DONNER B1: Analog Bass Synthesizer & Sequencer

09 May 2022 by Robin Vincent |

4,3 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Donner B1 · Source: Donner

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The DONNER B1 features deep bass and acid sounds in an intuitive, fun and affordable desktop bass synth.

DONNER B1

Donner is (I believe) a Chinese manufacturer of musical instruments with warehousing in the USA and Europe. The company has been in business for a decade. It’s built up a range of own-brand musical gear, including guitars, drums, strings, wind and keyboard instruments. The B1 looks like its first entry into the synthesizer market, and it’s pretty nifty.

It’s a futuristic-looking slab of a synth with a 2-octave, back-lit silicone keyboard and an array of knobs. The design is intuitive and straightforward, and in fact, Donner says that the innovations in the B1 won them a 2022 Red Dot award. However, the 2022 winners do not get announced until June.

There’s not a whole lot of detail on the website. Still, scrutinising the photos, I can see that it has two waveforms with pitch tuning, a filter with cutoff and resonance knobs, modulation depth, envelope decay and accent controls. That sounds very TB-303 to me. Perhaps more interesting is the Saturation section and the Tape Delay effect with level, time and feedback controls.

Donner B1th · Source: Donner

For connections, we have a master output and MIDI in and out on the back on 5-pin DIN plus a USB-C and DC 9V port. On the top there’s also an aux input, sync in/out and headphones.

Of course, in order to capture that 303 vibe, it will need a sequencer. The B1 comes with 128 sequencer presets that cover a range of musical styles and room for 128 patterns of your own.

Priced at around $168 it’s having a go at some of the Behringer territory for affordable synthesizers. Doesn’t appear to be available in the EU store yet.