Dreadbox Nymphes - Review
A 6-voice fully analog poly-synth that will shock you!
We finally got our hands on the Nymphes synthesizer by Dreadbox! Our fellow Greeks (yes, we are based in Athens, Greece too) in Dreadbox were kind enough to send us a unit to test and review so for the past week we’ve been making sounds with this beautiful, tiny synth that sounds huge!
Budget-friendly polyphonic synthesizers usually have 4-voices. Especially the analog ones. So, it was unexpected and very welcomed to see a company releasing a 6-voice analog synth that’s less than 500€!
Nymphes at a glance:
Single Oscillator with variable waveforms (Saw, Square, Triangle)
One Square sub-oscillator
Noise generator
A 24db Low-Pass Resonant Filter
A 6db High-Pass Filter
Two Envelopes (Filter & VCA)
One polyphonic LFO with 5 shapes
A secondary global LFO with the same features as the first one that can be routed to any parameter on the synth
Chord Mode
Mod Wheel, Velocity & Aftertouch can be targeted to any parameter (and also to multiple parameters with different amounts)
Digital Reverb made by Sinevibes
USB Powered
Nymphes is an all-analog synthesizer (except for the digital Sinevibes Reverb) in a compact form factor. It is about 1.5 times a Volca and while it looks small it feels sturdy and heavy despite its size. For some, the size might be a downside, but for small studios or live gigs, the form factor is impressive. And it never stops to amaze us how much Dreadbox managed to pack in such a small device…
Dreadbox is known for its pure analog raw sound. And Nymphes is another excellent example of a great-sounding synth. The oscillator sounds warm and full, and the filter is smooth and balanced so the overall sound coming from Nymphes has nothing to fear against bigger analog synthesizers.
Another thing that I rarely see in reviews is that, despite being USB-powered, Nymphes is loud! Most USB-powered synths need some serious boost in volume while Nymphes is loud and clear!
The Basics
Nymphes has probably the best all-in-one package right now. Size, Price, Features, and Sound are perfectly balanced. You get a fully-analog synthesizer that fits in your hand, with 6- Voices, and a massive sound. It has way more features than you could imagine and it’s the most affordable analog poly you can buy!
You can use it for lush pads, aggressive bass, leads, and soft melodies as it will always deliver a great sound. Just by using the front panel, you’ll quickly program a sound, and if you want to make things more interesting you have all the tools you’ll need to add modulation and get crazy with it. I found myself programming a basic patch that sounded amazing very fast and then I would be itching to explore the options this little synth has to make the sound unique and weird. Yes, sometimes I ended up with something extreme but I could always go back to the start and try again. And that’s the beauty of hardware gear. A synth that will make you lose track of time playing it is always welcomed here.
And the most important thing is that Nymphes is not an experimental device that you’ll have to spend hours and hours learning and trying to find a usable sound. If you want to get things done and work on your music, programming a pad sound or a bass can be done in less than a minute. And since its core sound is so good, you won’t have to worry about it. It will find a place in your mix.
In my opinion, Nymphes’ biggest selling point is the 6-Voice Polyphony. As mentioned above, it is extremely rare to have 6 Analog voices at this price point and that certainly makes a difference. The ability to play full chords with a full range is a huge deal. You get so much thickness to your sound that would be impossible with a 4-Voice synth and you won’t have that annoying voice-stealing you get when you play with 4-Voice (or less) synths. And by using the Play Modes in the Menu, you can get so much more of it.
Play Modes
Poly: Your Regular 6-Voice mode with one oscillator per voice
Uni A: The first Unison mode stacks all 6 voices into one resulting in a massive sound
Uni B: Here, you have a 4-Voice Unison mode
Tri: Makes Nymphes a 3 Voice poly synth with 2 oscillators per voice. If you are not planning to play big chords, you can get a thicker sound while still playing 3 voices.
Duo: 3 Oscillators per voice & 2-Note Polyphony
Mono: Monophonic Mode
Chord: Now, that’s a cool feature. In chord mode, you can set and store up to 7 chords per patch and access them through the chord slider. Modulating the Chord Slider is very fun, trust me.
The only downside I could find is that Nymphes is a bit noisy. It is very common for USB-Powered synths to produce some noise while plugged in so it’s not the end of the world. Once you start playing, you’ll quickly forget about it. Also, the envelope is clicky when the Attack is at 0%. Another common issue on analog synthesizers that I personally really like. That clicky sound on key sounds adds a bit of character and I often don’t try to remove it. If you don’t like that, just move the VCA Envelope’s Attack to 3-5% and you won’t hear a thing.
The Menu system controversy
The main thing everyone is worried about and lots of reviews are mentioning as a downside is its menu. And yes, you’ll need to get used to it and use the very handy included card to navigate yourself to its menu. Since it does not have a screen, it’s easy to get lost.
