The Trigon-6 is a polyphonic analog synthesizer and at the same time the last product in which Sequential founder Dave Smith actively participated. The six-voice polyphonic keyboard instrument ranks itself next to Prophet-6 and OB-6 thanks to the very clear operation and books a big plus for itself in terms of sound. With three almost identical oscillators, the characteristic Sequential Lowpass filter, high quality effects and a modulation section that borrows from Prophet-5, OB-6 and Take 5, the Trigon-6 has the ideal characteristics to become a future classic. The configurable unison mode delivers extremely wide sounds with up to 18 oscillators, which will make every synthesizer fan's eyes light up! The clearly structured panel, the large and well distributed controls and even more so their number show more than clearly that the Trigon-6 is a performance synthesizer with a high fun factor.
The sound generation
Each voice has three discrete analog oscillators, each with three simultaneously activatable waveforms (triangle / sawtooth / square with adjustable pulse width), which form the basic framework of what the Trigon-6 shapes its sounds from. The tone generators 1 and 2 are identically constructed, hardsync is switchable between them. Oscillator 3 also has the fourth waveform "inverted sawtooth" and can be used as an LFO. A noise generator can be added to the tone generators. Before the oscillator mix enters the filter, it can either be slightly roughened with Drive or sent into a feedback loop. The nice basic sound is processed with a 12/24dB Lowpass filter full of character, which corresponds to the sound of the Sequential sound culture.
Modulation
On the left of the control panel the modulations are assigned. The LFO is given the most space here, it has five waveforms and is assigned to oscillator frequency 1/2/3 and cutoff, as well as PWM 1/2/3 and volume with different intensities. Two ADSR envelopes with individually switchable velocity are hardwired to the filter and VCA. Envelope control times range from crisp and percussive to floating and ambient. Channel aftertouch is offered for the destinations will oscillator frequency 1/2/3, cutoff, LFO as well as FX Mix A/B. Polymod is applicable to a total of seven destinations and makes use of the sources oscillator 3 and filter envelope. By the way, Oscillator 3 has a low mode and can be decoupled from the keyboard tracking, which qualifies it as a second LFO. So in the Polymod section filter FM, oscillator FM, PWM in the audio section and/or via envelope succeed. In unison mode all 18 oscillators of the Trigon-6 are summed up to a big, upper fat mono sound. Those who love expressive synthesizer sounds will find their happiness here. The icing on the cake turns out to be the Vintage control, which shifts the accurate and precise circuitry of the Trigon-6 (oscillator drift, filter, envelope behavior...) towards the component inaccuracies of its ancestors from the 70s and 80s. This way the best possible vintage sound is achieved.
Effects
The final touch is added by the two parallel, high-resolution 24-bit / 48kHz effect blocks. With Stereo Delay, BBD Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Reverb, Phaser, Ring Modulator, Rotary Speaker and other effects, everything is there that is needed as icing on the cake up to a complete sound transformation. The last link in the signal path is an analog distortion unit that turns even the most subtle sound into a real beast.
Playing aids & memory
As a classic playing aid, the extensively editable Arpeggiator must of course not be missing and a polyphonic sequencer with up to 64 steps per Patch is also on board. 500 each User and Factory sounds offer access to a sea of sounds and are at the same time inspiration for new sounds. Optionally to the stored sounds there is the panel mode, if this is activated the Trigon-6 sounds as it is set at the time.