Description
“StyloSynth’s samples have a warm and pleasant tonality. Modern is rather bright and slightly distorted; Stacked is a pile of old Stylophones in some warped version of unison; and the Vintage setting is mellow and generally the most pleasant!” – Sound on Sound magazine
They said we were mad… MAD!!!
And, in fairness, perhaps they had a point. This one is a little weird. But it’s also good fun, unusual, and has a charm all of its own. StyloSynth is a nifty little 3-oscillator polysynth whose secret identity is that it’s built from a stack of vintage Stylophones.
Everyone knows that the character and identity of any classic synth start with the sound of its oscillators: they’re the basic building-blocks of its sound. What’s not been known – until now – is that, in the dark, when they’re alone, every Stylophone dreams of being an oscillator in a massive analogue polysynth…
In the case of StyloSynth, those oscillators are sampled from all the Stylophones we could beg, borrow, or scrounge from car-boot sales. The “Modern” oscillator is a vicious-sounding square wave, sharply distorted, with a lot of buzzy overtones. The “Vintage” oscillator is a much mellower vibe from a classic 60s Stylophone which we chose for its rounded, woody timbre. And the “Stacked” oscillator is our answer to Roland’s “SuperSaw”: except that where they layered and detuned seven sawtooth waves, we just stacked up a bunch of Stylophones instead. It’s rich, thick, and luscious right out of the gate; add the other oscillators and you can start to redefine phat.
Each of the three oscillators can be adjusted in level to get a starting sound, which then passes through a dual-mode high / low pass resonant filter with ADSR envelope and LFO control of cutoff; a standard Amplifier envelope, again with ADSR; and a lush Chorus control.
An Oscillator Drift knob sets the amount by which the oscillators randomly vary in tuning from each other, accentuating an already vintage vibe from subtle to extreme. Finally, on the rear panel, a Spread control spans everything from full stereo width down to mono, to help you seat the StyloSynth in your mix with precision.
StyloSynth excels at pads, where its subtly detuned oscillators and vintage electronics really come into their own; but it can put in a sweet little lead sound as well, and some great grungy square-wave basses, too. (Crank up the resonance for a really boingy sound!) And of course it’s fully polyphonic, and the little pen thingy doesn’t break off.
StyloSynth: what Stylophones want to be when they grow up.
dannyhearnmusic (verified owner) –
Great little synth with a lot of diversity in the sounds you can get out of it. Pads, bass, leads, bells; you can do it all, but with a unique kind of flavour to it. I imagine you could get some cool Eno inspired sounds out of this. From the traditional kind of synth sounds all the way to the experimental. Great little instrument!
doctor7 (verified owner) –
wow, I have 2 stylophones and no matter how hard I tried to make them into playable kontakt instrument, epic fail was the result.
Mongo is a genius, this has a great sound and very usable
aqaraza (verified owner) –
RR Stylosynth has an appealing simplicity and the lush depth that seems to be RR’s signature. A limited number of presets and absence of the beloved glitch / rnd button have it hovering just shy of perfection.
Asterios (verified owner) –
Another little gem from RR!! I never had a Stylophone, but now I have a StyloSynth!! And the price is nice!! 🙂
joao.bispo.pt (verified owner) –
Sounds great and very close to the real deal through stereo speakers.
Poesque (verified owner) –
Stylin’ more for less than being poor. Huh?
DON Chaffer (verified owner) –
I have a stylophone, but this is like having a gang of stylophones. With this, you can contract a hit on your enemies. Blood will spill with these guys under your command.
Robert (verified owner) –
A great little instrument made from little toys, different old stylophones. RR is the place to go to to buy QUIRK. When you are creating your own slice of quirk feel free to slather on some oscillator drift. I remember trying to make music out of one of the original stylophones without much success. Much easier in the Kontakt format.
Brent (verified owner) –
This little dude is a beast! Only thing that limits you here is your own imagination. A+.
Jake –
Certainly beats recording my actual stylophone. Which is a huge pain in the ass. Ace!
JOHN D WILLIS –
this amazing little library has made it on tons of my productions
so easy so fast
and clients think I’m a genius
I guess I am for finding this little gem
Thanx Rthymic Robot for making my life easier and more creative!!