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From Our Research Team:

The Evolver Synth - Now with Keys!

Dave Smith, the creator of the legendary Prophet 5, Wavestation, and first soft synth in the world, the driving force behind MIDI, has done it again with his latest innovative synthesizer, destined to be a legend, the Evolver Keyboard.

Dave Smith Instruments Evolver Keyboard at a Glance:

• Keyboard version of the acclaimed Evolver
  
• Great analog/digital hybrid synth

Keyboard version of the acclaimed Evolver
The Evolver Keyboard starts with Dave Smith's acclaimed Evolver synth and adds 37 keys, 58 knobs and a knob-per-functionuser interface. This is a player's synth with control flexibility and sound that no other synth has!

Great analog/digital hybrid synth
The Evolver synthesizer is a monophonic analog/digital hybrid designed by Dave Smith, founder and President of Sequential Circuits (see below for more info on Dave Smith). It has two analog oscillators based on Dave's design for the Prophet 5 and two digital oscillators from his Prophet VS. Evolver also utilizes Curtis 2/4 pole analog lowpass filters as well as real analog VCAs. It is the most versatile synth Dave has ever designed.


Dave Smith Instruments Evolver Keyboard Features:

• 37-key synthesizer with 58 knobs and knpb-per-function user interface
  
• Monophonic (one voice) synthesizer
  
• Four oscillators in total: two analog, two digital
  
• Analog Oscillator waveshape are Sawtooth, Triangle, Saw-Triangle, and Pulse (with voltage-controlled analog Pulse-Width modulation)
  
• Digital Oscillators select from 96 wavetables from the Prophet-VS (128 x 12 bits), and 32 user-loadable (via MIDI) Wavetables (128 x 16 bits). The Digital Oscillators get trashy as the frequency gets higher, as with the original VS
  
• Hard Sync on the analog oscillators
  
• FM and Ring Mod on the digital oscillators
  
• Separate Glide per oscillator, with two glide modes
  
• Real voltage-controlled analog lowpass filters - not digital recreations. 4-pole/2-pole switchable, fully resonant (in 4-pole mode). There are two separate filters, one for the left channel and one for the right
  
• Analog Voltage Controlled Amplifiers (VCA), again one for each channel
  
• Dual digital 4-pole Highpass filters (one per channel); place before or after analog electronics
  
• Stereo audio inputs; Noise generator
  
• Envelope Follower and Peak Detect from External Input to use as modulation sources
  
• External Input can be used to gate envelopes and/or step the Sequencer.
  
• Three snappy ADSR envelopes
  
• Four LFOs (sync with sequencer and MIDI)
  
• Dual (left and right channel) tunable feedback loops; modulate frequency and amount
  
• Delay with 3 taps; each with separate time and amount modulation. Syncs to sequencer/MIDI. Normal feedback and additional feedback path through analog filters
  
• Distortion! Digital, one for each channel, can be placed before or after analog electronics
  
• 3 Banks of 128 Programs for 384 total Programs - dump to/from MIDI
  
• 16 x 4 Analog-style sequencer - syncs with MIDI
  
• Extensive Modulation capabilities, including audio-range modulation. Bipolar (+/-) modulation
  
• Easy to program matrix-style front panel with 8 endless-turn rotary encoders
  
• A bunch of MIDI stuff
  
• Stand-alone editor for PC
  
• The internal computer and DSP chips can be reprogrammed via MIDI, for easy feature additions

Who is Dave Smith?

Dave Smith founded Sequential Circuits, the premier manufacturer of professional music synthesizers, in the mid-70s. In 1977, he designed the Prophet-5, the world's first microprocessor-based musical instrument. This revolutionary product was the world's first polyphonic and programmable synth, and set the standard for all synth designs that have followed. The Prophet instruments played a major part in the recordings of all popular music styles, and are still prized by musicians today.

Dave is also generally known as the driving force behind the generation of the MIDI specification in 1981-in fact, he coined the acronym. In 1987 he was named a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his continuing work in the area of music synthesis. After Sequential, Dave was President of DSD, Inc, an R&D division of Yamaha, where he worked on physical modeling synthesis and software synthesizer concepts. He then started the Korg R&D group in California, which went on to produce the professional musician favorite Wavestation products and other technology.

He then took over as President at Seer Systems and developed the world's first software based synthesizer running on a PC. This synth, commissioned by Intel, was demonstrated by Andy Grove in a Comdex keynote speech in 1994. Over 15 million of his second-generation software synth have been sold via Creative Labs in 1996. The third generation was the world's first professional software synthesizer, Reality, released in 1997. Reality was rated the highest of any synth by Electronic Musician magazine.

In 2001 Dave returned to hardware instrument designs with Dave Smith Instruments. As disposable software synths divide and multiply, Dave prefers to craft unique quality musical instruments with personality that will endure.

A partial list of Dave's products:

• Sequential Circuits
  
• Prophet-5
  
• Prophet-10
  
• Pro-One
  
• Pro-FX
  
• Prophet 600
  
• Prophet T-8
  
• Six Trak
  
• Drumtraks
  
• Prophet 2000
  
• Prophet VS
  
• Studio 440
  
• Prophet 3000
  
• Korg
  
• Wavestation
  
• Seer Systems
  
• Reality

Specification Detail Manufacturer Part Number EVOLVERKEYBOARD