SIEL CRUISE vintage analog synthesizer

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"The Siel Cruise is a very interesting, great sounding and unusual machine. It's the combination of two Siel synthesizers in one: the Siel Mono (monophonic section) and the Siel Orchestra (polyphonic section). In those days this machine was so appealing that Sequential Circuits acquired its license to release their own re-branded and re-painted version of the Cruise known as the Sequential Fugue. The Poly section was also licensed to ARP, who released it under the name of ARP Quartet.

Interface : The Cruise is a masterpiece of vintage Italian design: beautiful to see, effective and very intuitive. The front panel has a lot of graphical information printed on it to clearly designate the Mono section functions from the Poly section features, as well as signal flow charts to help the user understand how the sounds are internally routed.

But what makes the Cruise interface special, is the visual feedback from the control leds: when you select a Poly instrument or choose between Mono Preset/Free, the synth dynamically turns on/off the leds showing only the controls that can be used with that specific setting. A truly pioneering concept in late 70s analog synthesizers, a simple and brilliant feature that has become a standard in modern software synthesizers.

Mono Section : The Mono section is a monophonic synthesizer driven by a single M110B1 SGS oscillator (the same of Jen SX-1000 and Crumar Composer) and featuring a very fast ADSR filter/volume envelope, a self-oscillating LowPass filter with cutoff and resonance, and Vibrato effect with depth and speed controls. Pitch-bend and Portamento are available for the Mono section only.

The Mono section can operate in two modes : Free and Preset. In Free Mode you can choose between 10 different waveforms and use all the available controls. In Preset mode the sound sources are called by instrument names (Bass Tuba, Trombone, Guitar..) and each "preset" basically use the same waveforms available in Free Mode, with just few minor static filter/attack settings. In Preset Mode you can use all the available controls with the exception of Resonance and, in some case, Attack.

Thanks to the very fast envelope and the self-oscillating filter, the Mono section can generate punchy basses and razor-sharp synth leads but also analog percussions and cool monophonic drone sounds. The monophonic section surprisingly generates clear-cut lush sounds wich, however, become wilder as the cutoff and resonance are set to their extreme values.

Poly Section : The Poly section is a fully polyphonic string machine, based on octave divide-down technology used in other string/orchestral machines and organized in 4 parts: Brass, Strings, Reeds and Piano.

Brass : This section features two selectable instruments at different octaves (Trombone + Trumpet) with independent volume Attack and Filter Cutoff. This section implements also two switch-sliders to activate a fixed Resonance and a filter Crescendo. The Brass section can generate very warm and sharp polyphonic synth leads but you just need to activate the Animator effect (an analog BBD chorus) to amazingly convert them in massive analog strings.

Strings : This section is the only one implementing a fixed amount of BBD chorus effect (Animator). Here we have two sound sources at different octaves (Cello and Violin) with independent volume Attack and Release. The switch-sliders "Percuss" activates a sort of pizzicato effect to the sounds. The Cruise strings sound absolutely warm, organic and sometimes obscure and they found place in Portishead, 808 States and Massive Attack music.

Reeds : This section implements 3 sound sources (Accordion, Musette and Church Organ) with independent volume Attack and fixed short release. The combination of the 3 sounds and the Animator effect can generate a wide range of analog organs and key sounds.

Piano : This section consists of 3 sounds (Piano, Clavi Chord and Honky Tonk) with their own character also played singularly and without the Animator effect. The volume Release, the only available control, is very powerful since it can range from very short to extremely long (up to 10 seconds)."