Italian brand Frap Tools is known in the modular realm for its range of Eurorack gear, which centres around a collection of West Coast-inspired modules that balance gnarly sonics with neatly-labelled, stylish user interfaces.
Now the company is taking an ambitious step up with the launch of Magnolia, its debut analogue polysynth. The sleek-looking Magnolia takes a variety of the concepts Frap Tools has previously explored in its individual modules and combines them in a self-contained instrument equipped with a poly aftertouch keyboard.
According the company's announcement, "Inside [Magnolia] we put all of our most iconic analogue sounds: searing wavefolders, screaming filters, sweeping flip sync and, most importantly, through-zero linear FM."
The synth features eight analogue voices, each with two oscillators arranged in a modulator-carrier relationship. This set-up makes use of through-zero FM, a variation on the style of frequency modulation usually found in analogue synths that allows for a more natural and musical sound.
According to Frap Tools, these oscillators take inspiration from both West Coast synth design – in the vein of brands like Buchla and Serge – and more common East Coast elements. The first of the two oscillators is described as being the West Coast one, including a wavefolder and flip sync capabilities, while the second offers East Coast tools like pulse width modulation and fine tune.
Each voice also goes through a dual low- and high-pass filter setup. Each of these filters is 24db with adjustable resonance, and can be modulated at audio rates for further FM possibilities.
Given the emphasis on modulation, it’s unsurprising that Magnolia sports an easy-to-use mod routing system that allows users to assign destinations at the touch of a button and toggle modulation on and off.
Alongside its three LFOs and three envelopes, modulation is provided by Magnolia's Polymove function, a randomization generator that creates a random control signal for every voice and every destination within that voice.
For further expressive capabilities, the synth comes attached to a Fatar keybed with routable polyphonic aftertouch.
Magnolia is bi-timbral, with single, dual, split and morph modes, and features a per-part arpeggiator and per-part 16 step sequencer. On the effects front, multiple flavours of digital chorus and delay are available alongside stereo analogue distortion on the output.
In all, it looks like a lot of synth power in a single package, and has the potential to offer something quite unique against the backdrop of the current polysynth market.
If it all sounds somewhat complex, rest assured, Frap Tools claim Magnolia is an "analogue FM synth that's actually fun to play", where you can "forget about operators and just have fun exploring".
Magnolia is priced at £3699/€4199.
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