Frequency Central - Florian Synthesizer

Florian is Frequency Central's first dual-VCO synthesiser — a full monophonic voice with everything from oscillators to envelopes laid out behind a single panel. Frequency Central is a British outfit with a long history of discrete recreations of classic Roland circuits, and Florian gathers several of them into one instrument. The company pictures it as the offspring of a Roland SH-2 and an ARP Odyssey, which is a fair map of the sound: the fat, dual-oscillator Roland backbone crossed with the ring modulation and snappy envelopes of the Odyssey. The name is a nod to Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk.

Two XVCOs sit at the front of the signal path — Frequency Central's discrete oscillators, modelled on the Roland 100M. A sub oscillator adds weight underneath with square and pulse options an octave or two down, and a digital ring modulator takes both VCOs as its inputs for clangy, metallic tones straight out of the Odyssey playbook. From there, sound passes into a multimode filter based on the one in Roland's System 700, switchable between low-pass, band-pass and high-pass.

The modulation is quite generous for a single voice, there's a full ADSR built around the AS3310 chip, with an inverted output and CV over its level, alongside a second envelope — an ARP-style attack/release generator that can loop, so it doubles as a cycling modulation source. The VCA can follow the ADSR, respond to a gate, or sit open in drone mode for pads and sustained tones. Two LFOs round out the module, one plain triangle and one offering saw, triangle and ramp with a sync option. Each section has its own ins and outs, so you can play Florian as a self-contained voice, or route its individual parts out to the rest of your rack.

A great choice for anyone after a characterful, Roland-and-ARP-flavoured monosynth that stands on its own but also stays open to the wider modular world.

Features:

• Analogue synth voice for Eurorack, Frequency Central's first dual-VCO design
• 2 x XVCO — discrete oscillators based on the Roland 100M
• Sub oscillator: -1 octave square, -2 octave square, -2 octave pulse
• Digital ring modulator using VCO1 and VCO2 as its X and Y inputs
• Multimode filter based on the Roland System 700, with low-pass, band-pass and high-pass responses
• ADSR envelope around the AS3310 chip, with normal and inverted outputs plus level CV
• ARP-influenced attack/release generator with looping option
• ARP-influenced VCA with ADSR, gate and drone modes
• LFO1: triangle
• LFO2: saw / triangle / ramp, with sync option
• Audio and CV patch points across each section for standalone or fully modular use