ANALOGUE SYSTEMS Spawn

Dec 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Jim Aikin

Analog synthesis is hotter than ever. It was eclipsed in the '80s and '90s by digital technologies, but it never really went away. Today, as many as a dozen companies are building high-quality analog instruments for a small but enthusiastic market, and almost every digital-synth designer is trying to duplicate the analog sound using DSP software.

Real analog synths tend to be pricier than their digital cousins, primarily because of the cost of components and construction. But there's something about the sound and playability of real analog instruments that keeps musicians from carping about the expense. Maybe it's the warmth and fatness of the tone. Maybe it's the smooth response of the knobs when you twist them. Or maybe it's the same gut feeling guitarists get from handling a '57 Stratocaster.

The most tactile electronic instrument you can buy is a patchable analog modular synth. Those beasts, which are still designed much as they were in the mid-'60s, bring audio and control signal routings out to the front panel. By plugging patch cords into jacks in the panel, you can massage or mangle the sound in complex ways, looking every bit the mad scientist. Trouble is, a full-bore modular synth is both bulky and expensive. Consequently, there's a real need for analog synths that are smaller and more affordable, yet preserve some of the patchable power of a modular.

PRODUCT SUMMARY
Analogue Systems Spawn analog synthesizer $995
FEATURES	3.0
EASE OF USE	4.0
QUALITY OF SOUNDS	3.5
VALUE	3.5
RATING PRODUCTS FROM 1 TO 5
PROS: Real analog sound. Very patchable, but useful default routings require no patching. Makes a good MIDI interface/expander for any analog synth system, yet fully functional as a standalone unit.
CONS: No memory. Only one oscillator and one envelope generator. MIDI channel selector is on rear panel.
Manufacturer
Analogue Systems/Sweet Noise (distributor) tel. (818) 980-6983 e-mail info@sweetnoise.com Web www.analoguesystems.co.uk or www.sweetnoise.com

Enter the Spawn. This 2U rackmount analog synth is built by Analogue Systems, a respected British manufacturer of modular synthesizers. The Spawn works well as an expander module for a larger system from Analogue Systems or any other manufacturer that uses the 1V-per-octave standard. Even if you don't have any analog gear, you can play it from any MIDI keyboard, making it an ideal source for bass and lead sounds in a studio or live rig.

To help me test the Spawn's patching features, Analogue Systems sent a separate rackmount unit containing half a dozen of the newer modules in its Integrator line. I especially enjoyed trying out the Comb Filter and the EMS Synthi Trapezoid Generator. The company also supplied a French Connection analog keyboard controller, which has some unique and useful features (see the sidebar “The French Connection”), and a big pile of patch cords. Before long, my studio was Spaghetti Central.

SPAWN'S EARLY LIGHT

The Spawn contains the basic modules you need to make synth noises: an oscillator, a resonant lowpass filter, an ADSR generator, an LFO, a noise generator, and two VCAs. Unlike an Integrator, the Spawn is a preconfigured system; you can't order it with a custom set of modules. The front panel features 23 knobs, 37 minijacks, and a few switches (see Fig. 1). The knobs feel comfortingly solid, with a little resistance and a rubbery texture that makes them a pleasure to touch.

Rather like the ARP 2600, the Spawn doesn't require that you use patch cords to set up a sound. Its modules are wired to one another behind the panel with a default signal flow. The main ¼-inch audio output is on the rear panel, along with MIDI In and Thru jacks, a standard AC power-cord connection, the power switch, and a little slot with which you set the MIDI channel (see Fig. 2). Having the power switch on the rear panel of a rackmount unit is less than ideal, but changing MIDI channels from the rear panel — with a screwdriver, no less — is downright primitive.

Except for MIDI reception, the Spawn is an all-analog device. It has no operating system, and thus no hidden menus. It offers no patch memory. If you like, you can think of its panel as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The fact that you can neither store your favorite programs nor dial up factory presets has a good side and a bad side. The good side is that you'll quickly become an expert at Spawn programming. The bad side is that until you do, getting back that killer bass sound you had yesterday may be quite difficult. The manual contains some blank patch sheets on which you can write down the knob settings and patch-cord routings for sounds you discover, but a patch sheet can only get you into the ballpark. Nudging the knobs is still required.

SEE YOU LATER, OSCILLATOR

The Spawn's voltage-controlled oscillator has a rich, satisfying sound. Although the Spawn has only one oscillator, it has a suboscillator output that produces a square wave that's either one or two octaves below the main tone. The VCO and sub have separate level controls at the filter's input, so you can mix them to taste.

