5 of the Weirdest Synths Out There: Get Your Tweak On
Weird and wonderful instruments from Moog, Make Noise, Stylophone, and more.
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Looking for inspiration? Embrace the strange with these five odd balls, the weirdest synths on the market today.
The Weirdest Synths Out There
While there’s something to be said for a solid, dependable, and all-around synthesizer like a Roland FANTOM or Sequential Prophet-5, there may come the time when you need something a little… weirder. You know, those days when the usual bread-and-butter patches just won’t cut it. You need to get out of your comfort zone. You need to embrace the uncanny.
That’s why today we’re celebrating the strange with five of the weirdest synths on the market now. By weird, we don’t necessarily mean in terms of interface (although we do have that represented). Weird can also mean in terms of sound, synthesis, or even overall approach. Basically any synthesizer that goes about things in its own, unique way.
Ready to get weird?
The Weirdest Synths: Make Noise Strega
Made in collaboration between Make Noise and musician Alessandro Cortini (of Nine Inch Nails fame), Strega is a noise box that is equal parts West Coast beauty and collapsing black hole terror. Inspired by alchemy, which is equally at home with both science and magic, Strega has both sound and control generators and can also process external sounds.
If it sounds like I’m struggling to explain it, I am, because it’s just so very weird. According to Make Noise, it’s patchable with seven sources and 13 destinations, it has a filter as well as controls marked things like “Tonic” and “Activation,” it features touch-launched momentary modulation routings, and is compatible with Eurorack.
If harsh noise or industrial is your thing, or you just want to rough things up occasionally, Strega is a wild and wonderful instrument. Pairs well with the 0-Coast and 0-CTRL too.
- Make Noise Strega product page
The Weirdest Synths: Elta Music Solar 42F
Subtitled a Drone Ambient Machine, Elta Music’s Solar 42F (slightly improved over the original 42) is a big and bold monster of a synth that excels at what it says it does: drone and ambient music. It achieves this with a combination of eight melodic and drone voices. Control is handled by a touch interface plus five-step sequencer as well as a joystick and switch keys.
All of that drone power goes through two 12dB/Oct Polivoks-inspired filters (from Elta’s own PV3 filter unit) plus stereo distortion and three effects parameters pulled from the cartridge-based effects section. You also get an audio-in jack for processing external audio.
Elta Music’s Solar 42F is both freaky and deaky and surely one of the weirdest synths out there.
- Elta Music Solar 42F product page
The Weirdest Synths: Moog Subharmonicon
‘Weird’ may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of Moog, given that the Minimoog pretty much set the template for what we think of as a synthesizer, and yet the last five years or so have seen the company release some intriguingly unconventional instruments. Exhibit A: the Subharmonicon.
Part of the same semi-modular Eurorack-ready series that includes the Labyrinth and Spectravox, Subharmonicon plays with both harmony and rhythm in curious and unusual ways. You get two VCOs, each with their own pair of sub-oscillators. These sub tones are mathematically derived from the VCOs, giving you harmonically rich clusters that come alive via two sequencers and four polyrhythm-capable Rhythm Generators. And I haven’t even mentioned all of the patch points.
The result of all of this? A sound that is both classic Moog and out-there experimental electronic.
- Moog Subharmonicon product page
The Weirdest Synths: Stylophone Theremin
The theremin may be the world’s first electronic instrument but it also remains a weird one given the fact that you don’t actually touch it. Instead, you play it by interrupting magnetic fields generated by two antennae, one for pitch and the other for volume. Dubreq, the maker of everyone’s favorite stylus synth Stylophone, does one too – and it’s significantly easier to play.
Dubbed the Stylophone Theremin, this new (and decidedly affordable) theremin offers a pitch antenna and slider pitch control, plus two modulation settings, selectable waveforms, vibrato, a momentary trigger and even a crunchy delay. And the sound? Like a Stylophone set free into the ether.
- Stylophone Theremin product page
The Weirdest Synths: SOMA Terra
From music in the air to music in a tree. This is the SOMA Terra, which is unique in so many ways: in form, in sound, and in synthesis.
It may look like just a slab of wood, but Terra is actually a 12-voice synthesizer. Inside are 32 different synthesis algorithms, including polyphonic synth sounds, acoustic modeling, singing bowls, drums and percussion, and experimental algorithms. You interact with this with 12 dynamic metal velocity-sensitive note sensors with aftertouch. You also get eight controls for changing synthesis parameters. Uniquely, inside there’s a three-axis motion sensor for creating different modulations through movement.
There are three versions of Terra, available: Organic Dark, Organic Light, and the Special Edition in a handmade housing and limited to 66 pieces.
- SOMA Terra product page
More Information
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