Geoff Downes on Elka-X: "A very impressive beast!"

English musician Geoff Downes was a founding member (with Trevor Horn) of The Buggles, best known for creating the first video played on MTV, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Downes joined the lineup of the seminal progressive rock band Yes and went on to form the rock supergroup ASIA with Steve Howe (Yes), Carl Palmer (ELP), and John Wetton (King Crimson, UK). ASIA’s eponymously titled 1982 debut album charted at number one in several countries and spawned the hits, "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell." Geoff reunited with both Yes and ASIA in the 2000s, and continues to perform with both bands to this day.

Geoff graciously took some time recently to check out Cherry Audio’s new Elka-X synthesizer, based on the ELKA Synthex with which he has often been associated. He found it to be “a very impressive beast!”

"The original ELKA Synthex is one of my favorite synths ever. This was the one I turned to if I was reaching for some extra sparkle on a track. Rich in timbre, from warm brass textures to sharp bells, and the full sound spectrum in between made it a most unique keyboard.

Roll on 40 years, and Cherry Audio’s new Elka-X is every bit as good sounding as the original, if not better. There are many more options included, giving it a totally versatile and new creative twist. I was very impressed with how little memory the whole synth package takes up. I’m used to burning up tons of gigabytes on my hard drive with sample libraries, so it’s all very economical.

It was a joy to hear some of those old familiar patches I used extensively on many recordings, particularly with ASIA. The arpeggiated intro to "Don’t Cry" is an example of how powerful sounding the synth could be as a lead instrument. Splitting two completely different sounds left and right was one of the Synthex’s great assets at the time, equalled only by the mighty Sequential Circuits Prophet-10.

In short, Elka-X is a most worthy addition to anyone’s virtual studio. I look forward to experimenting further and exploring new sounds in the future."

Our deepest gratitude goes to Geoff Downes for sharing his time and thoughts on the Elka-X!