Fewer than 70 were ever made, most people have never seen one, and now anyone with a laptop can play it. Cherry Audio's Pentaphonic is a new software recreation of the Gleeman Pentaphonic, a 1981 polysynth built by two brothers in a California garage. It came out this week for $59, and it might be the rarest instrument the company has ever brought back.
The garage synth that took on Prophet
Bob and Al Gleeman built the original Pentaphonic in a Mountain View garage, designing it to stay in tune under stage lights in a market ruled by analog polysynths. It was a five voice machine with 15 oscillators, run by two Intel 80186 chips, with a Curtis CEM3320 four pole filter and a CEM3360 VCA doing the heavy lifting. It had 37 keys, a 300 note sequencer, weighed 18 pounds and even had a built-in speaker. It sold for under $3,000 at a time when a Sequential Prophet-5 cost $4,600.
The black version came first, with about 30 made. Then came the one people still talk about: the Pentaphonic Clear, housed in a see-through acrylic case, with a Presetter that held 100 patches and a 600 note sequencer, for about $3,400. Fewer than 20 were built. In 1994, David Kean of the Audities Foundation bought the brothers' remaining parts and assembled a small final batch, reportedly seven more of each.
For something so rare, it got around. According to Cherry Audio, it turned up in the hands of Oscar Peterson, Kevin Gilbert, The Moog Cookbook, Kansas, The Band and R.E.M., and Martin Gore owned one.
What the plugin adds
The fun part is the look. You can switch between three skins: the original black, the transparent Clear, and an "Audities" version, with a slider that sets how see-through the case is. Under the hood, Cherry Audio kept the character and fixed the limits:
- Up to 16 voices, plus unison
- Pulse width modulation, noise, oscillator sync and a second LFO with all eight waveforms
- A two pole filter mode, key tracking and a limiter
- Velocity, channel aftertouch and polyphonic aftertouch
- An arpeggiator, a 16 step polyphonic sequencer with four notes per step, and the Parameter Animator for moving sounds
- 22 built-in effects
It ships with more than 375 presets, including the original 50 factory sounds, and an extra Translucent preset pack sells for $9.99.
Price and formats
Pentaphonic is $59 and runs on macOS 10.13 or later and Windows 7 or later, as AU, VST, VST3 and AAX plugins or a standalone app. There is a 30 day demo, so you can try the Clear skin before you pay. Until October 19, it also counts toward Cherry Audio's Build Your Own Bundle: any three products for $99 or any six for $149. The full backstory is in the company's launch announcement.
This is the kind of rescue we love. Hardware this rare usually ends up behind glass at a collector's house. Here it is a $59 plugin with a see-through case you can actually play. If you are building a rig, start with our best synthesizers for beginners, then read how Flexur Sound Workshop is reviving a forgotten 1930s synth. Shopping for someone who makes music? See our gifts for music producers.
