ORPHEUS

Overview

ORPHEUS is an inspired-by, enhanced recreation of the Moog Subharmonicon — a semi-modular analog synthesizer that builds chords from the subharmonic series (two VCOs, each with two subharmonic oscillators) and grooves from stacked polyrhythms (dual sequencers clocked by four rhythm generators through an assignment matrix), voiced through a Moog ladder filter. It keeps the subharmonic voice, the polyrhythm engine and the just-intonation heart the hardware is loved for, and adds a full virtual patchbay, a deep tuning system, a modern polyrhythmic sequencer, polyphony, full MIDI and a character FX section.

The fourth look of Collection I — Maison Modulaire; its colorway is still being argued about.

Features

• Subharmonic voice — Two sawtooth VCOs, each dividing into two integer subharmonic oscillators, through a 6-channel mixer into a 4-pole Moog ladder filter with two AD envelopes.
• Polyrhythm engine — Four rhythm generators divide one clock and interlock through an assignment matrix to drive the sequencers and envelopes into ever-shifting grooves; step counts expanded to 8/16 with ratchets, probability, swing and chaining.
• Deep tuning system — Just-intonation and equal-temperament modes, an expanded scale list, microtuning, Scala (.scl/.kbm) import and per-subharmonic tuning — leaning hard into the instrument’s JI identity.
• Polyphony & MIDI — Mono-faithful by default plus a MIDI poly mode (2/4/8 voices), sample-accurate host sync, and sequencer MIDI-out the hardware can’t do.
• Fully patchable — Draggable virtual patch cables over the faithful Subharmonicon jack map, normalled routing visible until broken by a cable.
• Character FX & presets — Bypassable drive → delay → reverb and a total-recall preset system for knobs, cables, patterns and tunings — the hardware has none.