Heritage Audio Synth Buddy

Heritage Audio Synth Buddy 10 X 1 Stereo Passive Selector

By Barry Rudolph

Heritage Audio of Madrid, Spain have continued to offer very useful devices for studios, live sound and any musician. Synth Buddy is their latest professional unit; a passive, stereo audio switcher.

If you're in the middle of a heated creative moment, it pretty awesome not to be slowed down by setting up and connecting another synth. Your idea maybe lost as quickly as you thought of it!

Synth Buddy cones in a rugged, 190mm L x 105mm D x H 80mm steel cabinet/desktop console box with a single large knob that turns a 10-position rotary switch with solid-feeling detents. The front panel and is slanted for easy access while the rear panel has enough room for 221/4-inch tip sleeve (TS) jacks. This allows the connecting jacks and cables to protrude out the back and out of the way. I liked that Synth Buddy has four gripping, rubber feet to keep it solidly in position without slipping around your desk or keyboard stand-actually any flat surface.

Heritage Audio Synth Buddy Top View

The 22 jacks are arranged in two rows of ten jacks (20) so that you may switch at the same time either two mono signals or a stereo signal split out to separate Left and Right mono signals. The two output jacks in the center of the back panel are for the dual-mono or stereo selected output of the switch.

Reverse Mode

Besides not requiring any power supply, being totally passive has a number advantages that may not be immediately realized.

Synth Buddy's switching is reversible. The dual mono or stereo jacks in the center of the back panel can take audio sources as inputs to switch to any of the rear panel jacks. You could have a stereo synth keyboard plugged in and switch to several different outboard processor's inputs or different amps on stage. Guitar/bass players will love Synth Buddy in Reverse mode because up to ten guitar amps (!) could be and immediately switched between them to compared tones or use a different amp with completely different settings and/or maybe a distortion pedal in line. It is completely flexible. One of the positions could be for a mute!

I found Synth Buddy to do its job well without trouble; the rotary switch is smooth and quick A/Bs are simple to do. Just put the A and the B on two consecutive switch positions and just pop between them! I can think of some cool effects here by having the two synths connected to the same MIDI channel. Hold down a chord on the MIDI controller and using Synth Buddy switch to quickly toggle between the two synths.

Synth Buddy sells for $199 MSRP, US distribution is RAD Global Distribution.

Heritage Audio

Rad Global Distribution

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