Ahead of the 2018 NAMM Show, Doepfer has announced the Dark Energy III, the latest in their Dark Energy series of analog synthesizers.

The Dark Energy III is a monophonic stand-alone synthesizer with USB and Midi interface. The sound generation and all modulation sources are 100% analog, only the USB/Midi interface contains digital components. It is built into a rugged black metal case with wooden side plates. High quality potentiometers with metal shafts are used and each potentiometer is fixed to the case (no wobbly shafts and knobs).

The company says that the main differences between II and III are an improved VCO (no warm-up period, additional triangle waveform, wider frequency range), resettable LFOs, improved ADSR and a lot of internal access points for DIYers.

Features:

VCO:

Triangle based, 10 octaves frequency range

Tune control and Octave switch – 1 / 0 / +1 octave

FM input with selectable source (ADSR / off / LFO1)

Manual PW control and PWM with selectable source (ADSR / off / LFO2) for rectangle wave

Waveform switch

Additional external CV inputs for frequency and pulsewidth of the rectangle?

VCF:

12dB Multimode VCF with continuous mode control (lowpass – notch – highpass – bandpass)

Manual Frequency control and FM with selectable source (ADSR / off / LFO2)

Resonance control, up to self oscillation

Additional external CV and external audio input?

VCA:

Linear control scale

Manual Amplitude control and AM with selectable source (ADSR / off / LFO1)

Additional external CV input?

Envelope:

Improved ADSR type with 3-position range switch

Additional external gate input

Control LED?

LFO:

Two resettable LFOs (external Reset inputs)

manual frequency control and 3-position range switches

Waveform switches triangle/square

LED controls

Doepfer adds that there are lots of internal access points for DIY applications or modification of the socket functions (e.g. VCO outputs triangle, sawtooth, rectangle, hardsync, softsync, linear FM, VCF outputs L/H/B, ADSR output and A/D/S/R CV inputs, LFO outputs triangle and square).

See the Doepfer site for more info.