Choose a waveform for the drone, tune it up to get the most out of it. Select another one for the main voice and play it using the 12-tone keyboard or external MIDI controller. Add modulation if you want - from FM radio if you feel lucky, or via line input or a WAV file for the exact result you are looking for. Spice it with effects, and record everything to the SD card, so nothing from your sonic journey is ever lost.
Adjust the main drone frequency using one of the knobs. Add harmonics by precisely tuning fractional delays, flangers and reverbs. Play on the keyboard using pre-defined scales, with the base note following the main frequency in a quantized manner, or go wild and let the pitch follow the polyphonic aftertouch, kraakdoos style.
The most important demos appear here, you can find more on our YouTube channel.
Siluria is polyphonic, multi-timbral synthesizer with a few classic effects. It is fully controllable via MIDI, and can act as a MIDI controller too. In addition to built-in sound engines, external signal can be processed by effects, or used as a modulation source. There are three audio input streams to choose from: FM radio, line-in and WAV files imported through the SD card.
Among the connectors at the back side you can find a USB-C supply port for power and data transfer, to download recorded WAV files or install firmware updates. When plugged into a computer, the unit appears as a mass storage disk.
There are also six 3.5mm Jack connectors: audio In & Out, MIDI In & Out, a separate output from the FM Radio (unprocessed signal), and an external antenna connector. There is a built-in half wavelength antenna, but if it's not enough, you can add a longer one.
A small white OLED display, located in the side panel above the connectors, will help you to navigate the settings, such as FM radio tuning, volume levels, or MIDI configuration.
Inside there is a powerful dual-core RISC-V processor ticking at 1GHz, with 512MB memory, and a Hi-Fi audio codec running at 48,000Hz sampling rate.
Let us explain a few things about Siluria which might not be immediately obvious.
The headphone connector is very standard 3.5mm jack, you can also connect the output to an amplifier, mixer or active speakers. There is no built-in speaker. Given the complexity of sounds that you can get, the quality of such speaker would be inadequate.
You can power it from any standard 5V sources, power banks, computer's USB ports and various adapters. There are no special requirements, the current drawn is low (around 160mA) so even a relatively small power bank will last for entire day of operation. The power connector is of USB-C type.
There is no rechargeable battery installed mainly because of the shipping restrictions. Also, this synth is intended to be primarily used on a desk, rather than carried around - however, portability is easily achieved using external power banks. For skilled DIY-ers it is possible to add charging module and a 3.7V Lithium Polymer cell, to have it charged from the USB. This modification requires soldering.
To not cause any delays, early adopters will receive the firmware as it exists by the time of shipping (which will do everything that was shown in the demos, plus a few more things). Updates are very easy to install. All you need to do is plug the Siluria to your computer via USB cable, it will show up as a removable disk drive, you download a file from our website, save it to that drive, and apply the update using the menu (there is a small OLED display at the side to make this as easy as possible). Transfering recorded material from Siluria to your computer is just as simple.
In your package you will get:
The pictures below show the recent prototype. The front panel is identical to production version, only it has little bit less margin at edges. What you will receive will be closes to the very first image on this page, with the knobs installed according to your choice.
The touch surface is black with gold plating on exposed metal. It might appear bluish on some photos but that is because they were taken outside under the blue sky, which reflects in it a little bit. All photos below are of the same front panel, under different lighting conditions.
