generally shared by all the voices, except for the pitch and some “variable per note” parameters. So is perfectly possible that there are not enough voltage sources avaiable to set differently all the eight voices (in this specific case). The digital part can be able to manage and output data for tons of paramenters but there is a moment when you have to convert that digital data to analog voltage to control the analog part of the synth.
Hadn’t really looked at this before, but it sounds great!
G.A.S. not agreeing with my financial diet, unfortunately.