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Phoscyon uses and interesting photo-real GUI

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Sounds

So Phoscyon is pretty flexible on the sequencing front, but it's the sound of the synth that'll sell it. Most 303 clones have a hard time with synth purists who are never quite satisfied with the quality of software copies, and it's unlikely that this attempt will convert them.

However, if you're not intimately familiar with the original hardware it's most likely that you'll find Phoscyon convincing enough. It remains pretty true to the original hardware; you're limited to square or saw waves, and there's a single filter with the 303's characteristic 18dB low-pass response.

There are plenty of new knobs to go round though, including envelope attack time, slide time, envelope accent level, and accent attack and decay times. These all work as you'd imagine, and techno-heads will appreciate the extra noodling possibilities, though there's nothing spectacularly unexpected on offer.

The final two additions to the classic 303 line-up are the built-in arpeggiator and distortion units. The distortion unit has six knobs and getting a decent sound requires more tweaking than ReBirth's equivalent, but the extra controls make it more flexible and a variety of suitably crunchy noises can be gleaned from it.

The arpeggiator is fairly sophisticated, and offers a selection of patterns, tempos and chords, including some user-defined ones.

There's also a repeat note mode that repeats each note of the sequence a certain number of times, and an octave selector that lets you turn up to four octaves on or off – a nice touch. The good news is that it works really well and integrates especially well with the external sequencer.

Summary

While this synth is by no means groundbreaking, it does offer plenty of bells and whistles, and the distortion and arpeggiator will endear it to the hard dance scene in particular.

Phoscyon definitely offers a lot over the standard 303 clone, and at the price it's the most attractive proposition in the field.

Acid-imitation aside, it's a fun synth with a mighty big sound that simply begs to be tweaked and then tweaked some more. It might not have an enormous amount of range, but it's great at what it does and is extremely reasonably priced. Definitely worth a fiddle.