Novation Summit

Having been in the market for a high-end poly synth for a while I was very excited when the Summit was initially announced.

For me it ticked all the boxes of what I was looking for: many-voice polyphonic, extensive editing capabilities with plenty of physical controls, interesting modern features, integrated effects, and good midi implementation.

The Summit fulfills all of these for me. The machine has a very solid build with firm and flexible controls when needed. The midi implementation is wonderful and updating the firmware (and managing the patches) works perfectly with the Components website. No fancy drivers or platform-dependent software installs necessary! (I use Linux which is always an issue with these things)

The internal engine is absolutely amazing. Essentially you get 4 different synths: a 16 voice poly, 2 independent 8 voice poly's, and one multi-timbral 8 voice poly. The expanded filter design also allows for more sound design options than the original peak and the onboard effects are very good. I'm looking forward to future updates as I assume the FPGA will allow for future expansions of the engine and effects.

In conclusion I think this will be a permanent addition to the studio!

Pros :
- Great sounding synth for pads and 80ties sounds.
- Very easy to edit, everytime I switched it on, I made some new sounds with it
- Very good chorus and reverb effects, delay is ok.
- Excellent support from Novation

But this is why I sent it back, cons :

- sound of the filter is neutral, it lacks a bit of character
- when using resonance it's easy to get internal clipping
- the dual sounds are more difficult to manage
- still some menu diving for some features
- the oscillator sync sounds too weak for my taste

Since I already have a lot of synths, I guess I was looking more for a synth that has a prominent character, like the Prophet 6 or OB6.

At first I couldn’t decide between the Nord Wave 2, the Korg Prophesy and the Summit. I went for the Summit and have no regrets… it’s an awesome machine.

16 voices, three (Oxford) oscillators per voice, each with the usual waveforms plus a choice of wavetables, as well as shape control, oscillator sync and FM. It has full anologue filters, 3 modulation envelopes, excellent FX, and a modulation matrix that means it approaches the complex voice architecture of the big modulars. But, and here’s the thing… the parameters that are assigned to knobs are very well chosen, and so it’s a rational and intuitive process to create (or modify) voices. When needed, the next layer of functionality is available through the usual menus. A useful and well configured arpeggiator too.

I have owned the Summit for 2 weeks, so I will keep this review short. After so much research to find a studio centerpiece synthesizer, I am very happy that I chose this. I liked the look of it from the very beginning; however I was a little worried about the length of the Novation Summit, fitting in my home studio. Thankfully now; I have easily accommodated it in my workspace.

The following makes this synthesizer perfect for my studio.
-Great sound without any tweaking
-Many presets to work with or swap out on the Novation website
-Endless amount of modification control to create new user presets
-Build quality
-Connectivity (and then some)
-Excellent workflow (with definite learning curve)
-Also very hands on, making it easy to get started
-Excellent digital sounds
-Excellent analog sounds
-This synth is easily at home sounding buttery and smooth as well as kind of nasty sounding (in a great way)
-Very good Effects section and very usable
-Value! Compared to other synthesizers in this price range, I believe its value is outstanding

Of course, nothing's perfect, so here are the weak points that I have found.
Unlike many other synths, there were no cool stickers included.

YEA, I'm over it.

A truly inspiration instrument!!!

I received my Summit a week ago. it's been great fun designing sounds from scratch. The immediate control over most shaping parameters and a good design get fast results. The operators, the filter & FX all sound great and there's plenty flexibility to modulate things.

One hitch, I must mention, is a sync problem between Live and the ARP on the summit. It starts in sync but goes out after some bars. May be my own stupidity. Need to still look into it.

Thanks to Thomann for great customer service. I messed up the delivery address on the first try but the good people at Thomann were patient with me and reshipped to the right coordinates.

I upgraded from Peak to this and absolutely no regrets! It is such a difference to have a all-in-one playable instrument on an X-stand versus multiple bits connected to the peak etc on my table. Overall the sound is superb, rich and the workflow is easy to get into and fun to tweak with summit due to the extensive hands-on controls. The left hand screen was a potential worry for me but actually the workflow fits with it perfectly and you use it to setup areas of the sound but then shift back to the hands-on controls after. So there is not too much going back and forth I found. Keybed feels really nice too! All in all , highly highly recommended! The recent addition of wavetable editor was great also!