Published
Sun, Aug 20, 2023, 12:00
- Manatee, from Fred's Lab, has raised more than €75,000 in two weeks.
A new "proudly digital" synth from a small European company is going into production.
Manatee, from Fred's Lab, launched on Kickstarter earlier this month and secured its goal of €60,000 in less than two days.
Manatee uses spectral synthesis—a type of additive synthesis—along with virtual analogue filters and FM algorithms to create sound. It offers up to 16 voices of polyphony and it's four-part multitimbral, which means it can play four different sounds at once. This is a feature that was popular with synths around 20 years ago, before modern, audio-recording DAWs made it less relevant.
Indeed, Fred's Lab says it distilled various design elements from classic digital synths of the '90s and early 2000s, such as the Access Virus and Nord Lead, to create Manatee.
The new synth also has a bank of FX, including a delays, resonators, EQs and a reverb, plus a ring modulator, noise generators, a saturation module, two envelopes, a flexible LFO and a three-slot modulation matrix for each voice.
Fred's Lab was set up in 2016 by Frédéric Meslin, who had worked as an instrument designer and engineer for Arturia, Waldorf Music, Kiviak, Mutable Instruments and others. The company has previously made three pocket-sized synths called Buzzzy!, Töörö and ZeKit, all of which were funded through Kickstarter.
The funding platform has been a successful tool this year for many new synth designers. Multiple projects have launched on Kickstarter and quickly secured a large backing, which may mean more grassroots companies and left-field electronic instruments continue to enter the market.
Watch a video about Manatee.
Manatee is expected to ship in February 2024 and currently costs €635.