It's admittedly a little late to be picking up your Christmas presents, but if you're doing some last minute panic-shopping, Dubreq has just released a cute little mini-synth that'd make an ideal stocking-filler for the musician in your life.
Stylophone Stylosette is a cassette-shaped instrument equipped with a single-octave touch-capacitive keyboard. It produces a basic lo-fi sound that's similar to the Stylophone, the stylus-operated synth for which Dubreq is best known.
Stylosette has vibrato and a built-in delay with adjustable delay time and feedback. You're also able to tune the synth with a dial at the top, or shift the keyboard up or down up to three octaves using the octave button. At only 10cm wide, this portable, battery-powered instrument is equipped with a headphone jack and built-in speaker, so you can play it anywhere.
Stylosette arrives with a few accessories; a mini screwdriver can be used to change the depth and speed for the vibrato, while an included set of clips and patch cables can be hooked up to a patch bay on the synth's underside then connected to conductive objects, such as plants, fruit or fungi, which can be used as triggers. These ports can also be used to send and receive CV, so you're able to trigger Stylosette with a sequencer or use it to play another compatible instrument.
Some have noted a similarity between the Stylophone Stylosette and the MicroKits Synth-a-Sette, a cassette-shaped mini-synth released in 2023 that looks almost identical and offers similar functionality. Dubreq has replied to a YouTube comment pointing this out: “There have been quite a few cassette formatted synthesizers over the years, as well as lots of kit banana/fruit type synthesizers," the company says. "Many have taken inspiration from the Stylophone (including the one mentioned – one octave keyboard, with tuning control, octave switch and vibrato)."
“So we’ve been wanting to create our own official Stylophone cassette version for quite a while now to fit into a standard cassette case. Stylophone – Cassette – Stylosette. There’s customizable delay, adjustable vibrato and an expansion port that also works with a sequencer. You can also create a master slave function to drive two Stylosettes at once. So there’s much more than just conductive objects.”
Check out the demo video embedded above from Tiger Arcade to hear Stylosette in action.
Stylophone Stylosette is available now and is priced at $39.99
