Hideaway Studio - The Orbitone Collection I & II
The 1972 Eminent 310 Unique was a very unusual mix of combo organ and string synthesizer in its own right but what was particularly special about it was the triple parallel analog chorus processor with 6 free running clock modulating LFOs better known as the Orbitone.
It is this complex multi-path analog effect that makes the famous strings on the 310U so very special and slightly simplified technology was later used to good effect in the Solina and ARP Omni string synthesizers.
It was originally developed to effectively make one rank of sawtooths become three with a high degree of movement without resorting to the very significant expense and complexity of three full divide down chains with independent master oscillators.
Being a self confessed boffin it suddenly occurred to me one day that I had a fantastically rare opportunity on my hands to attempt to feed 1938 Novachord 346 through the Orbitone stages on the Eminent.
After consulting the 310U’s sea of schematics for some time I determined a potentially suitable point to inject an external audio signal. To my delight this resulted in quite simply some of the most organic synth strings I’ve ever heard..
All those lumps bumps and imperfections are thrown into a rich soup of analog processing and the result is truly delicious!
Analog Effects
Now armed with this monstrous analog effects processor I got curious and fed a number of other sources through it including one instrument that is known to be a little weedy in isolation namely the little CS-01 monosynth. As well as the Novachord I sampled offerings from new patches I dialled up via the 310U Orbitone stages from the Juno-106, CS-01, Crumar Bit One and Omega 8. In addition to this some new sampled material was taken from the instruments via an analog chorus unit including a series of brass and guitar timbres.
Some of the guitar sounds were also created by passing Minimoog 7751 and the Bit One through a 1960’s Echo-Reverb featuring a tube buffered electrostatic Tel-ray “Oil Can” delay unit. A further resonator choir was made by feeding the Juno-106 through the rehoused Polymoog Formant Resonator. In addition, a combination of organ stops were sampled directly from the Eminent and a further harpsichord patch was dialled into Polymoog 203A 3211 courtesy of Will Gregory of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp.
Orbitone Collection II utilizes the same proven 4-voice layering engine as the original release but operating on a brand new sample set constructed using a different combination of source instruments and techniques.
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System Requirements
**The FULL version of Kontakt 5.8.1 is required.**
Mac
- macOS 10.14 or higher
- 64 bit
- Intel Core i5 or Apple M1 (native)
- RAM: 4GB (6GB recommended)
Windows
- Windows 10 or higher
- 64 bit
- Intel Core i5 or similar CPU
- RAM: 4GB (6GB recommended)
Supported Interfaces
- Mac (64-bit only): Stand-alone, VST, VST3, AU, AAX
- Windows (64-bit): Stand-alone, VST, VST3, AAX