A few years back, the potent Sonicware ELZ_1 hit the synth-world like a many-headed monster. The all-new Sonicware ELZ_1 Play takes the same concept and pushes things further. This portable, desktop-friendly synthesizer features a compact design loaded with a touch-keyboard, and while the everything looks pretty clean and minimal, what lies beneath is immense. Normally a synthesizer will focus on one kind of synthesis, like virtual-analogue sawtooths and square-waves, but with the ELZ_1 Play you get no-less-than seventeen different synth engines combined with nine different filter types and, as if that wasn't enough, you also get a full bank of thirty-three effects. The Sonicware ELZ_1 Play: Unrivalled Potential Each different synth engine also comes with a different polyphony. With the 8BIT Wavemem Synth, for example, you get twenty voices, and with the FM-Synth you get six. Then there are the synth engines that do something more specialised: the SiGrinder, Ztrings, Masked Flute, and the DNA Explorer, to name a few. Naturally, you also gain access to an arpeggiator and sequencer so you can develop ideas - whether it's on the fly or in the studio and, besides a headphone output, this synth also features built-in stereo speakers. With the addition of DN-MIDI, USB-MIDI and 3.5mm mini-jack sync ports, the Play is definitely an upgrade on the original ELZ_1 and gives users more than enough to sink their teeth into.