That’s not to knock the Octatracks or Electribes, but there was room for a new approach. For full-on productions in a single piece of hardware, you’ve got few options – keyboard workstations, legacy behemoths from Roland and Yamaha, and more modern boxes constrained in functionality. But it was also a response to a long-running lament across the world of electronic music – that making and performing music with computers wasn’t as satisfying as it had promised to be. The Deluge embodied Rohan Hill’s ideas about music workflow.

Jorgensen’s experience as a music publisher and events organizer helped shape the plan and in 2017, Synthstrom launched their debut product. Hill’s original ambition was to build a few units and sell them to friends, but when Ian Jorgensen came on board in 2015, the concept grew into the possibility for a business. He used his mix of skills and passion to build hardware for his own musical projects, and from this tinkering emerged the idea that eventually led to the Deluge. Hill is an accomplished musician with a solid education in technology. The Synthstrom Audible Deluge begins with Rohan Hill in New Zealand. It takes me to a place where the rain was always warm and the sun would never set. That was some time ago, but those images return to me when I sit down and play the Deluge, perhaps because the tones from this remarkable instrument remind me so much of Tycho’s work. My friends were always around and every house had a party in its kitchen. I heard it on a good year, the kind with festivals and blue skies. That was the first track I ever heard from Scott Hansen, known as Tycho, from his debut album Past is Prologue. Synthstrom Deluge – Clear Blue Skies Summer rain.

Deluge synth