I missed this when it dropped earlier this month — Synthtopia was there! But now is a perfect time to chill out to the smoothly gliding sounds of this original Trautonium-inspired synthesizer design in progress. Flexur can cool down an overheated Europe.
Flexur is not for the impatient or the cash-strapped — the preorder was $1,399.00 and sold out. (It’s unclear whether there will be another of those; final price is listed as $1,599.00.) Shipping will take 6-24 months. Then again, I think that’s the price of a 16GB memory stick these days, and this is a lot more fun. (See also some other inspiration below, in case Flexur isn’t your cup of NIME tea.)
Specs:
- 450×280×70mm
- Two Floating Touch bars, 15mm semitone pitch, 23 semitones
- Streamlined knob per function subtractive synth with interface optimized for expressive play
- Preset, autotune, and mono/poly/arp settings
- 6×12 mod matrix with two routing pathways and dedicated intensity sliders
- USB C connector for power and firmware updates
- Generous IO to control analog and digital synths: Audio in/out, TRS MIDI in/out, USB C MIDI out, 2x expression/gate in, 4x CV out (pitch, gate, envelope, force). Full sized balanced instrument cable jack for conveniently plugging into mixers, guitar pedals, and amps.
Most importantly, they managed four functional prototypes and have been testing those, with these beautiful results we can all enjoy for free.
What’s a Trautonium? It’s well-known to fans of early electronic proto-instruments; the creation of Trautwein and Oscar Sala, recreated by Jürgen Hiller of Trautoniks. Hainbach takes a look with LudoWic:
You’re welcome.
More:
Digging the prototype style:
They’ve got some other ideas, including a bumpy LinnStrument.
And other design projects:
Basically, if you want something bumpy, lumpy, or slide-y and bendy, you’ve found your people.