Studio Electronics SE-3X: 3-voice paraphonic synth with 4 classic filters

06 Jun 2021 by Robin Vincent | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

Studio Electronics SE-3X · Source: Studio Electronics

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The SE-3X paraphonic rack mount synth comes with the Minimoog, Juno, ARP and SEM filters for a complete Resonant Filter Collection to run those 3 oscillators through.

SE-3X

The SE-3X is a new and tweaked version of Studio Electronic’s classic and nearly 30 years old SE-1 analogue synthesizer. For a long time it was the go-to Minimoog clone although it also incorporated features from other classic synths and boasted patch saving and MIDI. The “X” version expanded the memory and improved the overall smoothness.

At the request of a dealer to customise the synth with a couple more filters Studio Electronics opened up the schematics and thought it might be time for a thorough update and the SE-3X was born.

Studio Electronics SE-3X · Source: Studio Electronics

The SE-3X has 3 VCOs with multiple waveforms and sync. These route through 4 voltage-controlled discrete analog filters:

SE Classic 24dB Moog®; SE Classic 24dB ARP®; SE Classic Juno/Jupiter: 3 modes: 24dB, 12dB, Mix; SE Classic 12dB Oberheim®: filter incorporates Low Pass & Band Pass modes. Filter frequency range expanded by a whole tone.

Then you have 4 envelopes where one is fixed to the filter, 1 to the amp and the other two are assignable. That’s the paraphonic nature of the SE-3X where you can play each oscillator individually but they all end up going through the same filter and VCA controlled by the same envelope. 3 LFOs add to the modulations with multiple destinations.

A fixed value hardware amplifier overdrive provides a nice bit of saturated distortion in two flavours.

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STUDIO ELECTRONICS · The Great ‘3X

The new front panel looks great on the familiar, if a little straight-laced, boxy rack-mountable enclosure The red data knob and new blue screen do look rather good. It’s great to see an update to such a venerable synthesizer and having these classic filters to choose from makes it a very versatile machine to have in your rack.

The SE-3X is available now for $2,199.

More information

Studio Electronics website.
More from Studio Electronics.

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