Orchid is a fun and accessible retro hipster synth

In 2017, I bought an old Magnus chord organ on Craigslist for $10. It’s one of my favorite music purchases. Electric organs allow you to play full songs at the push of a button, making them perfect for budding songwriters or tinkering at home. But organ music fell out of favor in the ’80s, as digital keyboards like those from Casio grew in popularity.

Telepathic Instruments Orchid attempts to recapture some of that simple instrument magic. Like those classic electric organs, the Orchid lets you play rich melodies without having to have heavy theory or a heavy finger. It is not a tool that requires creativity. It’s a way for songwriters to sketch out ideas with little fuss, and it extends the organ’s legacy with a distinctly modern twist.

Orchid was designed in collaboration with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. Aesthetically, it hearkens back to the ’60s brown and black organs of the likes of Magnus and Bontempi. The speaker grill also resembles the fan vents on those classic instruments. He really is a spiritual follower, you know, a lot it’s more expensive at $649.

But where the Magnus organ is limited to how many single-button chords it can play with the number of reeds it can hold, the Orchid is all digital and can theoretically play any chord, in any pitch, in any scale. It also means that the Orchid can sound like more than just the accordion’s cute droney cousin.

For a songwriter, this means you can focus on your lyrics and vocal melody. If, like me, you struggle to sing and play an instrument at the same time, this can take a huge load off the mind. The variety of sounds also means that not everything needs to sound like a dirge or a sea shanty, which is certainly not the case with a classic chord organ.

If you have a passing knowledge of music theory (and it would be generous to call mine even passing), you should have little problem with Orchid. There is a keyboard with one octave and several keys to the left of it corresponding to different types of chords, that is, major, minor, diminished, major 7th, and so on. Press C and major, and you get C major. Press F# and 9, and you get F#9. It’s easy.

Orchid can really hold your hand if you want (and I often do). You can lock Orchid to a specific key, so it will only play songs in the key of E minor or Bb major. That means almost anything you play will sound decent and consistent. If your understanding of chord theory is limited, this can really expand your sonic palette with minimal frustration. I often found myself using the chord engine to find progressions that I liked as the backbone of a track that I could build upon when jamming in my studio.

But Orchid can do more than just blast songs from a single block. It has strum, harp, and arpeggiator modes, as well as 13 pre-programmed patterns. My favorite performance mode (as it’s called) is “slop,” which introduces small random time imperfections that mimic the person playing the song, rather than the machine. The higher you raise it, the more unevenly the notes are played.

Vintage chord organs have a distinct droney sound, not unlike the majestic accordion, which, even 40 years later, still inspired artists like El-P. But Orchid can produce a much wider range of sounds.

There are three simple synth engines under the hood: one is an analog (VA) synth, the other is an FM synth for ’80s-style pianos and instruments, and finally, a reed piano, which is great for getting those Wurlitzer sounds, but can also give you those soft Rhodes electric piano tones too. I often found myself shooting distorted and heavily distorted pads in the VA engine and using the Orchid almost like a fidget toy, playing simple chords when I needed to focus. You can always connect the Orchid to a computer or other synth and use it as a MIDI controller if you want access to its single-key chords but a wide palette of sounds.

There are 70 presets (excluding bass patches, which we’ll get to in a minute) built into Orchid, and they cover most of your basics. It’s a good thing, too, since there are very few ways to edit sounds directly in Orchid. You can change the filter cutoff or adjust the intensity of effects such as action or phase, but that’s it. Instead, if you want to design your own patches, you’ll need to spend $99 for the Pistil virtual synth ($50 bundled with Orchid), which can send custom sounds to Orchid. I found Pistil a little buggy, and the UI often froze after transferring patches.

Orchid also has a dedicated bass section, separate from the main synth, which you can turn on and off. There are only 12 sounds, but they cover a lot of essentials, from low octaves of electric piano to Moog-style bass synths, tuned 808s, and aggressive EDM drones. They can be layered in major keys to add subtle depth to chord progressions or played solo.

The accompanying options are where Orchid can be more complex than a simple music player. If you don’t lock it to a specific key, and you set the bass to play only with the chords, then you can have a low-level thump locked to your chord progression, and add a melodic flourish above the bass if you don’t press any of the chord keys. Although due to the way Orchid handles polyphony – you can’t play multiple keys at once – this can be more frustrating than helpful, depending on the patch. If a piece has a long decay time, for example, the chords will suddenly break if you try to play a single note. You’re better off using the built-in audio looper, which lets you record chord progressions, bass lines, and melodies separately, for more flexibility.

I’m head over heels for the built-in drum machine. It is extremely limited. You can’t program a custom beat, you can’t change sounds. However I think it is perfect, although it would be nice to have an option for user uploaded bits from within Pistil. It’s also inspired by vintage gear from the ’70s, rhythm machines like Korg Mini Pops that played pre-arranged beats to accompany house organs. The lo-fi, almost twee sound of these machines is among my favorites in the world of drum machines.

Orchid is fun, intuitive, and easy to use. But it is also quite limited. You can’t design your own sounds without paying extra for Pistil software. The keyboard is small, and you can’t really play chords on it: You can play one key at a time, and all chord voicings come from the chord keys on the left. That means if you know how to play Dm13 on a piano, for example, you can’t do it on an Orchid keyboard. This is a bit annoying, and one of the main differences between it and a vintage chord organ. It varies by model, but my personal Magnus organ has dedicated keys only for Bb, F, C, A, D, and G major chords. Yes, I can always play any song I want using Magnus’ standard two-octave keyboard.

There are some very powerful synths in the $649 price range. But the Orchid isn’t trying to compete with the Korg Minilogue or the Arturia MiniFreak. If you want to refine and design synth patches from scratch, spend your money elsewhere. Orchid is no joke. It’s more of a songwriting tool than a synth. If you’re a singer/songwriter looking to get away from the nuances of acoustic guitars or upright pianos, Orchid offers an accessible, if expensive, electronic option.