Is Micro-TS The Latest World's Smallest Synth?

If you're not a fan of slim keys on your synths you might not be a fan of this super, super small (but functional) synthesizer, Micro-TS, But it appears to be the world's smallest synthesizer now!

As a proof of concept the work being done by Jan Ostman of DSP Synthesizers is eye-catching. The Tiny-TS credit card sized synth was a revelation. And it's been developed into a more usable form factor now available at Hackster.io. And it appears to have lost its claim as the smallest synth in the world now that Micro-TS has arrived.

To be fair the Tiny-TS is a capable synth considering its size. Its synthesis method is "Resonant Peak Modeling” modifing 2 sine waves to simulate a resonant low-pass filter which is similar to FM synthesis. Jan explains “the synthesizer parameter knobs includes: DCO: Coarse pitch and Double. The CV out follows the keyboard and coarse pitch. DCF: Filter peak and ENVmod. ENV: Attack and Release affecting amplitude."

Micro-TS has the same specs as Tiny-TS.

Jan says his new Micro-TS has all the same spec as the Tiny-TS... but it's just that much smaller. If you think the Tiny-TS was too small, then you're not going to be a fan of the Micro version! It is the size of a key fob: 61x41mm.

There are no videos of the Micro-TS in action just yet, but assuming it is exactly the same as the Tiny-TS, here's a video of it making sounds:

 

 

Synthesis 101
The Filter
by Bob Moog Foundation

"Rounik is the Executive Editor for Ask.Audio & macProVideo. He's built a crack team of professional musicians and writers to create one of the most visited online resources for news, review, tutorials and interviews for modern musician and producer. As an Apple Certified Trainer for Logic Pro Rounik has taught teachers, professional..." Read More

Discussion

ivandub
Just because it's possible to miniaturize just about anything these days doesn't mean you should. There comes a point when things become so small that they are just impractical to use. A good case in point would be Apple's obsession with making their laptops thinner and thinner so that eventually they had to eliminate all the useful ports that professionals tend to need. Getting back to synths, maybe I'm old fashioned but I like something to be big enough that the keys are playable and the controls can be grabbed and manipulated easily. For a synth with keys, something like the Arturia Microbrute is about as small as I would want to go. But, hey...that's just me. :-)

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