Elka Synthex, from Wikimedia Commons
A polyphonic analog synthesizer made by the Italian company Elka, and produced from 1982 to 1985. It is often considered the finest product of the Italian synth industry. The Synthex resembles the Prophet-5 in terms general capabilities, but adds a number of features which were innovative for the time. Italian synth designer Mario Maggi did the original design work on the Synthex independently, and then took the synth to Elka for manufacture. The Synthex was the first proper synth manufactured by Elka, which was noted for its electric organs and accordians (they had introduced the Rhapsody string synth the previous year).
History[]
The Synthex grew out of the MCS 70, a monophonic synth that Maggi designed during the mid-1970s. Maggi, who built custom synth designs for performers in Italy, had hit on the idea of using digital logic and memory to store and recall patches around 1974, and the MCS 70 was the result of that. The MCS 70 was ready to exhibit by 1977, and Maggi had established a company and planned to put the synth into production. But at an industry show in Paris in 1978, he learned of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5. He decided at that point that polyphonic synths were the future, and he set about designing a polyphonic synth based on the MCS 70 design.
Maggi completed the prototype Synthex in 1981, but at that point, he relalized that he needed corporate backing in order to manufacture it. He went to all of the Italian synth makers that existed at the time, including Crumar and GEM, but they all turned him down. He was ready to give up when a friend mentioned to him that he was taking an organ to the Elka factory for servicing, and why didn't Maggi ride along and bring the Synthex with him, just to show it off? As it happened, an Elka executive was at the factory that day and saw Maggi demonstrate the Synthex. The exective knew that Elka was concerned about declining sales of their electric pianos and organs, which were there bread-and-butter products. Manufacturing synthesizers seemed like a way forward for Elka, and Maggio arrived at exactly the right time. Elka licensed the Synthex and put it into production within a few months.
Voice Architecture[]
The Synthex is an 8-voice synth with two oscillators per voice. Each voice also has a notable 4-pole multimode filter, a VCA, and two ADSR envelopes (one dedicated to the VCA and the other to the VCF). The synth had two low frequency oscillators, one with selectable waveforms and one outputting a triangle wave only. Routing for the LFOs was quite flexible. The oscillators were DCOs rather than VCOs; the Synthex was one of the first synths to use DCOs. They featured both soft and hard sync, and could also cross modulate each other. The VCF was implemented with the CEM 3320, and the Synthex was one of the few synths to take advantage of the multimode capabilities of that chip.
The Synthex is bitimbral (making it one of the first multitimbral synths), and has split keyboard capability. In the bitimbral mode, the synth is divided into two timbres each using 4 voices, and the two timbres could be layered, or each assigned to one half or the other of the split keyboard. There was also a (monotimbral) "double" mode, in which two voices were assigned to each key played, in effect stacking 4 oscillators per voice. An onboard chorus circuit with three settings was available to further thicken the sound. The Synthex is one of the first synths to include an onboard effect.
Pitch and mod wheels are replaced by a joystick, which can be configured to route LFO signals to several destinations, and can be set to effect only the upper or lower half of the keyboard or both. All of the routing controls for LFO 2 are in the form of sliders adjacent to the joystick; using the sliders, the joystick can control how much of LFO 2 is routed to various destinations. The joystick is located at the lower left of the main panel; the convention location for performance controls at the left of the keyboard is taken up by the onboard sequencer, a very advanced design for its day. It had four separate tracks (which could be set to different lenghts). It supported real-time and step-entry editing. An early software revision allowed each track to be assigned individually to one of the two timbres in one of the bitimbral modes. Jacks on the rear panel allowed the sequencer to output its clock to synchronize other devices, or to be synchronized to an external clock.
Digital Circuits and Controls[]
80 patch memory locations were provided, plus a cassette interface which could be used to save both the patches and seqeuncer data. MIDI was not originally provided, being that the synth was introduced before the MIDI standard had been published. After the first 200 or so units, an opening labeled "computer interface" appeared on the rear panel;this allowed retrofit of circuitry that provided a digital interface to the synth's internals. A device known as the "MIDI breakout box" eventually became available which connected to the computer interface and provided a rudimentary MIDI capability (only note, pitch wheel, and mod wheel messages were supported). Later on, the "computer interface" circuitry became standard. Late in the production run, the MIDI breakout box circuitry was built into the synth, taking the place of the "computer interface" D-connector. Other than the MIDI breakout box, no devices or software were ever made available for the computer interface.
An external input was provided for clocking the sequencer. A switch on the rear panel selected between internal and external clocking. When an external clock was used, the rate knob in the sequencer controls could be used to select multiples or divisions of the external clock: the sequencer could, for example, run at 1/2 or 1/4 of the clock rate, or 2x or 4x of the clock rate. The sequence playing back could also be transposed using the keyboard.
Production and Sales[]
The Synthex, with its distinctive banks of white pushbuttons on a black panel, was manufactured from 1982 to 1986. There was market resistance early on to a high-end synth from an Italian manufacturer, and many performers did not discover the synth until after Elka discontinued production. Elka's lack of expertise in marketing synthesizers did not help; Elka eventually hired Paul Wiffen as a product demonstrator, and Wiffen undertook guerilla marketing efforts to try to compensate for Elka's marketing shortcomings.
Most sources estimate Synthex production at about 1000 units. A few units were produced with 120V power supplies for the North American market; these have serial numbers starting with #700; other units have serial numbers starting with #800. Some sources have it that the first 50 or so units came out of the factory with no serial numbers.
The Synthex, with a number of features that were advanced for its time, caught the interest of quite a few well-known performers. Among them was Stevie Wonder, for whom Elka built a one-off unit in 1988 (shortly before the company was absorbed into Generamusic) using spares on hand. Other notable users include Jean-Michel Jarre, who used a Synthex as the sound source for his noted laser harp sound on his Rendez-Vous album, and Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes. They are very rare and highly valued on the collector market today. Keeping one running may be a challenge due to the sheer number of parts used, but most of the parts are stil available.