The Steiner-Parker Synthacon is a monophonic

analog synthesizer An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of ...

that was built between 1975 and 1979 by Steiner-Parker, a

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

-based synthesizer manufacturer. It was introduced as a competitor to other analog synthesizers, like the

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

and

ARP Odyssey The ARP Odyssey is an analog synthesizer introduced by ARP Instruments in 1972. History ARP developed the Odyssey as a direct competitor to the Moog Minimoog and an answer to the demand for more affordable, portable, and less complicated "perf ...

. The Synthacon includes three

voltage-controlled oscillator A microwave (12–18GHz) voltage-controlled oscillator A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is an electronic oscillator whose oscillation frequency is controlled by a voltage input. The applied input voltage determines the instantaneous oscilla ...

s, a two-pole resonant

Sallen Key filter Sallen () is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in northwestern France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions ...

, two

ADSR envelope generator In sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time. It may relate to elements such as amplitude (volume), frequencies (with the use of filters) or pitch. For example, a piano key, when struck and held, creates a near-immedi ...

s, a

pink Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...

and

white noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, ...

generator, and a 49-key keyboard. While the Synthacon was not a

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...

system, signal routing could be achieved through a series of switches. Although Steiner-Parker only sold a few hundred units, the filter of the Synthacon is still in use in modern modular synthesizers and a modern analog mono synthesizer, the

Arturia MiniBrute The Arturia MiniBrute is a analog synthesizer, synthesizer manufactured by Arturia. Although the MiniBrute was the first piece of hardware created by Arturia—which had previously exclusively marketed software synthesizers—it generated strong ...

Development

The Synthacon was first released in 1975 as a more affordable competitor to the

and

. It uses the same circuitry as Steiner-Parker's modular synthesizer of the same period, the SynthaSystem. The Synthacon's filter was designed by company co-founder Nyle Steiner.

Synthesis model

The Synthacon is a

monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

. It uses three

s (VCOs) as sound sources. One oscillator could generate

sine In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle. The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side that is oppo ...

sawtooth wave The sawtooth wave (or saw wave) is a kind of non-sinusoidal waveform. It is so named based on its resemblance to the teeth of a plain-toothed saw with a zero rake angle. A single sawtooth, or an intermittently triggered sawtooth, is called a ...

s, and the other two could each generate either sawtooth,

pulse In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the nec ...

, or

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

waves. The synthesizer was also capable of generating

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

and

pink noise Pink noise or noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave interval (halving ...

. Unlike those on the Minimoog, the oscillator controls on the Synthacon were placed on the right side of the sloped control panel; the Minimoog placed them on the left side. The filter for the Synthacon, designed by Nyle Steiner, is a 12db/octave multimode filter capable of functioning as a resonant

low-pass filter A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filter des ...

, a

high-pass filter A high-pass filter (HPF) is an electronic filter that passes signals with a frequency higher than a certain cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies lower than the cutoff frequency. The amount of attenuation for each frequency d ...

, or a

band-pass filter A band-pass filter or bandpass filter (BPF) is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects (attenuates) frequencies outside that range. Description In electronics and signal processing, a filter is usually a two-por ...

. Like the contemporary Minimoog filter, the Steiner-Parker filter is capable of self-oscillation. Because the filter uses positive feedback, increasing the

resonance Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied periodic force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscillatin ...

does not cause the audio output to lose amplitude, as it does in the Minimoog and other analog synthesizers. Several types of modulation are available on the Synthacon. Each oscillator can be modulated against the second ADSR envelope, another VCO, the keyboard, the noise generator, or the sample-and-hold effect. The VCF can also be modulated by the second ADSR envelope, the keyboard, one of the VCOs, or the sample-and-hold. The VCA is modulated by the first ADSR envelope.

Sales

According to designer Nyle Steiner, "several hundred Synthacons were made and sold". The Synthacon is considered to be relatively rare.

Legacy

The Synthacon's filter circuit, often referred to as a Steiner filter, can be found in contemporary

modular synthesizer Modular synthesizers are synthesizers composed of separate modules for different functions. The modules can be connected together by the user to create a patch. The outputs from the modules may include audio signals, analog control voltages, o ...

designs due to its low cost and relative ease of construction. The

uses a 12db/octave multimode filter, designed by Yves Usson under guidance from Nyle Steiner, based on the Steiner-Parker Synthacon filter. The filter for the MiniBrute incorporates improvements on the circuit design to reduce the “chaotic behaviour“ (as Yves is naming it) of the original design. Usson insisted on the Steiner-Parker filter because of its versatility and its distinctive sound, which separates it from the 24db/octave filter used for synthesizers such as the Minimoog.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/synthacon.php , title=Steiner Parker Synthacon , publisher=Vintage Synth , accessdate=August 6, 2015 {{cite book, author=Mark Vail, title=The Synthesizer: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Programming, Playing, and Recording the Ultimate Electronic Music Instrument, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8EOeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA158, date=22 January 2014, publisher=Oxford University Press, isbn=978-0-19-933486-5, pages=158–159 {{cite web, url=http://www.synthmuseum.com/stp/stpsynthacon01.html , title=Synthacon , publisher=Synthmuseum.com , date=November 14, 2006 , accessdate=August 6, 2015 {{cite web, url=http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar12/articles/arturia-minibrute.htm , work=

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, a ...

, first=Gordon , last=Reid , title=Arturia MiniBrute: Analog Monosynth , date=March 2012 , accessdate=6 August 2015 Synthesizers Analog synthesizers Monophonic synthesizers

Development

Synthesis model

Sales

Legacy

See also

References