Note the above demos and following description are from March 5, 2025. I spotted the Elfin in Hainbach's A Hundred Suns, posted below. There appears to be two synths, an Elfin-08: 8-Voice Functional Prototype Synthesizer, and an Elfin-04 Polysynth.
[pic from FEBRUARY 18, 2026 via https://hideawaystudio.net]
"Introducing Elfin-04, Hideaway Studio's Compact New 4-Voice Polysynth...
I have been working round the clock for weeks now on my dinky little 8-bit 4-Voice (4 x [2osc+1sub+LFO]) VA Poly Expander with 1960's style transformer-mixed output voicing and finally No's.000 thru 010 are born to the world and receiving very positive feedback from their new owners...... this 4-voice polysynth measuring just 16x12x3cm has full real-time control over her 32 parameters via simple midi ccs and 16 built-in patches.
Based on an expanded form of a customized software synth-core design by ISGK in Japan, I think the Elfin-04's unique voice ouput/mixing transformers do add something for sure - they are driven full-swing with 60KHz PWM resulting in a lot of additional harmonics/mirror frequencies and some saturation that all gets trapped within the transformers which adds a richness/darkness to the sound (no-doubt inspired in part by my beloved DK Synergy). In the Elfin-04, the 4 voices are passively mixed but, unusually, by the topology of the output-transformers themselves which is a trick that used to be found in some more exotic 1960s valve test equipment where multiple signal outputs were mixed on isolated outputs (eg. my huge old Panoramic TTG-2 tube Dual Sinewave Generator). Also, each voice CPU is independently clocked so everything is genuinely free-wheeling across the voices so even the noise phases slowly when played on multiple notes and unison which is pretty cool.
All Sound Design & Recordings Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.
NEWS UPDATE: The second batch of 20 pre-production Elfin-04 poly expanders are in final-assembly and I am now taking pre-orders for delivery in January 2026. A new Patch Editor/Librarian App & VST/AU plugin with full automation has also been developed complete with a new library of over 250 sound patches for Win/Mac/Linux which is free to all Elfin-04 and 08 owners.
Any questions, please PM me here on S/C or to EF86 on GearSpace.
Release Date:
5 March 2025"
And with the pic from 2026 via https://hideawaystudio.net
"A lot has been going on behind the scenes at Hideaway Studio over the past year. I’ve been working very hard on a couple of exciting new design projects, one of which has in part, very much demanded my passion for sound design but this time on a few hardware designs of my own. More details to follow soon.."
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