Modal Electronics Element One synthesiser

General

Synths are fun, mighty pretty, as a sound designer you feel some power when you know every corner. But of course, we have to consider the starters here, because there are some. So what kind of synth should we offer to a starter.... Because mind you: that starter is obviously not fallen on his head, and really knows that a synth has to sound good, and therefore should not be junk. Let's consider the Modal Electronics Element One. This is a synth that has a huge amount of features under the hood. But on the outside, it is surprisingly conservative. No hundreds of controls, not a huge number of interface sections. However, as soon as the beginner's penny drops, there are more than enough possibilities to continue the sound-design adventure, because the Element One is that extensive.

Features of the Modal Electronics Element One

The beginner will first enjoy himself extensively with the 300 factory sounds. After that, the itch will start itching, because what can you do with that synth engine yourself! A lot! The polyphony is eight, with up to eight virtual oscillators per voice. There is no mere sawtooth and square wave - after all, you soon get tired of those. There are dozens of algorithms, including all sorts of ring modulation, sync, pwm and more. You also get 31 types of filters, including many pole variations. Most people would be more than happy with about five filters; so here are 31! Furthermore, many modulation options, a nice arpeggiator, and even three effect engines.

Further possibilities

The keyboard is not too big with 37 keys, but that makes it nice and portable. And you might want to use it as a lead synth in a band, so a keyboard doesn't have to be that big. A very nice advantage of this keyboard is that aftertouch is supported, which gives a kind of hands-free controlling. If you want more of the environment of a computer, you can use the free MODALapp, which lets you sound-design nicely with, for instance, a tablet screen. All in all, a very potent synth, especially for this investment, which can certainly do something for starters too!