The VCO's waveform is continuously variable from sawtooth to square to thin pulse. It has no sine- or triangle-wave output, but you can fake either of those waveforms by filtering the square wave. You can apply waveform modulation (such as pulse-width modulation) without a patch cord using a bidirectional Mod knob; turning it left of center adds modulation from the LFO's triangle wave, and turning it right adds modulation from the envelope generator (EG).

Tuning of the VCO is handled with a single knob and a three-position switch labeled -2/0/W. The -2 and 0 settings are octave selectors, and W means wide. When the switch is in the left or center position, the knob has a range of just over an octave in each direction. When W is selected, the knob sweeps the frequency from subaudio to sounds only your dog can hear. You can modulate pitch with the LFO using another bidirectional knob; turning it left gives you triangle-wave modulation (for vibrato), and turning it right yields square-wave modulation.

The Spawn VCO's tuning was stable, and it tracked the keyboard adequately across several octaves. (However, that was not the case with the external VCO in the Integrator rack Analogue Systems sent me; when tuned correctly to a low C, the Integrator was almost a half step sharp when I played the C four octaves up.)

Along the bottom of the VCO module are three input jacks, each with its own knob. One jack is for a 1V-per-octave signal from an analog keyboard; its associated knob controls Glide rate. The second input is for pitch modulation (from the envelope or an external module, for instance), and the third is for waveshape modulation. The Amount knobs for these two jacks are bidirectional.

In the VCO section's center, a row of minijacks provides some important functionality. Applying a rising-edge voltage to the Sync In jack causes the VCO to start a new wave cycle, enabling hard-sync effects if you have a second VCO lying around. Four jacks in the middle provide access to a separate Mod (modulation) VCA, with which you can set up such effects as mod-wheel control over LFO amount. A VCO Out jack permits flexible routing options.

I like the sound of the Spawn's VCO; it is smooth, with lots of presence. All the same, having only one oscillator is a definite limitation, because many of the richer sounds in the analog world are created by detuning two oscillators from one another.

HIGH-CLASS LOWPASS

The VCF is strictly lowpass and always operates with a 24 dB-per-octave slope. It will squeal very satisfactorily at high resonance settings. Its tone was a little cleaner and less beefy than some analog filters I've heard, but I found I could fatten it up in a truly nasty way by cranking up the resonance and then applying the VCO's audio output to the filter's modulation input. It's tough to do that kind of trick with most digital simulations of analog.

The filter has two bidirectional Amount knobs for controlling cutoff with the LFO (triangle or square wave) and EG. The VCF also provides inputs and Amount knobs for a second audio signal and another modulation input. Four additional jacks are located in the middle: three provide outputs for the suboscillator, the noise source, and the VCF itself; the fourth is an unattenuated 1V-per-octave CV input, suitable for having the filter track the keyboard.

At the two o'clock position, the oscillator signal input level knob is labeled O/D, but the overdrive introduced was so subtle that I had trouble hearing it at all. The VCA's input from the filter has the same feature — but again, after compensating for the added gain introduced by cranking the knob all the way to 10, I wasn't entirely sure I heard any overdrive.

MODULATION GENERATION

Experienced analog programmers might be concerned that the Spawn has only one ADSR generator, which has to do double duty controlling both filter cutoff and the VCA. How can it produce filter sweeps if the note always fades out at the bottom of the sweep? Not to worry — the VCA's Envelope knob lets you choose either linear or logarithmic control. By turning it in the linear direction, you get a good full-bodied sustain, even as the filter responds with a sweep during the decay. Of course, having only one envelope still presents some limitations. For example, you can't specify a gentle VCA attack coupled with a quick filter attack.

The EG has a three-position switch for choosing Gated Repeat, Auto Repeat, or normal ADSR mode. The repeat modes are useful for creating tremolo effects, though you can obtain similar results by patching an LFO output into the EG's Trig (trigger) input jack.

The Spawn's LFO is modest and unassuming. It has simultaneous outputs for square wave, triangle wave, and positive- and negative-going sawtooth waves. You can set its Rate knob from about 0.2 Hz up to 25 Hz or so. You can also control the LFO's rate with a CV input, which is calibrated in a linear way rather than as 1V per octave. Considering the rather spartan module lineup of the Spawn, I wish the LFO could do double duty as a second audio oscillator, but given the limited range and the linear CV input, that's not an option.

