Synton was a manufacturer and distributor of high-end electronic music equipment in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. They were one of the principal importers of music equipment from

E-Mu E-mu Systems was a software synthesizer, audio interface, MIDI interface, and MIDI keyboard manufacturer. Founded in 1971 as a synthesizer maker, E-mu was a pioneer in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling music ...

Ensoniq Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. History In spring 1983, former MOS Technol ...

, and

Fairlight Fairlight may refer to: In places: * Fairlight, East Sussex, a village east of Hastings in southern England, UK * Fairlight, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia * Fairlight, Saskatchewan, Canada In other uses: * Fairlight (company), ...

in Europe. Felix Visser, the founder of Synton began the company in 1973 after purchasing an

EMS Synthi AKS The EMS Synthi A and the EMS Synthi AKS are portable modular analog synthesisers made by EMS of England. The Synthi A model debuted in May 1971, and then Synthi AKS model appeared in March 1972 a with a built-in keyboard and sequencer. The EMS S ...

and setting out to produce similar equipment with more of the functionality that he was looking for in an analog synth. Eventually, the company developed Synton Syntovox vocoders as well as the System 2000 and System 3000

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, ...

s that were sold to

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

and distributed in the United States by

Bob Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthe ...

's Big Briar Inc. In 1983, Felix Visser, product specialist Marc Paping, and designer Bert Vermeulen created the Synton Syrinx, a monophonic analog synthesizer that contained unique features such as a metal touchplate for manipulating sound as well as a

formant filter In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmoni ...

. In 1989, the company went bankrupt.

Fénix Modular

Because none of the commercial

analog synthesizers An analog 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 vacuum-tub ...

on the market had the same features as the synthesizer he wanted, Marc Paping and Bert Vermeulen reunited in 1997 to create the Synton Fénix, an analogue

featuring 31 differing modules. The Synton Fénix featured an esoteric range of features and was the culmination of the designs that Paping and Vermeulen had liked in the vintage analog synthesizers that they had owned, played, and developed in the past. After creating an initial 25 handbuilt units and distributing these to close friends and fans of the Synton company, the team decided to handbuild another 50 units due to high demand from word of mouth. In total, only 75 units were created and the team stopped production of the Fenix in 2000. Musicians have cited the Synton Fénix as their favourite piece of musical equipment due to the combination of unique modules and distinctive sounds the synthesizer was able to create. Following on from this success, Bert developed a second, updated modular synthesiser, the Fénix II and a separate but accompanying sequencer, the Fénix III. According to the "Q&A" section of the Fénix website: "The prototype of the énix IIhas 103 potmeters, 9 switches and 230 banana sockets compared to the fenix 1 which have 63 potmeters, 3 switches and 158 banana sockets.The prototype of the énix IIhas 3 times the number of ic's compared to the Fenix 1". A limited production run commenced in 2010 once the design had been finalised. Again, 75 synthesisers were made, with just 25 of the Fénix III sequencers being manufactured. All of the units were sold to people who had joined an earlier email "waiting list" which opened during 2009.

Artists who use Synton Fenix

* David Morley *

Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, composer and DJ active in electronic music since 1988. His idiosyncratic work has drawn on many styles, including techno, ambient music, ambi ...

* Téléplasmiste *

Martin Gore Martin Lee Gore (born 23 July 1961) is an English musician and songwriter. He is one of the founding members of the electronic music band Depeche Mode and is the band's main songwriter. He is the band's guitarist and keyboardist, and occasiona ...

Goodiepal Goodiepal or Gæoudjiparl van den Dobbelsteen, whose given name is Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester, is a Danish/Faroese experimental electronic musician, performance artist, composer and lecturer, as well as a fully educated horologist. His work engag ...

Thighpaulsandra Timothy Lewis – best known by the stage name Thighpaulsandra – is a Welsh experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist, known mostly for performing on synthesizers and keyboards. He began his career working with Julian Cope in the late ...

References

External links

Sound on Sound article by Gordon Reid
*{{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101026003318/http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/synton-syrinx/may-05/8432 , date=October 26, 2010 , title=Keyboard Magazine's article on the Synton Syrinx
The Synton & Fénix HomepageWebsite about Marc Paping (aka Paap)
Defunct companies of the Netherlands Companies disestablished in 1989