UVI Soundbank Energy

The Synergy had a short commercial run over 3 years, seeing less than 1,000 units produced as it was ultimately obscured by Yamaha’s runaway success with the far cheaper DX7. Actual production numbers are thought to be less than 700 units with very few of those surviving the last 30 years—making it an exceptionally rare instrument.

Rarity, prestigious lineage and pop-culture influence of the Synergy are only part of the intrigue. The Synergy was a conflicted instrument by design, especially for the time of its release. It offered an outrageous 32-oscillator sound engine with dual 16-stage loopable envelopes and a velocity sensitive 74-note keyboard. At the same time it was built with extremely prohibitive editing functionality, to the point of making it appear as more of a preset player than its control-laden contemporaries. While programming the Synergy is far from an intuitive process it is indeed possible and the results can be truly stunning.