Tubes here, tubes there, tubes are almost everywhere for the guitarist, the bassist, and the "vintageoholic" audiophile. Now, why does it seem that they are the only ones who can have all the fun with tubes? Some people had thought it's time for a change to spark and bring the synth player to the world of vintage-modern vacuum tube circuitry. Here enters the Electric Western Phantastron, a small analog synthesizer running on tubes and inspired by Early Radar and the electronic instruments of the 1920s and 1930s.

If guitarists and bassists can have fun having their 12AX7s running their amps and their boutique stompboxes, the Phantastron gives that tube fun to the synth player by making the instrument itself run with a 6SJ7 and a PL21/2D21. The controls are simple and straightforward: on/off switch, waveform selection, pitch range, pitch fine tune, and intensity. The Pitch Range switch offers three settings: High, Low, and Lowset. The Phantastron pentode offers a selection of three waveforms, and the Intensity pot controls the output volume as well as adds drive to the Phantastron. This little box has a sound that can be described as a hybrid of a Trautonium and an Ondes Martenot. Driving the tubes can bring in a bit of a tube distortion to color the sound further. The Phantastron is controllable via the CV input where a ribbon controller or a CV keyboard, or a MIDI-to-CV converter can be plugged in. The Sync/Audio input can match pitch/phase to audio signal and AC synth signals. The fun thing about this is that anything that has an analog output and given reasonable amplification prior to plugging to the Phantastron can be used to control (to some extent) the Phantastron such as your electric guitar, drum machine, another synth, your voice through your microphone (check this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3Hqb29ZeI), or whatever analog output source you may have.

The Electric Western Phantastron is a DIY kit, which means you need to get your hands dirty before getting any sound out of it. According to Electric Western, you can "Git Yer Kit!" through them directly for 195.00 USD.