Arturia has announced that their first hardware synthesizer Origin is finally shipping. Origin was revealed early last year and I know quite a few people (including myself) who got interested in seeing what it’s all about.

Origin looks like a highly flexible and modular bastard. There are plenty of knobs and buttons (including a joystick – me likes!) which I think is a huge plus. It seems like too many manufacturers let users rely on endless menu scrolling instead of knobs to save money and space. I find this trend incredibly counter-productive and un-intuitive. In this regard Origin looks very nice. Unfortunately it also looks like the knobs are a little plastic. Call me a snob, but I find such things annoying.

A keyboard version will follow the desktop version pictured above.

You can see Origin in action and listen to it here on Arturia’s website.