Analogue Synthesizer
Analogue Solutions make a bid for your cash with a
retro-styled synth offering big, fat Moog-style sounds and a built-in
sequencer. Could this be their best synth yet?
Analogue Solutions
have been quietly beavering away for many years on a diverse brood of
analogue synths, sequencers and the Concussor range of modules, many
bearing Russian names such as Vostok or Tereshkova. In this outing,
Germany provides the nominal inspiration for the Leipzig S,
a rackmounted, monophonic synthesizer incorporating MIDI and a step
sequencer (hence the S). For those who’d prefer a keyboard-based model,
there’s the Leipzig K, which forgoes the sequencer but adds CV and Gate
operation, plus lots and lots of wood.
Back To Black
Picking
up the Leipzig S (which I’ll refer to as simply Leipzig from now on),
I found it to be heavy metal — but without a leather jacket or shades.
Its knobs are impressively large and well-spaced, the exception being
a row reserved for the sequencer, which are of a different style and
more closely packed together. Close scrutiny reveals four tiny switches
nestling against some of the knobs, and a little breathing room wouldn’t
have gone amiss there, but they worked fine without causing undue knob
fluctuations.
The rack ears aren’t detachable,
but if you do prefer desktop operation, there are four sturdy feet that
place the Leipzig at a workable angle. Following the recent trend of
Dave Smith Instruments and Moog, all the panel text is printed onto an
overlay. This one alerts you of its presence by ending somewhat short of
the instrument’s full width. And while the front panel is secured by
three screws at either side, none are apparent along its length. This
makes the middle slightly flappy, but when the synth is in a rack, that
shouldn’t be an issue.
More praiseworthy are
the recessed sockets that ensure precious rack space is not taken up by
MIDI, audio and power connections. Supporting the MIDI In socket is the
oft-forgotten Thru and a socket for the external power supply. This
leaves just three quarter-inch jack sockets: the main audio output and
two external inputs — about which more later.
It’s Alive!
The
front panel features clearly demarcated sections and widely-spaced
knobs. The very bottom section is given over entirely to the sequencer.
Attach the power adaptor and the Leipzig springs into
life. Several red LEDs shine through the overlay, informing you about
LFO speed, envelope triggering and so on, while a row in amber marks the
progression of the analogue sequencer. The LEDs are at their most
visible when viewed square on, being quite deeply set.
For
instant gratification, you can start sequencing right away without
a keyboard connected. With a spin of the multi-position switch in the
bottom left-hand corner, select LFO sync. Then, assuming both envelopes
are enabled for sequencer control (by the switch in the top right-hand
corner), a hot and potentially manic eight-step sequence will gush
forth. Quickly grabbing the main volume control, I wondered if this
could be the first synth that registers on the Richter Scale; certainly
the seismic activity in my studio was as applicable to demolition as it
was to the music industry!
The Leipzig is
a two-oscillator analogue design with an easy-to-follow layout and
circuitry that is unashamedly Moog-inspired. Each VCO has independent
glide and a choice of sawtooth or square waves. Unusually, these waves
are balanced by a single knob, of a type seen on classics such as
Oberheim’s SEM (Synthesizer Expander Module). The main plus point of
this is that a large number of options can fit comfortably into a modest
panel footprint. So you turn a knob clockwise to introduce the square
wave, anti-clockwise to fade up the sawtooth. In the centre position
(marked by a gentle notch), there is no output — or almost none. On the
review model, there was a small amount of low level bleed-through from
VCO2.
The master tune control offers
approximately an octave of transposition up or down and VCO2 can be
separated from the first by only about an octave. (The Leipzig’s vintage
behaviour stirred further memories when I realised that the second
oscillator wasn’t tracking the keyboard too accurately in its higher
registers.) There is a way to accomplish greater shifts than an octave,
but as it requires the use of the sequencer, I’ll come to it later.
Contributing
to the Leipzig’s considerable audio presence are two square-wave
sub-oscillators pitched an octave below the main VCOs. They, too, are
introduced by a dual-purpose knob, meaning that only one may be heard at
once, but this isn’t a limitation. Even one Leipzig sub-oscillator is
dangerously close to overkill; two would probably summon angry squadrons
of EU Health and Safety inspectors from their lairs.
Continuing
with the dual-pot theme, both oscillators adopt them for pulse-width
modulation. A turn to the left, and VCO pulse-width gets the LFO
treatment; to the right, and it is swept by envelope 2. The oscillators
are similar in functionality but not identical; only VCO1 has a variable
pulse width, while VCO2 has oscillator sync and a switch that detaches
it from MIDI control — handy when the oscillator is moonlighting as
a modulation source. The sync implementation is a blast! It includes
a choice of three different sources for VCO2 to latch onto. For
a familiar sync experience, you’d select the first of these, VCO1, but
when exploring Leipzig’s modulation possibilities, a useful alternative
is to sync to the LFO instead. Finally, there’s the rare option of
sync’ing to any signal connected to the EXT1 jack. A natural source to
try would be an oscillator from a modular synth, but anything is fair
game!
The
Leipzig S’s recessed back panel includes quarter-inch sockets for two
external inputs and audio output, an input for the external power supply
and MIDI In and Out ports.
Modulation centres on a three-way bus dedicated to
frequency; specifically, the pitch of both VCOs and the filter’s cutoff.
In each case, there are a choice of sources and a single amount knob.
