MemoryTone by XILS-Lab

video upload by xilslab

"MemoryTone by XILS-lab unleashes a colossal three-oscillator-per-voice analog architecture—with 16-voice polyphony and up to 18 oscillators in unison—then propels it beyond its 1982 inspiration with expanded modulation, MPE, advanced arpeggiation, integrated effects, and modern sound-design capabilities."

via XILS-Lab

MEMORYTONE: THEY CALLED IT MAGIC.

MemoryTone is XILS-lab’s exploration of one of analogue synthesis’s most ambitious instruments — a sixteen-voice polyphonic architecture built around three oscillators per voice and a 24 dB/octave self-oscillating ladder filter.

With eighteen oscillators across sixteen voices, combinable waveforms, oscillator sync, pulse-width control and a deeply interactive signal path, its character begins long before effects enter the picture. Oscillators interact. Levels influence behaviour. Voices move. The filter responds to everything that came before it.

MemoryTone takes that architecture further with expanded modulation, MPE, an advanced arpeggiator and a flexible effects environment, opening the instrument to sounds and ways of playing that extend far beyond its original era.

THEY CALLED IT MAGIC. WE WANTED TO KNOW WHY.

INTERESTING FACTS

Introduced in 1982, the original Memorymoog brought together six independent analogue voices, three oscillators per voice and a 24 dB/octave filter for each voice — 18 oscillators in total.

Notable artists including Jan Hammer, Geoff Downes, Jon Lord and David Bryan brought its unmistakable character into electronic music, progressive rock and some of the defining productions of the 1980s.

Its original factory programming involved pioneering synthesizer figures including Wendy Carlos, Herbert Deutsch and Jan Hammer.

MemoryTone goes beyond recreating the original architecture, modelling the subtle interactions between oscillators, voices, levels and filter behaviour that give the instrument its analogue character.

Expanded modulation, MPE, an advanced arpeggiator and a flexible effects architecture take that character far beyond what was possible in 1982.

HIGHLIGHTS

18 OSCILLATORS. SIXTEEN VOICES. ONE EXTRAORDINARY INSTRUMENT.

Three oscillators for every voice. Eighteen when all sixteen are sounding.
One of the most ambitious analogue architectures of its era.
MemoryTone brings that scale back.

THE ORIGINAL FACTORY SOUNDS. BACK IN THEIR ELEMENT.

The sounds created to reveal what this extraordinary architecture could do are part of MemoryTone too.
Brass. Strings. Basses. Leads. Keys. The sounds that introduced a generation to the instrument.
Not samples of the past. The sounds, alive inside the instrument again.

IMPERFECTION DOESN’T NEED TO SHOUT.

Analogue is often recreated by making everything drift.
The real instrument told a subtler story.
The variations XILS-lab encountered were often remarkably restrained — tiny differences between oscillators and voices that created movement without announcing themselves as an effect.
Sometimes accuracy means doing less.

BUILT IN 1982. READY FOR SOUNDS 1982 NEVER HEARD.

The architecture became famous for enormous brass, strings, basses and pads.
But eighteen oscillators, sync, audio-rate modulation and the possibilities MemoryTone opens can take it somewhere else entirely.
Metallic textures. Percussion. Unstable harmonics. Cinematic movement. Modern electronic sounds.
Built in another era. Not confined to it.