[sdiy] Novation peak NCOs

[Martin Klang]

I had a go on Peak at Superbooth last weekend, and it's a fun synth. I
can't say I could hear the 'analogue warmth', nor does the FM appear
better to me than a decent VA implementation, but it sounds nice enough.

It has a good size screen which could be put to better use: when you
edit an envelope for example, it shows a numeric parameter value rather
than a visual representation of the envelope.

A fairly useless but cute feature is that each of the 8 voices has an
LED that lights up when the voice is activated. I did notice after
playing around with a few polyphonic presets that one of the voices
sounded a bit off. Very much like a failing VCF module on a Juno. I
asked one of the Novation guys and he suggested that the preset must
have been programmed that way, but he didn't seem too convinced himself.

Later in the day though the same guy came over to say he'd spoken to the
sound designer, who had in turn said it was down to a firmware bug which
has since been fixed. So that's my claim to fame, finding a bug in the
Peak firmware!

Martin