I was in the local modular synthesizer store when they received delivery of the Septavox from Critter & Guitari and I immediately was taken back by the future organ sounds that came out of the cute little synth. The keys are made of wood and the case is bent metal, giving this synth a very boutique look and feel. I scooped it right away as these are pretty rare to come by.
Synth Layout
This synth has an integrated speaker as well and can be powered by AA batteries making it a fun bring-along synth for taking out with you. It’s really compact for the number of octaves you get in the keyboard. On the back is midi-in and midi-out, on the side is a DC port and the 1/4″ mono output for DI recording. On the back of the synth is an open slot that takes the AA batteries and a card that is included for reference on the tone and mode options.
There are two preset selectors that indicate their current mode by changing the LED color next to the button. The left button lets you select the tone from Dirty Sine, Sine, Electric Organ, Square, Sawtooth, Dirty Square, and Computer. The right preset selector changes the mode for the effect knobs. There’s a vibrato, slide, arp, swell, octave cascade, slicer, and pipe glide modes in there.
The two knobs control various parameters depending on the mode. For example, the vibrato mode has rate and depth settings that let you build a range of sounds from the tones from pitch-enveloped kicks to laser and wobbly risers. The slide and swell modes also give some unique character to the various tones that the synthesizer makes.
Demos
For this demo, I created some simple chords and put them into a drum rack. The demo resembles the organ sounds from Faithless – Insomnia.
This next demo uses the same process and has a few house chords that sound like something that you would hear in a Vengaboys track.
This final demo was produced by modulating a dirty sine in the vibrato mode and sounds similar to the sounds that the talking animals in Animal Crossing make.
Download
I have put together a very simple project with the instruments used in the demos created from the samples I created using the Septavox. Feel free to use them however you want!