Fred’s Lab introduces The Töörö mixed electronics hybrid multitimbral polyphonic synthesizer
4,0 / 5,0 | 
From SynthFest France 2020 we have The Töörö 6-voice, 4-part digital/analogue polyphonic synthesizer that’s colourfully industrial, capable of complex sounds and houses a fabulous analogue filter. Now on Kickstarter!
The Töörö
Pronounced “Teureu” this is a mashed-up machine of “mixed electronics” that straps FL A847 analogue filters onto complex digital oscillations. The filter is an optocoupler based 12dB/Oct lowpass filter with self-oscillation and drive saturation. Along with the filter, each voice has 2 complex digital 12-bit oscillators with waveform morphing, 2-operator linear phase modulation, sync, noise, ring modulation, digital shaping and a pair of LFOs and envelopes.
Most of the parameters can be modulated via an 8-slot modulation matrix and at the end of the chain, you get digital delay and chorus.
The Töörö can store up to 100 patches and 10 multis – this is a 4-part synthesizer after all. Each part gets its own MIDI channel and you have control over part volume and panning. They also get an arpeggiator each with multiple modes and patterns.
It is MIDI and USB driven with stereo line outputs plus a pair of instrument level outputs on minijack for separate voice outputs. On the top you get 4 sturdy metal encoders with which to control everything. You navigate to the parameters using the buttons and the colourful front panel. It seems easy enough and reminds me of the IK Multimedia UNO which after the initial disappointment about the lack of knobs actually works really well. You’ve got an LED display for selecting presets and other bits of information.
Fred’s Lab Tooro · Source: Fred’s Lab
So, what does it sound like? There’s a 29-minute video below where they go into quite fine detail about the programming and you get a good taste of the sounds around the 16 minute mark. That filter is certainly interesting and they spend a good bit of time on that. Multi-part synths are something of a rarity these days and as they demonstrate aptly with a BeatStep Pro it means you can have a lot of stuff coming out of a little synth. And I guess that’s where the interface comes into play – you could never represent 4-parts with loads of knobs and so the matrix style works much better.
Update 26th Oct 2020: The Töörö Kickstarter has just come online and you can get in on the action for €399.
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2 responses to “Fred’s Lab introduces The Töörö mixed electronics hybrid multitimbral polyphonic synthesizer”
My eyes!!
Greetings from Töölö, the birth place of Töörö.