Only ten signed Founder Edition units are being built before Orbiton’s acoustic synthesiser reaches full release.
Every key on the Orbiton One is attached to a thin steel reed that vibrates when you press it, and it’s those physical vibrations, rather than a velocity reading, that shape what the synth does next.
Orbiton Sound gave the instrument its first public outing at SynthFest UK in Sheffield on 24 October, and Sound On Sound has since posted a video from the stand, with the company targeting an early 2027 release. Orbiton calls it an acoustic synthesiser, though you won’t hear the reeds themselves. The lamellas are acoustically silent by design, and each one has its own sensor underneath and its own signal path, picking up the motion and turning it into a continuous analogue signal that modulates the synth engine directly.
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Because the lamella keeps vibrating after the initial strike, the sound keeps changing for as long as it rings, and you can feel that vibration under your finger as it decays at its own natural rate. Orbiton says the keys can be pressed, plucked or struck, with each gesture shaping the sound differently, which puts it closer to playing a physical instrument than to triggering notes on a standard keyboard.
At this stage, the sound itself comes from an internal DSP synth, with the lamellas acting as the modulation source. According to Molten Music Technology’s Robin Vincent, who filmed the prototype at SynthFest, the longer-term plan is to use the lamella vibrations as oscillators in their own right.
Orbiton built its proof of concept in November 2025, followed by its own circuit board in January, a patent filing covering the lamella array in May and a first playable prototype with 32 channels in June. A second-generation board with ten times the processing power arrived in August, and UK engineering firm Frugal Design has been helping refine the lamellas themselves, tuning their shape and tip mass so each reed rings at the right frequency and decays as cleanly as possible.
Before the full release, Orbiton is building ten Founder Edition instruments, each signed by the founder, and reservations are open now through the Orbiton website.
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