Novation Summit

I'm a hobbyist and I bought this as my only synth to replace a Minilogue XD. It's been an absolute joy to use and it sounds amazing.

This synth is capable of a huge palette of sounds, but its key character is found in distorted and tearing sounds, assisted with the dedicated "Osc 3 Filter Mod" knob and three ways of adjusting analog distortion: pre-filter overdrive, post-filter overdrive (in menu) and distortion.

To get a more analog/vintage sound there are OSC drift and diverge options in the menu. They're not quite on par with the "analog/vintage" settings that some modern synths come with, which affect many other parameters than just the oscillators. You can still achieve a really thick vintage sound by adding some noise to env and filter parameters through the mod matrix. However, that quickly eats up many of the 16 mod slots.

The reverb is amazing, right on par with some expensive pedals. Flanger and phaser-flanger were added as chorus modes in a firmware update. All the digital effects have damping and cutoff settings in the menu so they don't muddy the low-end too much. Being able to get such beautiful effects right out of the box really invites you to jam with it.

When adjusting any knob or slider, the menu displays both the current and the patch's initial value. That has been really helpful when editing a complicated patch or learning how some 3rd party patch has been created.

The keys feel upper mid-range, but unfortunately do not have poly-aftertouch, which the synth itself supports through MIDI-in. As is typical, there's not a lot aftertouch travel.

On the cons side, there is no dedicated "noise/random" mod source so you have to sacrifice one LFO for that. There are only 4 effect mod slots, which is quite a shame considering there are so many effect parameters and modulation sources on this synth. It's quite awkward that Mod Env 1 and 2 are operated through the same physical sliders. The LFO saw tooth only goes down so you cannot quickly change it's direction without adjusting all the mod matrix values it's assigned to. It's also quite easy to accidentally lose all changes by hitting the "next patch" button that sits right next to one of the menu buttons.

One surprising live-play drawback comes from the lack of a sequencer, which also affects how the arpeggiator behaves. Even when using external sync, the arp starts playing immediately when you hit a key and does not wait for the next beat. You have to time it just right.

I was hesitant to buy a synth that was launched 7 years ago, but there are still very few competing synths that manage to offer so much at this price point. It's still a great choice if you want a great sounding general-purpose workhorse and prefer dedicated knobs over screens.

Having been in the market for a high-end poly synth for a while I was very excited when the Summit was initially announced.

For me it ticked all the boxes of what I was looking for: many-voice polyphonic, extensive editing capabilities with plenty of physical controls, interesting modern features, integrated effects, and good midi implementation.

The Summit fulfills all of these for me. The machine has a very solid build with firm and flexible controls when needed. The midi implementation is wonderful and updating the firmware (and managing the patches) works perfectly with the Components website. No fancy drivers or platform-dependent software installs necessary! (I use Linux which is always an issue with these things)

The internal engine is absolutely amazing. Essentially you get 4 different synths: a 16 voice poly, 2 independent 8 voice poly's, and one multi-timbral 8 voice poly. The expanded filter design also allows for more sound design options than the original peak and the onboard effects are very good. I'm looking forward to future updates as I assume the FPGA will allow for future expansions of the engine and effects.

In conclusion I think this will be a permanent addition to the studio!

Pros :
- Great sounding synth for pads and 80ties sounds.
- Very easy to edit, everytime I switched it on, I made some new sounds with it
- Very good chorus and reverb effects, delay is ok.
- Excellent support from Novation

But this is why I sent it back, cons :

- sound of the filter is neutral, it lacks a bit of character
- when using resonance it's easy to get internal clipping
- the dual sounds are more difficult to manage
- still some menu diving for some features
- the oscillator sync sounds too weak for my taste

Since I already have a lot of synths, I guess I was looking more for a synth that has a prominent character, like the Prophet 6 or OB6.