The LFO’s two waveforms (triangle and square) are available to every
destination, with other sources chosen to provide the best range of
effects. Thus VCO1’s pitch is modulated by envelope 1 or by VCO2’s
square wave output, the resulting FM packing oodles of grizzly
harmonics. VCO2’s sources are slightly different — the second envelope
or a MIDI controller of your choice. By combining oscillator sync with
envelope modulation, you can serve up familiar Rogue-style sweeps with
just a tiny amount of modulation. At higher depth settings, the sync’ed
oscillator is pushed into a range I can only describe as ‘waywardly
eccentric’.
The filter’s additional modulators
are either a chosen MIDI controller or the square-wave output of VCO1.
Admittedly, the Leipzig’s filter FM doesn’t sizzle like, for example,
a Prophet, but it still snarls in your ear like an angry terrier when
roused.
Speaking of the filter, I found it
a strange beast. On the one hand, it’s a big, fat Moog filter for big,
fat basses. On the other, someone castrated the resonance knob! For the
majority of its travel, the knob does nothing, zilch. Then, just as you
think it’s dead, a whistle breaks out. There’s a very small amount of
travel prior to self-oscillation that offers a hint of what
a fully-functional resonance would have been like. Believing this to be
a fault on the review model, I contacted Analogue Solutions, only to be
told that this was indeed how all Leipzigs are shipped (!). This is
a shame, because there’s a hefty bottom here that could benefit from
traditional Moogy resonance. At least AS did promise to revisit the
design at some point in the future for customers not technical enough to
address it themselves. The filter also offers keyboard tracking and
another dual pot selecting which envelope should be the filter shaper —
top idea! The envelopes are both snappy ADSR types, with a switch to
determine whether they are triggered by MIDI notes or by the sequencer.
We’ve
now reached the synth’s output stage, where the only thing left to
report is that the VCA, too, has multiple options. Thanks to another
switch, either ADSR can drive the output, and there’s a simple gated
envelope (on/off) and a ‘Thru’ option, where all audio is allowed to
pass unhindered. When all you want is to squish an external signal with
the filter, you’ll appreciate Thru!
Which
reminds me: I should mention one last dual pot, in the mixer section.
This one either sets the level of the incoming audio signal (connected
to EXT2) or of the white-noise source, but flip a switch and noise is
replaced in the mix by the output of the sequencer. If this sounds like
an odd thing to do (sequencers are usually thought of as CV sources),
read on...
Sequencer
The
eight-step sequencer is fun, if a mite idiosyncratic. As it’s
thoroughly analogue and unquantised, you need to tune each step
manually, by stepping through them with a button, adjusting each in
turn. Years of conditioning has us associating conventional tuning with
synthesis, but if you yearn to break free, an analogue sequencer is an
ideal escape route. Old-style sequencing is a primal but wholesome
pleasure and even if eight isn’t a huge number of steps, it’s enough
when you’re tuning them manually. To help you extract more from your
sequences, they can be transposed by a MIDI keyboard.
Three
destination pots at the Leipzig’s lower right-hand side mirror the
destinations of the modulation bus; they set the amount by which the
sequencer drives the oscillator pitch and filter cutoff. Using the
sequencer alongside existing modulation is a means of breeding sequences
no mouse would click into life, and by setting only one of the
oscillators to be modulated by the sequencer, you can push them further
apart than one octave.
Frustratingly, the
review model’s eighth sequencer knob was faulty, the result of one too
many trips through the post, perhaps. This hampered my sequencing,
because the busted knob had a far smaller tuning range than the others.
The Reset switch came to the rescue, with its ability to kick the
sequence back to the start after incoming notes with a velocity
exceeding 80. When harvesting loops later, for my own nefarious
purposes, this was an essential tool.
In common
with Analogue Solutions’ Europa sequencer, every practical sync option
is provided, the most obvious being the one we tried earlier, where the
LFO is the clock source. For the more experimentally minded, the
sequencer can be clocked at audio speeds by selecting VCO2 as the
source. The waveform is then ‘shaped’ by adjusting each sequencer step,
a simple act that brought back fond memories of my ARP sequencers.
Yet
more clock sources remain to be explored; a good one is ‘MIDI key’,
where the sequencer advances a step for every note received. Restrict
the sequencer’s control to the filter only and you have an easy hands-on
way to add funky cutoff changes to a solo or bass part. For a variation
on this, switch to ‘Accent’, where sequences are only stepped by high
velocity notes. Finally, you can sync to an external clock connected to
the EXT1 socket or to movements of an auxiliary controller.
Conclusion
Despite
a glitch or two in the quality-control department, I really enjoyed
playing and sequencing the Leipzig. Sonically, it reminded me of a Moog
Rogue — but a Rogue force-fed on burgers and lard before being squeezed
into a rack. I was amazed to find resonance implemented as it was, but
if resonant subtleties aren’t a priority, the Leipzig has a lot to
offer, such as versatile switching, snappy envelopes, devilish
oscillator sync and enough bass to build pyramids on.
There’s
more. A step sequencer is always worth having, and even if this one
looks slightly like an afterthought, it opens up avenues that
sequencer-challenged synths can only dream of. Ultimately, the Leipzig
is a powerful analogue synth module that’s reasonably priced compared to
ageing Moog Rogues and Prodigies. It’s quite possibly Analogue
Solutions’ best synth to date!
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