Artium Instruments have announced that their first product has now officially launched following a successful Kickstarter campaign that saw their project fully funded. The resulting instrument, The Swarm, is a versatile eight-voice desktop synthesizer with an onboard a dynamic arpeggiator, a selection of built-in effects and more.
The Swarm features a supersaw oscillator that is made up of seven individual sawtooth waves, and offers eight notes of polyphony. Despite the single-oscillator architecture, the company say that applying a frequency offset to the waveforms in order to detune them results in some surprisingly huge sounds. A four-pole low-pass filter follows, and benefits from a subtle amount of resonance and a simple attack and release envelope.
Polyphonic and Arpeggiator control modes are available, allowing users to either play each of the synth’s eight notes individually, or take advantage of the onboard monophonic arpeggiator sequence held notes in a variety of patterns. The rear panel houses a USB host socket, making it possible to connect USB MIDI controllers directly to the instrument.
Artium Instruments have managed to squeeze a surprising amount of functionality into the instrument, including no fewer than four effects processors that each have their own dedicated amount controls. A delay, reverb and chorus are joined by a freeze effect that captures a 1000ms sample of audio before processing and layering it to create an infinite drone. The Swarm features an audio input, allowing external sources to be passed through its effects along with the instrument’s own audio signal.
Availability
The Swarm is available now, priced at $379.10.