But in my case, I found this limitation as an advantage and a big part of its charm. I’m not some sound designer that needs to make clinical changes and surgical fine-tunings to get the sound I want. I just tweak, listen, and then tweak again till I find a sound that works. And not having a screen or sometimes not having a clue what I programmed makes the experience much more fun!
Yes, sometimes you’ll need to restart a patch or clear all modulations but programming sounds on the Nymphes is straightforward. When you start adding modulations it becomes as complex as you want and at the same time exciting!
Modulation
Besides its raw sound which is excellent, the main attraction of this synthesizer is its modulation options.
LFO 1: LFO is polyphonic, meaning it runs independently for each voice, and it’s tied to Pitch and Low-Pass Filter Cutoff. Having a mild modulation to your filter for each voice is a must-do as it immediately adds movement to your sound. Pitch modulation is always more tricky to get usable musical results, but you can easily dial in a vibrato effect to enhance its analog nature.
LFO 2: This one is the star of the show! LFO 2 is identical to LFO 1 with two main differences. It is global (not per-voice) and you can map it to any control on the synth except for the Reverb controls. As you may imagine, things can get very wild by using this one. Mapping the LFO is dead simple, you just move the slider you want to affect, and by doing that you also set the range of the effect. You can set multiple targets for the LFO with each target having a different range and that makes it so powerful and creative.
Mod Wheel, Velocity, Aftertouch: Same as the LFO 2, the Mod Wheel, Velocity, and Aftertouch (polyphonic aftertouch in Firmware V2) can be assigned to multiple sliders with different values. Nymphes now also supports MPE so you have all the options you’ll ever need on a synth.
The Modulation options on the Nymphes, remind me of MicroFreak’s & MiniFreak’s Mod Matrix. In both synths, you can assign modulation to almost any parameter with different values and their difference is that on the Arturia Synths, you can see what you’ve done by checking the mod matrix and you can always check the exact values you have for each parameter. On the Nymphes, you just try out things, and then there is no way of seeing what you’ve done. That may seem like a big disadvantage but in reality, it’s just a different approach to making patches. The Nymphes urges you to embrace the chaos and trust your ears instead of values on a screen and that’s a big part of its magic.
“The Nymphes urges you to embrace the chaos and trust your ears”
The Reverb
And if all those features weren’t enough, Nymphes also has a Reverb onboard. Designed by our dear friends from Sinevibes, the reverb on the Nymphes has four controls. Size, Decay, Filter, and Mix. Pretty straightforward controls, a fixed pre-delay, and a small twist on the Mix slider that won’t actually go fully wet on 100%. It seems that even at 100% you can still listen to the dry signal while the reverb is very prominent.
There’s a lot of talk about the reverb on the Nymphes on if it sounds good or if it’s usable. My take on this topic is the following: Sinevibes is known for their amazing DSP effects, used in numerous synths and they could just add a standard Hall reverb that would expand your sounds or just replicate one of their own reverbs like in the Hollow plugin. Also, keep in mind that the Nymphes has a Mono output so a stereo reverb was not an option.
But I think that the Reverb on the Nymphes is more of a sound-design tool, rather than an effect. Yes, you can get it to sound like a long decay hall reverb but its tone is unique and interesting, unlike most reverbs. It sounds very metallic and cavernous like an exaggerated plate reverb and it’s certainly not an effect you’ll just use on every sound. So, if you want a “standard“ reverb effect, I would suggest just adding some in post, and focusing on using the onboard one as a part of your sound design.
The only downside is that I wish you could also modulate the reverb controls. That would make it a lot more fun!
Here I’m modulating the Reverb’s Size by hand.
Conclusion
Dreadbox has definitely made a hit with Nymphes. Despite other tiny modules, Nymphes is a fully capable analog synth, just in a small package. Not including a screen must have been a tough choice for Dreadbox, but in my opinion, we are better off without it. They managed to put so much stuff with so many space limitations and that alone it’s extraordinary.
But since we are not in an engineering convention, the things that matter is its usability and sound. And Nymphes excels in both. I think it’s the perfect synthesizer for anyone who cannot spend more than 2K to get a Prophet or a PolyBrute. If you make electronic music, you will definitely need some analog synths and having a 6-Voice poly synth is a luxury made simple by Dreadbox. Digital synths are awesome too but for reasons we can’t list right now, analog synths always serve a purpose in your studio. So having a synthesizer that can do so much will solve a ton of problems and spark your creativity.
Nymphes can be fun and experimental and at the same time a workhorse for any type of sound for your music-writing. Dreadbox is still staying true to the core basics of synth-making and with no gimmicks delivers great-sounding & affordable analog synths & pedals for everyone and Nymphes is the epitome of this statement.
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