Japanese Boutique developer REON releases Muton, a new semi-modular analog Synthesizer powered by a unique FAM modulation engine.
In the summery July, I wrote about an almost forgotten groovebox called Cistron by REON. A Japanese developer who tried to make a name for himself on the European and US markets a few years ago but failed. Mainly due to the missing CE mark and other reasons. Thus the last products were never really known in Europe.
However, REON is still active in the synth world and is constantly developing new boxes in his lab. Today he shows the second product from the Fusion series, where we have already seen Cistron. Meet Muton, a new patchable Synthesizer.
REON Muton
REON is known for weirder and wilder designs that experimental musicians in particular enjoy. This is also the case with Muton. Classic but with some unique ideas.
Muton is a new semi-modular analog Synthesizer with three VCOs with sync on oscillators 1+2 and an additional random signal generator on oscillator 3. So that you can simply immerse yourself in the crazy world of sound in seconds.
There is also a filter (type is unknown) where you can switch which oscillator signals go into it. It’s controllable with classic cutoff frequency and resonance parameters. It also has a mixer and a delay with effect depth, feedback, and time controls for refining your sounds.
FAM Engine
It gets more unusual and experimental in the modulation engine, which is probably where the strengths of the Muton lie. According to the REON developer, it uses a sound source controller called a flexible advanced multiplier (FAM) engine. It hosts 3 independent REON original gate generators and 3 LFO generators.
This section is about bringing movement into the sounds. Above all, to generate advanced rhythmic modulations from different modulations and their multipliers. The gate generator has internal/external sync options and can be played at any speed and length. Either at regular intervals or randomly.
The same applies to the LFO. It can be synchronized in the same flexible way to achieve waveforms at any speed. This allows you to freely edit levels and waveforms. Plus, you can use sample and hold using the gate signal. So it’s all about the creative interaction between the 6 sources (gate + LFOs).
Further, the colored buttons at the bottom of the unit are also quite interesting. Musicians can freely assign functions to the six buttons allowing sound changes in real-time. For example, you can assign the gate or the LFO on it. And if you like a patch, it can also be saved in 6 memory slots.
And if that’s not enough, there’s an 18-point patch bay on the right-hand side. Unlike classic semi-modular synths, Muton ignores the pure “audio” side of a patch bay (OSCs out, filter out…) but focuses exclusively on CV, gate, and clock signals.
Connectivity
On the backside, you get a master output, individual audio outputs for each VCO, full-size MIDI in/out, USB port as well as a fusion connector. The latter is an Ethernet port that allows the Fusion Series to communicate with each other
REON is known not to design bread and butter sound machines. This is also completely true here. At first glance, it looks like a classic semi-modular synth, at second glance you can see the many unique subtleties.
Especially here the nifty modulation engine aka FAM engine. Definitely, a fresh concept for a semi-modular synth but I’m pretty sure that we won’t hear much about it outside of Japan.
REON Muton is available now for ¥97,900 in Japan or around $683 USD/683€.
More information here: REON
I want to be supportive of these independent makers, but by God, I am still yawning and this is just hideous!
Wonderful. But how can I get this?
Japan import but it’s difficult as it doesn’t have a CE certification