Orchid is a retro and accessible hipster synth

In 2017, I bought an old one Magnus chord organ off Craigslist for $10. It’s one of my favorite places to buy music. Electronics strong limbs allowing you to play all the songs with the click of a button, making them perfect for those who want to sing or fool around at home. But musical instruments fell out of favor in the 80s, as digital keyboards like Casio’s became popular.

Telepathic equipment Orchid trying to retrieve some of the magic weapons from the arena. Like the old electronic devices, Orchid allows you to play the game without having to learn a lot of emotions or difficult fingers. It is not a tool that requires expertise. It’s a way for songwriters to capture ideas with little fuss, and it enhances the band’s legacy with a modern twist.

Orchid was developed in collaboration with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. In terms of style, it sounds like ’60s brown and purple parts as a favorite Magnus and Bontempi. The speaker grill also matches the fans on this high-end device. It’s a spiritual replacement, just, you know, more the most expensive at $649.

But while the Magnus organ is limited to how much a single reed can play and how many reeds it can hold, the entire Orchid is digital and can play any song, at any sound, from any scale. It also means that Orchid can be understood as more than just beauty droney cousin of the accordion.

For a songwriter, this means you can focus on your vocals and vocal music. If, like me, you struggle to sing and play an instrument at the same time, this can take a lot of stress away. The range of sounds also means that not everything needs to sound like a funeral or a campfire, which is not the case with an old school organ.

If you have only a little knowledge of music theory (and it would be generous to call mine passing), you should have no problem with Orchid. There is a one-octave keyboard and a few buttons to the left of it that correspond to different types of music, for example, major, minor, minor, major 7, etc. Click C and major, and you will get C major. Press F# and 9, and you’ll get F#9. Simple.

Orchid can hold your hand if you want (and I do often). You can lock Orchid to a specific key, so that it only plays in the key of E minor or Bb major. This means that almost anything you play will sound crisp and clear. If your understanding of chord theory is limited, this can expand your sonic palette with little frustration. I often found myself using a chord engine to find a progression that I liked as the backbone of a song that I could build on top of and play in my studio.

But Orchid can do more than just release music in one block. It has strum, harp, and arpeggiator, plus 13 presets. My personal favorite (as it’s called) is “slop,” which creates small errors that mimic a person playing a chord, not a machine. The more you expand it, the more sensitive the text becomes.

Vintage organs have a unique sound, not too different beautiful accordionthat, even 40 years later, they were still inspiring artists like El-P. But the orchid can make a lot of noise.

There are three simple synth engines under the hood: one is an analog (VA) synth, another is FM for ’80s-style e-pianos and bells, and finally, a reed piano, great for Wurlitzer sounds, but can also give you Rhodes electric piano tones. I often found myself shooting warped and shaky paper on the VA engine and using the Orchid almost like a fidget toy, flicking it on easy motions when I needed to focus. You can connect the Orchid to a computer or other synth and use it as a MIDI controller if you want to get its single keys but big sound.

There are 70 presets (excluding bass patches, which we’ll get to in a minute) built into Orchid, and they cover most of your bases. That’s a good thing, because there are few ways to edit the text directly on Orchid. You can adjust the cutoff of the filter or even adjust the size of effects like reverb or phaser, but that’s about it. In fact, if you want to make your own patches, you have to spend $99 per Pistil real synth ($50 included with Orchid), which can send audio to Orchid. I’ve found Pistil to be a little buggy, and the UI often freezes 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 the basics, from low octave pianos to Moog-style synth bass, tuned 808s, and aggressive EDM drones. They can be layered with major keys to add subtle depth to chord progressions or played solo.

The choices to accompany the Orchid can be more complex than a simple music system. If you’re not locked to a specific key, and you’re setting the bass to play along with the chords, then you can have the low thump locked to keep the flow going, and add a nice melody over the top without the bass while you’re not pressing any chord buttons. Although because of how Orchid handles polyphony – you can’t play multiple keys at once – this can be more annoying than useful, depending on the patch. If a patch has a long decay time, for example, the chords will suddenly cut off when you try to play your note. It’s a good idea to use the built-in recorder, which allows you to record vocals, basslines, and vocals separately, for a little more flexibility.

I am a master of drum machine. It is very small. You can’t make a custom beat, you can’t change the sound. However I think it’s normal, although it would be nice to have the option to select user inputted beats within Pistil. It is also inspired by the old instruments of the 70s, namely the Korg-like sound system. Mini Pop Pictures who sang pre-recorded songs to accompany the household organs. The lo-fi, almost twee sound of this machine is one of my favorite drum machines in the world.

Orchid is fun, sounds great, and is easy to use. But they are very few. You can’t create your own sounds without paying extra for Pistil software. The keyboard is small, and you can’t play music: You can play one key at a time, and all the 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 do it on an Orchid keyboard. This is a bit disappointing, and one of the biggest differences between them is the vintage chord organ. It varies from model to model, but my Magnus organ has dedicated buttons for Bb, F, C, A, D, and G major chords. Of course, I can always play any song I want using Magnus’ two-octave keyboard.

There are very capable synths in the $649 price range. But the orchid is not trying to compete with Korg Minilogue or Arturia MiniFreak. If you want to fix and patch your startup, spend your money elsewhere. Orchid flowers are not just for the eyes. It’s more of a songwriting tool than a synth. If you’re a singer/songwriter looking to escape the sounds of acoustic guitars or upright pianos, Orchid offers an accessible, if expensive, electronic alternative.