MIND OVER MIDI

The awkwardness of the channel selection process notwithstanding, the Spawn's MIDI features will give it a strong appeal. Front-panel jacks offer MIDI-to-CV outputs for the keyboard's control signal (two jacks, in case you want both the filter and the oscillator to track the keyboard), gate, Velocity, Aftertouch, the mod wheel or lever (CC1), breath controller (CC2), and expression controller (CC11). Two trigger outputs are also available — one providing a rising edge and the other a falling edge (that's an S-trig, for you analog maniacs). You can choose single or multiple triggering, but the keyboard response is always low-note priority.

With a switch labeled Internal/Isolated, you can detach the MIDI signals from the internal synth. That function is extremely useful, as it lets you use the Spawn as a MIDI interface for the analog modules of your choice while keeping the MIDI data away from the Spawn's internal operations.

In addition to the obvious internal routings (such as MIDI keyboard to pitch), the Spawn lets you route mod-wheel data to the oscillator's Mod VCA. Two patch cords are still required to patch the desired modulation source to that input and the VCA output to the oscillator's pitch-mod input (or wherever). Once you've set this up, though, your MIDI keyboard's mod wheel will add vibrato.

The Spawn lacks a separate output for MIDI Pitch Bend data; instead, the keyboard control voltage tracks pitch bends, and bend depth is always plus or minus 1 octave. Such a setup is handy in the sense that it doesn't require you to use up the oscillator's pitch-mod input for bends, but the absence of control over the bend depth is rather troublesome. Given that you can't adjust bend depth, I would have preferred an interval of plus or minus a whole step, which is better for playing leads.

SPAWN TO KING 4

The Spawn's patchability makes it a great expander for any analog synth system, especially one that uses minijacks. Its MIDI features make it a good choice as a standalone bass or lead synth. The single-oscillator sound isn't as meaty as I'd like, but routing the output through an outboard chorus or delay line will thicken it up. The Integrator Comb Filter module will also do the job, and with attitude to spare.

Although analog purists certainly won't mind, busy studio players might be bothered by the fact that the Spawn has no memory for storing patches, and that the knobs don't transmit or respond to MIDI data. But then, a violin doesn't have those features either. Like a violin, the Spawn is a real musical instrument. Some effort is required to play it well, but the effort will pay off with a variety of expressive tone colors.

Spawn Specifications
Sound Engine	analog subtractive synthesis
Synthesis Architecture	VCO, resonant lowpass VCF, VCA, ADSR EG, voltage-controlled LFO, noise generator, modulation VCA
Analog Outputs	(1) ¼" monaural main out; (12) ⅛" audio and CV outputs in analog sections; (10) CV outs in MIDI Routing section
Analog Inputs	(15) ⅛" audio and CV
Control Voltage Standard	1V per octave
MIDI-to-CV Conversion	gate (single or multiple triggering), trigger, S-trig, key played (×2), Velocity, Aftertouch, mod wheel, breath controller, expression controller
Power	100-120V, 60 Hz or 220-240V, 50 Hz (switchable); IEC connector
Dimensions	2U × 8" (D)
Weight	6 lb.
PRODUCT SUMMARY
Analogue Systems Spawn analog synthesizer $995

 

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

The Spawn's MIDI features are robust enough that you may never need a real analog keyboard, but Analogue Systems' French Connection keyboard ($1,995) is still worth a look (see Fig. A). In addition to the spring-loaded joystick (very nice) and lack of Velocity response (not so nice), it has one feature you won't find on any MIDI keyboard: mounted on a strip at the front of the keys is a finger-size brass ring that you can freely move from left to right across the keyboard's almost four-octave range, thanks to a long piece of black string and an ingenious system of hidden wheels. By throwing a couple of switches at the keyboard's left side, you can play monophonic lines using this ring (and a left-hand thumb button for sending gates) instead of the keyboard. History buffs might recall that this type of finger-operated pitch controller was introduced in 1928 on an electronic instrument from France called the Ondes Martenot (hence French in the name).

Nailing the precise pitches in an equal-tempered scale by moving the ring takes practice, but the French Connection makes pitch control a little easier by providing a row of raised and lowered bumps on a strip beneath the ring. The bumps line up with the keys, giving you tactile as well as visual feedback. There's always some portamento (glide) between notes, but you can control the glide rate in expressive ways. Wiggling your finger gently back and forth produces vibrato directly, at a rate and depth that you can control intuitively to shape your phrases. In the MIDI world, only the Clavia Nord Lead gives you such direct tactile control over vibrato.