ONDES-1 — Analog polysynth with a ribbon

Analog polysynth with a ruban
after Maurice Martenot, 1928

First run
400 numbered units

Atelier Ondes
Lyon, FR · 45.77° N

Four voices, thirty-seven keys and a 520 mm ribbon you play with a ring on your finger. Built by four people in a former silk workshop in Lyon.

Reserve a serial — €2,890

Voices: 4 × 2 VCO
Keys: 37, aftertouch
Ruban: 520 mm, ±3 oct
Ships: Spring 2027

ASDF on your keyboard plays it. The trace above is a test signal.

§1

Origin

Who made it
and why

In 1928 Maurice Martenot slid a ring along a wire and the note followed his finger. Ninety-nine years later, four of us put that ring on a polysynth.

1.1Atelier Ondes began as a repair bench. Élise fixed vintage polysynths for Lyon's studios; Tomás rebuilt the ribbon of a 1960s ondes Martenot for the Conservatoire. The ribbon was the part every visitor wanted to touch, and the part no instrument in a shop window had.

1.2ONDES-1 is what happened when we stopped repairing and started drawing. Four voices, because that is what two hands and a ribbon actually use. Thirty-seven keys, because it has to fit on a desk between a laptop and a coffee. Everything else is analog and opens with a screwdriver.

1.3We build every unit at one bench on the slopes of La Croix-Rousse, where Jacquard looms once ran on punched cards. Each one is calibrated for forty minutes, played for one evening, and signed under the panel.

1.4 — The atelier

№	Name	Bench	Responsible for
01	Élise Marchand	Circuits	Voice cards, ladder filter, power supply
02	Tomás Reyes	Mechanics	Ruban, keybed, folded-steel chassis
03	Nadia Benali	Wood & finish	Walnut cheeks, oiling, final assembly
04	Jules Fournier	Firmware	Auto-tune, MIDI, the self-test you watched on the way in

1.5 — Four years, six dates

2022.03
One oscillator on a breadboard. The first ribbon is a strip of cassette tape.
2023.09
Ruban v3: resistive film, a steel ring on a wire. It finally tracks.
2024.06
Ladder filter fixed after eleven board revisions.
2025.11
Twelve prototypes go to studios in Lyon, Berlin and Montréal.
2026.10
Reservations open for serials 013 to 400.
2027.04
The first boxes leave the atelier.

§2

Anatomy

Plan view, 1 : 4.2
Hover a part to locate it

Fig. 2.1 — ONDES-1, plan view. Dimensions in millimetres.

01Walnut cheeks22 mm, oiled
02Oscillators2 VCO per voice
03Ladder filter4-pole, −24 dB/oct
04Envelopes2 × ADSR, sliders
05LFO0.02–400 Hz
06Voice & master4 voice lamps, glide
07RubanRing on a steel wire
08Touche d'intensitéPressure key, left hand
09Keybed37 keys, C to C

§3

Specification

Manual ref. AO-M1
rev. 0.9, October 2026

3.1

Oscillators

Two discrete triangle-core VCOs per voice, eight in all. Each voice drifts on its own, a few cents at most, and you decide how many. On power-up the firmware tunes all eight against a crystal in about four seconds.

Architecture	2 discrete VCOs per voice, 8 total
Core	Triangle-core, temperature-compensated expo
Waveforms	Saw, pulse (PWM 5–95 %), triangle, sub −1 oct
Sync	Hard sync, VCO 2 → VCO 1
Range	64′ to 2′, fine ±7 semitones
Drift	0–12 cents per voice, user-set
Tuning	Auto-tune at power-up, ±0.5 cent
Noise	White / pink, per-voice level

3.2

Filter

A four-pole transistor ladder, matched by hand per voice. Turn resonance past two o'clock and it sings on its own, tracking the keyboard. A switch puts back the bass that resonance usually eats.

Low-pass	4-pole transistor ladder, −24 dB/oct
Second filter	2-pole state-variable: HP / BP / notch
Cutoff	18 Hz – 22 kHz
Resonance	To self-oscillation, bass compensation
Key tracking	0 / 50 / 100 %
Envelope	Dedicated ADSR, 1 ms – 12 s, bipolar

3.3

Ruban & touche

The ribbon runs the full width of the keybed, so every note on it sits above the key it matches. Put your finger through the ring and slide. Your left hand rests on the touche, a pressure key that opens the amplifier as gently as you press it.

Ruban	520 mm resistive film, ring on steel wire
Range	±2 to ±36 semitones, selectable
Resolution	14-bit, steps of 0.3 cent
Quantise	Off / semitone / 12 stored scales
Touche	60 × 40 mm pressure key, to VCA or VCF
Keybed	37 keys, velocity, release velocity, aftertouch
Voice modes	Poly 4 / Unison 8 VCO / Duo

3.4

Build

Brushed aluminium on folded steel, between two cheeks of French walnut from a sawmill in the Drôme, air-dried for four years. Legends are laser-etched into the panel, so they never wear off under your thumb.

Panel	2 mm brushed 5052 aluminium, etched legends
Cheeks	22 mm oiled French walnut
Chassis	1.5 mm folded steel, powder-coated
Knobs	Machined aluminium, knurled, 18 and 30 mm
Dimensions	712 × 318 × 96 mm
Weight	9.4 kg
Warranty	5 years, serviced at the atelier

3.5

Rear panel

Everything you need to put it in a studio, nothing you have to configure from a menu.

Audio	2 × ¼″ balanced out, ¼″ headphones
Palme out	Dedicated line for a resonating cabinet
MIDI	DIN in / out / thru, USB-C class-compliant
CV	Ruban pitch out 1 V/oct, gate out
Pedals	Sustain, expression
Effects	“Métallique” 3-spring reverb tank, BBD chorus
Memory	128 programs, panel mode one switch away
Power	Internal 100–240 V, 28 W, IEC C14

§4

Play

A four-voice sketch
running in your browser

This is ONDES-1 reduced to what a browser can do: four voices, two oscillators each, a four-pole filter and a ribbon. The real one is warmer. The trace is your sound, drawn as it leaves the speakers.

A–K white keys
WETYU black keys
Z X octave down / up
Drag the ruban for continuous pitch

ONDES-1 / web Voices — · — Hz

CH1 · 0.25 /divTIME —TRIG ↑ 0.00

No signal. Press Power or any key from A to K.

VCO wave

Saw Sqr Tri Sin

VCF response

Octave

Ruban

§5

Reserve

Serials 013–400
€290 refundable deposit

Four hundred serial numbers. Pick yours.

Serials 001 to 012 went to the studios that tested prototypes. Filled squares are taken. You pay a €290 deposit now, refundable until we ship, and the remaining €2,600 when your unit leaves Lyon in spring 2027. Price includes VAT for EU orders.

Serial map, 20 × 20— unclaimed

UnclaimedTakenYours

Serial number

Pick a square on the map or type a number from 13 to 400.

Name

Ship to

Cheeks Walnut Ash

Send me the build diary — one email a month, written at the bench.