NOVATION Summit
Right from the outset, I’m not doing any Twin Peaks puns. (Okay, bar the one in the intro line above.) But it’s hard not to, because the designers at Novation possibly had this infamous 1990s TV show in mind when they developed their new Summit hybrid synth; it, after all, is two Novation Peaks in one box (I even wonder if their chief designer was a superfan of the show and planned this all along).
So no more Peak puns, and definitely no Agent Cooper quotes (although there are some damn fine ones if you look them up, as I just did). Besides, Summit is not just two Peaks. Yes, there is double Peak power, but Novation has thrown in a lot more. But first, a little recap on Peak which, unbelievably, I looked at over two years ago…
PEAKY BLINDER
Peak is still very much a great synth buy and very much part of Summit. So as I talk about it over the following paragraphs, I will simply say what Peak has – and what Summit adds.
At its core, Peak’s signal path starts with ‘analogue sounding’ NCOs (Numerically Controlled Oscillators). These utilise Novation’s Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processor for a high-resolution performance and the ‘analogue sounding’ phrase is important, as this is a digital synth at heart, with other digital body parts added later. However, the circulation system (if you want to extend the body analogy) is analogue, because the signal takes a true-analogue route through overdrive, filter and distortion sections, adding digital effects later.
The synth’s core oscillators utilise both familiar analogue-style waveforms and numerous extra wavetables. Each voice has
