REVIEW: Synergy SYN1 & Modules

There will always be a place for boutique amps in a guitar player’s life. They sound saucy, they look tasty, and they smell of happiness, but you are unlikely to want mountains of them.

They take up space. Yes sure, if the people sharing your house are happy for you to display them around like fancy ornaments you are onto a winner. You can put one in the living room to look at whilst watching tv, another in the kitchen for when making dinner, or maybe even one for the bathroom to stare longingly at whilst taking a bath. Not everyone has the space for them, and those that do soon realise owning lots of amplifiers can be a labour intensive nightmare when it comes to moving them around.

They also cost a lot of money. So unless you are swimming in money, it is easy to pummel all your hard earned cash down the tonal plughole very quickly. It’s a nice dream though isn’t it? Well maybe it no longer has to be just a dream. Better yet, maybe there is now a way to achieve this amplifier lovers Shangri-la without all the aforementioned downsides. Introducing Synergy, a cartridge based system that allows you to have a smorgasbord of amplifiers that could easily fit into a suitcase. Each cartridge has a specific amplifier pre amp that can be loaded into the Synergy SYN1, a unit that allows you to utilise your existing amplifier or plug directly into your interface to obtain the sounds of boutique amps at none boutique prices. All together there are fourteen different cartridge options to utilise, each sold separately.

Cartridges take up very little space and you can lift them without risking a hernia. As soon as you start moving around traditional amplifiers and switching things up you instantly begin to question your life choices. Say you were handed a dream studio and all the boutique amplifiers you could dream of, and it is now time to sit down and start recording your next hit. When recording, the last thing you want to do is make the process harder for yourself. There is a flow you should strive to achieve which does not inhibit creativity. Having to get up, unplug everything, and plug everything in to the next amp you want to record takes up time and energy that you could be putting into playing the parts. With the Synergy SYN1, you can replace a cartridge and dial in a tone without leaving your seat. It is truly remarkable. Can you imagine being able to jump between a clean Fender sound, to a dirty British Plexi with that little effort in the analogue domain? The SYN1 unit has D.I output with a cab simulation built in. This means you can record every module silently into your interface of choice. You are also given the option to turn off the cab sim and use your own simulations or IR’s. The next problem you encounter when trying to record boutique amps, at the required volume to reach their notorious g spot, is bleed. You need to isolate your sound to properly dial in your tone. Boutique amps can be loud. Real loud. Even if you neighbours aren’t a problem, the level of volume still makes life hard at home. What your microphone picks up can sound very different depending on where it is placed; for example, where it is pointing, which speaker it is pointing at, and how far away it is. Not to mention if you are trying to use two mics to get your sound, then you need to take into consideration phase alignment as well as making sure they are complimenting each other sonically. To do this you need to truly isolate your amp from where you are trying to mix. Talking from experience, having recorded a 50 watt amp in a house mate’s bedroom whilst trying to monitor it from the room across the landing, it is a struggle to accurately dial in a sound you like. In this given example the house was so poorly isolated for sound, the amp was clearly audible from the bus stop a street over. Hey, upsetting neighbours of neighbours has started to become a fun pastime, but trying to listen and make executive decisions about the sound coming out of some monitors, whilst the low end of the amp that is ripping itself apart next door bombards its way unforgivingly through the walls, is a hard task. Yes, you can record, then play it back, then walk into the other room, move a mic, then tweak the amp and sit back down, then hit record and repeat the process until you are happy. But being able to just play and tweak whilst sitting at your desk is a luxury that should not go without massive celebration from whoever is recording as well as the entire local district. So before neighbourhood watch start scaling your fences to tell you to pack it in, give one of these modules a blast.

The Synergy SYN1 and its respective modules are not just limited to a recording environment. Using a four cable method you can effectively add another two channels to your amplifier. Foot switchable with the switch that is included with the SYN1, you can bypass the module to use your amps sounds as well as engaging and flicking between the two channels that are available on every module. This must be one of the easiest ways to get the sound of two completely different amps on stage in an analogue format. The modules pop in and pop out, sliding in a draw like fashion into the enclosure, the process is far more simple than anything that ever came out of an Ikea. The modules are largely designed by the manufacturers who made the original amps. If their pedigree was ever in question, Synergy products are produced in the same plant that outputs names such as Morgan and Friedman. They have unrivalled access to circuits and secrets of the mysterious boutique amplifier world.

Throwing another perspective into the fire, you could view Synergy as the analogue answer to Kemper. Kemper products are powerful, great sounding pieces of kit, but there are elements that Synergies modular system could bring to your experience of the amp on demand ethos they are both tackling. Number one, Synergy are mainly analogue. When you pull the module out you can see all the magic components you would find in a preamp, including the tubes. The only part which is not analogue would be the cab simulation on the way out of the D.I. There is also the argument for the more tactile/hands on experience of using the SYN1. Turning the knobs very much feels like making an adjustment on a real amp. Also, much like a traditional amp, each knob is dedicated to one specific role. In other words, one knob will never share two or more functions which is often the case in digital boxes such as the Kemper. A great example of this is the two channels available in every single module that Synergy offer. Where this is highlighted is the dedicated set of controls per channel that you can switch between. This makes the interface a lot easier to understand whilst also allowing quicker adjustments. Another advantage is the limited options. You may not initially see limited options as a good reason for choosing one product over another but too many options can stifle creativity. Lots of options can be distracting and quite frankly unnecessary. You only need one good sounding amp to make an awesome recording, so having several great sounding little boxes of fun is just a bonus. Maybe then, the unseeingly endless amounts of presets and profiles you can access could be seen as over kill. Both approaches have their pros and cons. It is a lot to do with finding what works best for you and your workflow.

This fresh concept has been executed by a brand with access to the knowledge required to make these tiny tone cartridges sound their best. Get down to your local supplier and get plugged in to see what the future of amp technology could potentially look like.