Novation Peak Polyphonic Desktop Synthesizer

From Novation:

Peak sounds warm and rich with filthy, biting overdrive. It's an eight-voice desktop polyphonic synthesiser with three New Oxford Oscillators for each voice. The synth has a resonant multi-mode analogue filter for each voice, and three distortion points in an analogue signal chain.

Peak’s design consultant was none other than Chris Huggett, the man behind Bass Station, Supernova, OSCar and many more legendary synths. Peak has its origin in the Bass Station II analogue monosynth, and Peak’s oscillators sound completely analogue by being high-quality NCOs (Numerically-Controlled Oscillators), but gain the flexibility of the digital domain with 60 digital wavetables.

Broaden out your electronic music, draw in new influences and take artistic risks. The modulation system puts the most frequently used assignments right at your fingertips in the main controls. More elaborate movements and secondary ‘via’ assignments are made just a few menu button presses away.

You can plug Peak into your Mac or PC via USB and start playing. It also has MIDI I/O on five-pin DIN ports, so you can connect your other MIDI gear. Oh, and did we mention it connects to modular systems via a CV modulation input?

The Wavetable Editor unleashes the power of the wavetable oscillators. It features drawing tools and a Live Edit mode, so you can draw your own oscillator shapes and preview them in real time. Audio import lets you load in your own audio to be used as the oscillator waveform. Included is a curated selection of space-themed audio from the NASA sound library, plus exclusive content from production giants Noisia.

Firmware v2.0 Features:

Stereo
New spread modes, panning per voice, and panning in the mod matrix give additional control and allows for sound design in the stereo field. Now you can create bigger, wider, and more intricately textured soundscapes.

Modulation and unpredictability
Create deeper and more experimental sounds with new mod destinations, noise as a mod source, and additional LFO 3 and 4 parameters. Animate Envelopes and Arpeggiator Chance open more creative performance possibilities.

Effects
New effects, including Chorus Modes, Flanger, and Phlanger add new tonalities. Additional effects modulation destinations open up more experimental sound design. A new Lo-Fi delay mode enables a more vintage style sound.

Bug Fixes
The firmware update v2.0 includes a number of bug fixes. The full details can be found in the release notes.

Summit and Peak firmware v2.0 is the last addition to the legacy of Chris Huggett’s innovative synth design work with Novation. Having shaped the sound of Novation’s iconic synths – including Bass Station, Supernova, Bass Station II, Peak and Summit, Chris has left an indelible imprint on Novation’s heritage, and we will always be grateful for his influence and inspiration.

Product Hardware Specifications

• 42 Control knobs
• 8 35mm Sliders
• 1 Volume knob
• 2 Data encoders
• Rubberised knob caps with spun metal discs
• 30 Function buttons (not lit)
• 16 Function buttons (lit)
• 2 Animate buttons plus hold button
• 90 Indicator LEDs
• OLED display
• Kensington Security Slot
• Power switch
• Power supply connector
• USB B 2.0 / MIDI comms only (no bus-power)
• MIDI In / Out / Thru
• 2 1/4" jack socket for continuous or switched pedals
• 3.5mm jack socket for CV in
• 1/4" jack sockets for left and right outputs
• 1/4" jack socket for headphone output
• Metal chassis with American walnut wooden end cheeks
• Metal magnetic inset end pieces

Synth Engine

• 8 voice polyphonic (voice modes available unison etc.)
• Mono-Timbral
• 5 Voice Modes - Mono, MonoLG, Mono2, Poly, Poly2

Per voice

• 3 oscillators
• 1 noise generator
• 1 ring modulator
• 2 LFOs
• 1 Amp envelope and 2 mod envelopes
• 1 Filter

Waveforms include:

• Sine, tri, sawtooth, square / pulse plus 17 wavetables of 5 waveforms per row

Filter

• 1x State variable OTA filter per voice
• 12/24dB slope
• Low-pass / band-pass / high-pass
• Pre-filter overdrive
• Post-filter distortion

Modulation

• 16 modulation slots per patch
• Each slot has 2 sources to 1 destination

Mod sources (17)

• Direct (depth)
• Modulation wheel
• Aftertouch (polyphonic and channel AT)
• Expression pedal 1
• Expression pedal 2
• Keyboard velocity
• LFO1 positive
• LFO1 bi-polar
• LFO2 positive
• LFO2 bi-polar
• Amp envelope
• Mod envelope 1
• Mod envelope 2
• Animate 1
• Animate 2
• CV mod input bi-polar

Mod destinations (37)

• Oscillator 1-3 frequency, v-sync level, shape amount and level
• Noise source level
• Ring modulator output level
• Overal synth output level
• Filter drive, distortion, cut-off frequency and resonance
• LFO 1 and 2 frequency
• Amp env / mod env 1 / mod env 2 attack, decay and release
• FM Osc 1 -> osc 2, osc 2 -> osc 3, osc 3 -> osc 1 and noise -> osc 1
• Osc 3 -> filter cutoff frequency
• Noise -> filter cutoff frequency

Effects

• Analogue distortion
• Chorus - 3 types
• Delay with 16 types of delay sync, LP and HP damping, slew and stereo
• Reverb - 3 types

Misc

• Arpeggiator w/ key latch – 33 patterns
• Patch storage - up to 512 on hardware (ships with 256 factory patches)
• Glide
• All knobs (excl. volume), sliders and most buttons transmit and receive MIDI cc commands for external control and mapping

Software Compatibility

• Ableton Live Lite 9 is included
• Peak is a USB-MIDI class compliant device

Power Requirements

• Maximum power consumption 12V DC 1A

Product Dimensions

• 233mm (9.17") width x 464mm (18.27") depth x 70.5mm (2.78") height