Modal Electronics Argon 8 £579

Modal always make interesting synths and the Argon 8 carries on that tradition. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman tries their latest creation…

Modal Electronics are a Bristol-based synth design company who already have a solid range of well-respected synths, ranging from their smaller four-voice virtual analog Skulpt, through the monophonic wavetable-based Craft, to their flagships – the 002 hybrid poly and 008 analog poly. Having the lower-end and higher-end markets covered with these models, there was an obvious gap in their product line which needed filling with something a little cheaper (but still with bags of power and with a high-quality build and sound in mind). Filling that gap is their latest synth, the digital, polyphonic Argon 8.

So what’s the Argon 8 all about then? Well in a word: wavetables! To quickly summarise this form of synthesis: imagine a single cycle waveform that instead of being just a single saw or square, is instead a lookup table of several waveforms together, often sampled from many different sources (so a single wavetable oscillator may contain several different waves in itself). These sampled waveforms are placed into the lookup wavetable and can then be modulated smoothly or abruptly in various ways using LFOs, envelopes or any other modifiers found onboard. Whilst you can achieve ‘normal’-sounding static waveforms by keeping the wavetable position static, modulating the position and other aspects, or using modifiers across the tables, can result in amazing evolving textures.