Last year, Tame Impala's Kevin Parker set up a synth company called Telepathic Instruments and announced a debut product: Orchid.
A compact digital polysynth with a focus on chord generation, Orchid has only been released in limited quantities across a handful of territories thus far, and the second drop sold out in just two minutes. The good news is that the company has now set a date for its official worldwide release.
Orchid will be released on Friday 10 October at 10am local time in two time zones: CET for UK, Europe and the rest of the world, and PST for the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The synth is priced at $649 including shipping.
Telepathic Instruments has shared a tongue-in-cheek instructional video featuring musically-inclined comedians Matt Berry and Jermaine Clement, which we've embedded above.
The company has also announced the release of a companion plugin for Orchid. Pistil allows you to access and edit Orchid's sounds using the plugin, getting deep into the parameters of its synth engine in a way that's not possible using the device.
Pistil also enables Orchid to act as a chord-generating MIDI controller for your DAW via its USB-C port. (The synth also a 5-pin MIDI output that can be used to hook Orchid up to other instruments, as demonstrated in the video.)
Orchid's latest update also brings twenty pre-programmed drum loops that allow you to write your chords and melodies to a selection of "irresistible grooves".
Pitched as being ‘made for chords’ Orchid is a 16-voice digital polysynth that features three distinct synth engines designed by Stefan Stenzel, best known for his work with Waldorf. These offer a virtual analogue subtractive synth, an FM synth engine, and a vintage reed piano emulation. The FM and VA engines each have four oscillators, four LFOs, four envelope generators and a filter.
The synth also features onboard reverb, chorus and delay effects. As well as letting users assign a sound for the main chords, Orchid also has a separate bass synth engine that will generate sound solely for the low-end. Orchid’s hardware has a distinctive and – to our eye at least – stylish design, but also features a number of modern conveniences. There’s a stereo pair of built-in speakers, plus a rechargeable onboard battery. The single-octave keyboard is velocity-sensitive too.
The most interesting aspect of Orchid, however, is its unique chord generation system. This is based around a matrix of chord type and chord modifying keys, paired with a single-octave keyboard used to dictate the root note of the chord. The central rotary can then be used to repitch chords, which can then be played back in a number of ways, using the Strum, Slop, Arpeggiator, Pattern and Harp functions.
According to Telepathic Instruments, Orchid was first envisioned by Parker over 10 years ago. The design of the instrument itself has been developed by company co-founder Ignacio Germade.
“Orchid isn’t just about how much you know or don’t know – it’s about shaking up your creative process,” says Charl Laubscher, another of Telepathic Instruments’ co-founders. “It’s a tool for anyone who wants to step outside their musical comfort zone, to experiment and to find what’s on their mind.”
Orchid will be available from the Telepathic Instruments website on 10 October.
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