Demo: REON Driftbox-R Limited by Roland (Green)

Published on Jul 5, 2015 Patrick OBrien

"Here's a playing demo of the REON Driftbox R Limited Analog Monosynth, going through each knob and switch, followed by a modular beat at the end. This is Roland's new analog synthesizer, officially released in July 2015 without fanfare. This synth is an updated version of the original REON DriftBox, except it has Aira green coloring.

I own a modular synthesizer so the big selling point for me was having the CV and gate inputs to work seamlessly with my other gear. Some people wish this had MIDI. There are no MIDI ports.

Manufacturer Description:
- VCO 1 has controls for frequency, level and modulation depth.

- HIGH/LOW switches between octaves. Frequency range: 0.2Hz-10kHz

- The WAVE switch selects in a rotating fashion one of the wave forms: sawtooth // triangle // 50% pulse // 75% pulse // 25% pulse // white noise // pink noise

- EG/FM selects either the envelope generator or the second VCO as modulation source.

- VCO 2 is pretty much the same as VCO1 but has only two selectable waveforms (sawtooth and 50% square) and different modulation options (sync or FM by VCO1).

- The CV LINK switch routes the external CV for VCO1 to input of VCO2 as well.

- The filter is a resonant, 24db/octave steep low pass filter. The resonance goes into oscillation. The modulation source for the cutoff can be either the envelope or an external CV; the modulation intensity is adjustable. Two more switches determine if and which VCO is used for filter cutoff modulation.

- The envelope is working either as an AD or an ASR, the middle control D/S determines either the decay time or the sustain level. When envelopes overlap, an interesting percussion effect occurs which prevails in the mix.

- The INV/NOR switch can invert the envelope. The modulation depth to the VCA is set with the "EG depth" potentiometer.

- HOLD opens the VCA and the VOL control sets the output level. The output switch is used for muting the synth.

- The white TRIG button allows you to fire the envelope manually and it generates a gate signal at the gate output socket.

Details:
- 5V DC power inlet
- CV inputs: VCOs 1+2 (1V/oct, 0-10V) and VCF cutoff (0-10V)
- Gate input, gate output (0-5V pulses)
- Audio output"