Novation Summit

The Novation Summit is the company's flagship synthesizer — a 16-voice, bi-timbral hybrid that pairs FPGA-based digital oscillators with a fully analogue signal path. It's effectively two Peak synthesizers combined into a single 61-key instrument, giving you two independent eight-voice engines that can be split, layered, or played separately. Released in 2019 and significantly expanded with a major firmware update in 2024, it remains one of the most capable polyphonic hybrids at its price point.

Who Is This For?

The Summit suits advanced players and producers who want both analogue warmth and digital flexibility without compromise. Its bi-timbral architecture makes it particularly useful for live performance — you can hold a lush pad on one part while playing a lead on the other, or split the keyboard between two completely different patches. Studio producers looking for evolving textures, complex FM timbres, and thick layered sounds will find it equally at home. It rewards deep programming but keeps the core controls hands-on.

The Oscillators

Each voice runs three New Oxford Oscillators (NCOs), implemented via FPGA rather than traditional VCOs or DCOs. This means extremely low aliasing and consistent tuning across the full range. Each oscillator can run in subtractive mode (sine, triangle, sawtooth, pulse with PWM), wavetable mode (60 tables, five waveforms each), or FM mode — and all three can run simultaneously. The 16-voice engine means 48 oscillators in total, though at full polyphony and complex patch settings you'll want to manage voice allocation carefully.

The Analogue Path

After the oscillators, everything is analogue. Each voice runs through two analogue filters — OTA-based, switchable between 12dB and 24dB slopes, with LP, HP, and BP configurations — followed by an analogue VCA and up to three stages of analogue distortion. The distortion ranges from subtle harmonic saturation to aggressive clipping, and because it sits per-voice rather than on the master output, it tracks polyphonically. This is where the Summit gets its edge over all-digital competitors: the filters and distortion respond to level and drive in the way analogue circuits do.

Modulation and Effects

The modulation matrix offers 16 slots with 23 sources and 37 destinations, plus four LFOs and three contour generators each with a Hold stage. The 2024 firmware added stereo spread controls per-voice, expanded chaos and unpredictability modulation options, and improvements to the built-in effects (chorus/flanger, syncable delay, reverb). The result is a synthesizer that has materially improved since launch — if you're evaluating one, make sure the firmware is current.