Indeed. After the Anyma Omega fail, I turned my attention to the Steampipe, but the Echon 6 seems to be yet another beast: analog, 6 voices and, importantly, 6 part multitmbral! With a stereo output for each voice, it could even become a luxurious drum machine.
Given no keybed on either, it would be good to consider the sorts of control one might place upon either. Both for live and preset sequence.
The Echon 6 has polyphonic aftertouch, the Steampipe has MPE.
ADDED : The Echon 6 also has velocity, mod-wheel, and key follow ( as externals ) for sources in their mod-matrix.
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I really like the sound of this & massive kudos to them for creating something different to everyone else.
My only misgiving is whilst it sounds fantastic, it definitely has a āsoundā - nothing wrong with that, but all the demos are almost a little samey: I worry if itās possible to get a wide range of sounds from it, or if by design it has a kind of limited palette, possibly more limited than with other types of synthesis ?
Or perhaps Iāve just not heard enough demo material yetā¦?
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It also has an external input that you can either use straight as an Exciter, or mixed internally with the internal waves in the Echon 6 Exciter.
Iād expect it to have a āsoundā. That just goes with a synth with a defined architecture. Though i hear a very interesting open ended breadth in the stuff iāve listened too.
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^
yeah, I get all that.
Itās just that Iāve not heard really what you could describe as a marked departure from that āsoundā on any of the demosā¦I mean, compared to say a more usual-architecture analogue subtractive synth, from say Sequential, Moog, Oberheim etc. All the synths produced by those brands also have a āsoundā but you hear a wide breadth of tonal & timbral outcomes from those instruments - the Echon 6, not so much IMHO.
Itās not for you then.
I really enjoy the Soundcloud demos on their website.
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christ. my original post was a question. Just wondered if anyone else felt the same, or had heard any demos where it sounded significantly different.
sorry - Iāll leave this thread now, after being thoroughly chastised by a Man Of The Internet.
fucking hell.
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I really like the sound ā¦ i think i may have found an affordable way in.
The heart of Echon 6 also from Morphor is their Plectrum, a Karplus Strong Eurorack module. That is only one voice of the six, and you have to supply all the various parts around it ( in Eurorack ) that can selectively and repeatably feed the various connections to it, but you can approach the Echon 6 sound, And the Plectrum can be found for less than $200 USD a piece ! Another plus, itās a fairly compact module, with quite a few connections.
This approach does require some experimentation, but so does the Echon 6. I need to think about how to predictably connect to it for the sound generation, and to be able to quickly change āpatchesā.
Hereās a video demonstration of the Plectrum module from Amanda at Catsynth TV. ( Queued, but you can go back and listen to the explanation part earlier ).
Iāve listened to some other Karplus Strong modules, but the Morphor all analog approach with the BBDs seems to add something to the sound.
I like being a modern MOTI.
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GASing again for this thing
(thatās a new demo)
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It might be the first time I listen to an entire preset demo, my mutable instruments clones are looking at me like āwe got a resonator at homeā.
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There are probably nice alternatives in the modular world (which Iām foreign to anyway) but I like the package of the Echon: 6 part multitimbral, you could almost make full songs on it without needing anything else.
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Morphor is at Superbooth as well.
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i wish that this was just slightly more affordable. i wonder if theres a chance of that maybe if they sell more units after superbooth. i finally see people talking about it after pretty much complete silence after the initial debut
i think its the best sounding synth ive heard and i love the architecture, modulation options, exciter/resonator implementation, and signal flow. and the look of it
imagine running this thing through the Vongon Rosetones. might be redundant, but i bet it would be awesome
Also
and
(Iām devouring videos about this synthā¦)
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I get the cristicism expressed here about the supposed samy-ness of the sound.
If I bite the bullet and pay so much for this synth, I would rather have a versatile instrument.
Hard to tell before having one in front of you AND spending a proper amount of time with it, though.
But it looks like a bottomless modulation maze, so in any case I guess I would hardly find it boring.
Such a lovely sounding synthesizer, really dig the sound and āsonic signatureā of it, reminds a bit physical modelling but with a different flavour
Of course itās not a workhorse, probably it will end up in hands of collectors and sound designers, but really cool to see such an innovative approach, would b super to have it as plugin
Ended up going for one. Really stoked.
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Please share your experience with it once you get it 
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Echon 6 finally arrived yesterday and I had some time last night and this morning to put a couple of hours into it. Iād be happy to compare it to Steampipe as well. Iāll make a separate post for that.
First impressions are positive. The build quality is top notch. The body has a good weight to it and the knobs and buttons all feel high quality. Love that it comes with a full printed manual and 19" rack ears.
The resonator is a little more difficult to tame than I thought it would be. Thatās not necessarily a bad thing, but it is very easy to go from subtle to wild self oscillation. Taking this into consideration, the presets are very impressive. The resonator definitely has a sound as folks have noticed in the demos. Since the resonator is analog BBDs, that makes sense. This is made up for with the exciter and the modulation capabilities. I love this sound, so itās not an issue for me, but it should be noted.
The exciter is very interesting, itās a basic analog poly synth in its own right. The waveforms are pretty basic, but they sound decent, especially through the input filter. I appreciate that the input filter is pre-wet/dry before the resonator. Itās easy enough to just make standard subtractive patches if one desires. The sample and hold circuit for the white noise is very useful. I also appreciate the various envelope options. There are three settings for max envelope length, which helps if you want to subtly tweak a plucked sound for example. The onset delay control is also great, especially for multitimbral patches (more on this later).
The modulation interface is quite clever. Itās extremely easy to assign modulation. One exciting thing that I havenāt seen mentioned much in demos is that you can use one LFO to modulate another. I havenāt dug too deep into this yet, but this should allow for some interesting modulation feedback patching akin to what you can do in modular. Another cool thing is that each LFO can be a mix of the selected waveform and a random waveform. Very useful for just adding a touch of instability or spice to a standard looping LFO.
Iāve only just started to explore its multitimbral capabilities, but I find the possibilities here to be very exciting. Voices can be assigned to voice groups and voice groups can be individually edited. Voice groups can contain any combination of voices from 1x to 6x. So if you have 6x voice groups with 1x voice assigned to them each, you can essentially have 6x different monophonic patches running at once. Different voice groups can be played individually (each with their own MIDI channel), can be layered with other voice groups, or can be played polyphonically (cycling through voice groups) - you can just have subtle differences between each voice, like a guitarās strings would for example. Excited to explore this more, especially with the individual outputs.
Back to the resonator, I really like that each resonator voice has its own final output VCA. Since the resonator can self oscillate, you can assign the envelope as the modulator for the output VCA and play the resonator with the main envelope controls, all while bypassing the exciter. I think this was shown in some of the Superbooth videos, but itās such a welcome feature.
Iām looking forward to discovering more of its nuances as I learn it a bit better. The presets show off a range that Iām not getting with patching from scratch yet, so Iām really curious how that will go. I also still need to check out the external input, and Iām looking forward to trying out feedback patching (patching the headphone or individual outputs into the external input).
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Feedback patching is really fun. Leads to some wild textures. Have mostly explored routing the headphone out directly into the external input.
Patching the individual outputs into the external input hasnāt been quite as feasible or immediate for feedback. Using an individual output removes it from the main mix. I havenāt fully wrapped my head around the signal flow when patching this way.
Now to record some demos.
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