The New ET-5!
Here are the first sounds and pictures of the new ET-5. We have been in a drone and soundscape mood lately, but the ET-5 Series can make all of the sounds of the ET-4 plus many new sounds yet to be explored.
The ET-5 has been in development and prototyping for nearly three years. In December 2021 we have delivered the first batch and the second batch has been delivered in July 2022. The ET-5 is $2950 USD and our current waiting list time is 24 months, although we are doing our best to speed that up. If you are interested in adding your name to the waiting list for the upcoming batches, please contact us or send your deposit of $400 USD.
New Features
New Controls and Patch Panel
The ET-5 Series features completely redesigned Intensity Keys that provide a progressive tactile feel, allowing more nuanced control of the two oscillators. The ring has also been completely redesigned with a significant reduction in friction for faster glides, slides and expressive bends. The length of the fingerboard has also been increased by over half an octave.
The new 3.5mm Patch Panel allows complete reconfiguration of the the ET-5.3's controls to any parameter on the synthesizer. Mults are also provided for advance routing, splitting and adding signals. This Patch Panel also makes it easy to integrate with Eurorack gear, and 1/4" CV outputs are also provided to control large format and vintage gear.
Next to each intensity key is a new slider/fader control that replaces the "hold knobs" on the ET-4.3, allowing the levels of the oscillators to be held without using the intensity keys. These sliders generate a control voltage that is available to be mapped on the Patch Panel, putting the control of any parameter under your fingers.
To add another dimension to the sound of the ET-5.3, the fingerboard is now also pressure sensitive. This is a feature that has been requested for a long time and took a lot of work to get right. Like the new hold sliders, the fingerboard pressure can control any parameter through the Patch Panel and the control voltage is also available as a 1/4" output on the side of the ET-5.
Pedal Power and Built-in Tuner
We have added a dedicated 9V power output on the Therevox to power your guitar pedals directly as they are inserted into the ET-5 FX loop. The new FX loop also has a wet/dry mix CV control available on the Patch Panel, designed in a unique way that preserves the trails of your favourite reverbs and delays.
The level control for the FX loop is now also a gain control for a custom-voiced saturation stage before the new 3-pole filter. The spring reverb circuitry has also been redesigned to reduce noise and increase frequency response for a thicker sound.
We also designed our own full-colour strobe tuners and built them into the fingerboard of the ET-5. This allows each analog oscillator to be easily and silently tuned, detuned or tuned to any interval. Since this eliminates the old panel switch for "Tuner Output", this control is now used to select the Expression Pedal between controlling the Filter Cutoff and Pitch Bending Oscillator 2.
DIN MIDI and OSC 2 Pitch Freeze
In addition to MIDI over USB, the ET-5 now has a 5-pin DIN MIDI output to directly control other gear. The two intensity keys work on separate channels, allowing the ET-5 to independently control two synthesizers at the same time, or blending separate voices on a single synth.
One of our favourite new features is the ability to "freeze" the pitch of Oscillator 2. When this is enabled, pressing down on the fingerboard will grab and hold the pitch in that position allowing for easily changing drone notes and polyphonic melodies.
It's hard to put 3 years of work into a few short paragraphs and there are a lot of new features and internal improvements that are not mentioned here. You can read our writeup about the Development of the ET-5, and if you are interested in the ET-5, please contact us below.
The ET-5 User Manual is also available for download as a PDF.
