Orchid is an ancient and delightful hipster compound

In 2017, I bought the old one Magnus chord organ Off Craigslist for $10. It’s one of my favorite music equipment purchases. electrical Tendon organs It allows you to play full chords with just the push of a button, making it perfect for aspiring singer-songwriters or for tinkering at home. But string organs largely lost popularity in the 1980s, with the increasing popularity of digital keyboards such as those produced by Casio.

Telepathy tools Orchid It tries to recapture some of the magic of a simple salon tool. Just like those old electric stringed instruments, the Orchid allows you to play rich chord progressions without having to master a lot of theory or complex fingering. It is not a tool that requires mastery. It’s a way for songwriters to sketch out ideas with a minimum of fuss, and it expands on the heritage of the string organ with a distinctly modern twist.

Orchid was designed in collaboration with Kevin Parker from Tame Impala. Aesthetically, it harkens back to the brown and tan 1960s by the likes of Magnus and Bontempi. The speaker grille resembles the fan vents found on those classic machines. It’s definitely a spiritual successor, just, you know, a lot More expensive at $649.

But where the Magnus organ is limited in the number of single-button strings it can play by the number of physical reeds it can hold, the Orchid is all digital and can theoretically play any string, in any volume, of any scale. This also means that the orchid can sound more than just pretty The accordion’s cousin is the drone.

For a songwriter, this means you can focus on the lyrics and vocal melody. If, like me, you have difficulty singing and playing an instrument at the same time, this can take a huge mental load off. The variety of sounds also means that not everything needs to sound like a funeral dirge or a sea shanty, which isn’t necessarily the case with an old-fashioned string organ.

If you have even a passing knowledge of music theory (and it would be generous to consider mine to be a passing knowledge), you won’t have much of a problem with Orchid. There’s a one-octave keyboard and a handful of buttons to its left that correspond to different chord types, e.g., major, minor, diminished, major 7, and so on. Press C major, and you get C major. Press F# and 9, and you get F#9. basic.

An orchid can really hold your hand if you want it (and I usually do). You can lock the orchid to a specific key, so that it only plays the strings in the key of E minor or Bb major. This means that almost anything you play will sound at least decent and in tune. If your understanding of string theory is limited, this can expand your color palette with minimal frustration. I often found myself using the chord driver to find a progression I liked as the backbone of a track that I could build upon when jamming in my studio.

But orchids can do more than just blow out strings in a single mass. It has instrument, ukulele and arpeggio chord modes, as well as 13 different pre-programmed patterns. My favorite performance mode (as it’s called) is “Ramp,” which introduces small random timing imperfections that approximate a human actually playing the string, rather than an instrument. The higher you turn up the volume, the more unevenly the notes will be hit.

Ancient string organs have a unique drone sound, not unlike a privet Loud accordionEven after 40 years, he still inspires artists like him L-P. But the orchid can make a wide range of sounds.

There are three simple synth engines under the hood: one is a virtual analogue (VA) synth, one is an FM synth for 80s-style electronic piano and chimes, and finally, a reed piano, perfect for getting Wurlitzer sounds, but it can also give you nice Rhodes electric piano tones as well. I often found myself running distorted, heavily reverbed pads on the VA engine and using the Orchid almost like a fidget toy, spaghetti on simple chord progressions when I needed to focus. You can always connect the Orchid to a computer or other synthesizer and use it as a MIDI controller if you want access to its one-key chords but to a wider palette of sounds.

There are 70 presets (excluding bass corrections, which we’ll get to in a minute) built into Orchid, and they cover most of your bases. It’s a good thing, too, because there are very few ways to modify sounds directly on Orchid. You can change the filter cutoff or adjust the intensity of effects like reverb or phase, but that’s about it. Alternatively, if you want to design your own patches, you’ll need to spend $99 for that pistil Virtual Synth ($50 included with Orchid), which can send custom sounds to Orchid. I found Pistil to be a bit buggy, and the UI would often freeze after transferring patches.

Orchid also has a dedicated bass section, separate from the main synth, which you can turn on and off. There are only 12 sounds, but they cover most of the basics, from low electric piano octaves to Moog-style synth bass, synth-tuned 808s, and aggressive EDM highs. They can be layered with major keys to add subtle depth to a chord progression or played solo.

Accompaniment options are where the orchid can get a little more complex than just a simple string instrument. If you don’t lock it to a specific key, and set the bass to play only with the strings, you can lock the low note of your chord progression, and still add melodic textures on top without the bass when you’re not pressing any of the chord buttons. Although, given how Orchid handles polyphony — you can’t play multiple keys at once — this can be more frustrating than helpful, depending on the patch. For example, if a patch has a long decay period, the strings will suddenly break if you try to play a solo note. You’re better off using the built-in audio looper, which lets you record string progressions, bass lines and melodies separately, for more flexibility.

I’m very excited about the built-in drum machine. It’s very limited. You can’t program a custom beat, nor can you tweak the sounds. However, I think it’s basically perfect, even if it would have been nice to have the option of user-uploaded tunes from within Pistil. It’s once again inspired by vintage gear from the 70s, specifically percussion machines like the Korg Mini pops which played pre-programmed rhythms to accompany the house organs. The tui-like sound of these instruments is among my favorite sounds in the world of drum machines.

Orchids are fun, look good, and are easy to use. But it’s also very limited. You can’t design your own sounds without paying extra for Pistil. The keyboard is small, and you can’t actually play chords on it: you can only play one key at a time, and all the chord sounds come from the chord buttons on the left. This means that if you know how to play Dm13 on a piano, for example, you won’t be able to play it on an orchid keyboard. This is a bit annoying, and one of the main differences between it and the old string organ. It varies from model to model, but my personal Magnus only has dedicated buttons for the Bb, F, C, A, D, and G major chords. Of course, I can always play any chord I want using the regular octave Magnus keyboard.

There are much more capable fixtures in the $649 price range. But the orchid is not trying to compete with Minilog Korg or Arturia Minefric. If you want to modify and design your own composite patches from scratch, spend your money elsewhere. Orchids are not for tinkering. It’s more of a songwriting tool than a synthesis tool. If you’re a singer or songwriter looking to escape the usual cliché of acoustic guitars or upright pianos, Orchid offers a friendly, if pricey, electronic option.