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Hand luggage doesn't usually look like this.

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On the surface, Analogue Solutions' new Tereshkova appears very similar to the Vostok suitcase synth which arrived on the scene back in 2003. However, the Vostok has seen significant development since that original version, and the Tereshkova builds upon the latest version with an additional LFO and two more VCAs.

The suitcase design might make comparisons inevitable, but be under no illusions that the Tereshkova is a Synthi clone. This is an original synth with a sound all of its own.

The Tereshkova follows a semi-modular design, built into a surprisingly light steel suitcase with a removable lid. Connections are made via 3.5mm mini-jacks and the case has been designed so you can close the lid with the patch leads in place. Handy if you need to make a swift getaway half way through programming a sound, although we dread to think what customs would make of the Communist styling if you tried to carry this synth as hand luggage.

In detail

Firing the Tereshkova up, we put together a basic patch to get a feel of things. Our first impression was that MIDI-to-CV conversion is a little on the basic side. With only one controller CV output, you're restricted to either mod wheel or velocity. There's also no pitch bend or aftertouch, which is in keeping with the vintage aesthetic but limits your potential range of expression. A couple of extra outputs for the pitch CV and note on/off gate signals would also be nice here, given how much blank space there is on the panel.

It's no problem to split the signals up, but it uses up sets of multiples which could otherwise take care of something else. For a synth of this complexity, we'd also like to have seen a MIDI clock to gate converter for tempo-synced modulation.

VCO1 offers triangle, sawtooth and square outputs, while VCOs 2 and 3 ditch the triangle and offer pulse outputs with a pulse width modulation CV input for lovely creamy PWM sounds. VCOs 2 and 3 each offer three sub oscillator outputs: one, two and three octaves down from the pulse wave respectively.

Once tuned, the oscillators are stable and the tracking remains consistent across a broad range of frequencies, but the lack of separate coarse and fine tuning knobs means you need the delicate fingers of a safe cracker to get all three singing in harmony. The absence of range switches on VCO2 and 3 means that if you want to jump up an octave (or down with triangle or sawtooth waves) you'll have to dial it in manually with the pitch control. The tuning knob on VCO1 can be pulled out to drop an octave but you'll inevitably knock the tuning out as you do so. A separate switch would be preferable.

The filter section is claimed to be based on the Korg MS20's 12dB/oct multi-mode VCF but to our ears it's not as harsh. The high-pass and low-pass sections are in series so they can be used simultaneously to create a band-pass effect but this means there are no separate outputs for the two sections. Cranking the Q control up to maximum allows both filter sections to be pushed into self-oscillation. It's a nice versatile unit but with three oscillators to play with we kept finding ourselves wishing we had another filter so we could really get some freaky sounds going.

On the plus side, CV modulation of the filter cutoff is effective and nicely adjustable, offering some seriously nasty effects when modulated with audio rate signals.