PWM Mantis hybrid analogue synth to launch as Chris Huggett’s legacy

PWM has announced that a new synth is to launch in the summer, and it comes with a bittersweet backstory.

The Mantis, based on the legendary WASP synth, was a collaboration between Chris Huggett and Paul Whittington, founder of PWM. Chris passed away in 2020 after battling cancer, but he passed on all the designs and other documents he and Paul had been working on in the hope the instrument could be finished and released to the synth community.

Part of Chris’s career was spent at Electronic Dream Plant, where he designed the Wasp synth in the late 1970s. Now iconic, the Wasp was distinctive in its design, featuring a bright yellow plastic casing, 37-note touch-sensitive keyboard, and a series of touch-sensitive buttons arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern. Monophonic, it used analogue oscillators able to produce various waveforms such as sawtooth, square and pulse waves, along with a unique filter with adjustable cutoff frequency and resonance control. Pushing to extremes, a distinctive “buzzing” sound became synonymous with the synth. Other features included two envelope generators, LFO, and built-in speaker.

The Mantis is a modern synth utilising vintage and current technologies. Described as a “duophonic hybrid-analogue synthesiser with dual filter patches and full USB-MIDI control”, it has heritage sound thanks to a modernised design architecture based on the Wasp with an Oscar style filter designed by Huggett.

It has two independent voices, dual filters, and a 37-note semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch, plus a joystick input.

We don’t yet have any official product shots of the new device, but we’ll be sure to bring them to you when we find them.

The full specifications are as follows:

Duophonic Hybrid-Analogue Synthesiser Specifications

200 Patches

All patches in RAM so can be overwritten

Bank A: 100 Factory presets
Bank B: 100 User presets (all set to initial patch)
Compare function

Initialise patch function

Duophonic with 2 analogue signal paths

Mathematically generated oscillators designed by Chris Huggett

Analogue signal path designed by Chris Huggett

2 Oscillators plus sub-oscillator per voice

Sine / Triangle / Saw / Pulse plus additional wave types

Shape control and shape modulation input: Will create pulse width modulation on the pulse waveform with perfect square at the centre
Pitch modulation control
Octave selects per oscillator

OSC 1 SUB follows oscillator 1 parameters

Oscillator Drift

Creates random pitch variations between oscillators

Multi-mode state variable VCA filters with overdrive

2 Analogue filters – 1 per signal path
Low Pass / Band Pass / High Pass in 12dB and 24dB configurations

Additional WBAND (series) and WSTOP (parallel) types
Filter Cutoff
Filter Cutoff Modulation

Filter Resonance
Filter Width
Filter Width Modulation

Filter Keytrack

LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator)

2 LFOs

4 waveshapes per oscillator
Fade In / Fade Out parameter
SYNCable

Rate control

Envelopes

2 Independent envelopes

ENV 1 normalised to amplitude
ADSR
+ Sustain Fall parameter for shaping during key-down

+ Repeat which can be used to create looping envelopes
Velocity positive and negative control

Ring modulation

Mixer

First mix: OSC1 and OSC2
Second mix: OSCillators and noise

Third mix: OSCillators + noise and Ring modulator

VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier)

All amplification is done in the analogue domain in multi-stage VCAs

Modulation Routes

Control – 6 choices of modulation parameters
Source – 6 choices of effectors from envelopes and LFOs

Scale – choices of controls used to scale the effect of the modulation

Glide

Glide amount

Auto-glide mode

Indicator LEDs

Two LEDs for Voice

LED for Keyboard activity

Master tune

Master volume

Triggering

ENV 1 Legato
ENV 2 Legato

LFO Keytrig
LFO Keytrig

CONNECTIONS

Master power switch
DC 9V input
USBC

MIDI IN / OUT / THRU
Sustain pedal input (switch)
Pedal input (continuous)

Stereo 1/4” line Outs: L/Mono and R
Stereo 1/4” headphone out

Multi-function Joystick control

Left / right for pitch bend
Performable vibrato
Latching hold mode

Arpeggiator

6 arpeggiator types: Up, Down, Up/Down 1, Up/Down 2, Played & Random
Sync rates control from 2nds to 32nds

Tap tempo button
Swing including positive and negative swing
Auto clock sync: Detects MIDI or USB-MIDI clock and synchronises the arpeggiator automatically