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GLX

@glx.ltd

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GLX is an electronic instrument manufacturer based in Durham, North Carolina.
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New one on the super special @glx.ltd BALSAM synthesizer. With its unconventional slider interface, as opposed to a keyboard, this synth lends itself so wel for ambient explorations! I absolutely love turning BALSAM on and completely forgetting about the concept of time. Playing this beautiful synth really is a meditative experience. #ambient #synth #synthesizer #glx #balsam by @glx.ltd
Here’s another on on the amazing @glx.ltd BALSAM! This dark and moody patch and the note glides somehow remind me of Mica Levi’s score for Under the Skin which is a very very good thing :-) I love that BALSAM has a dedicated bipolar slider to route the mod envelope to the LFO time. In this case it makes the LFO - which is modulating the filter - start very fast and slow down over time. I’m using the 2-pole lowpass filter here, I absolutely love its character. It leaves in a little more high frequencies than a 4-pole filter, making the patch sound nice and buzzy. I’ve quite heavily detuned the oscillators from each other and I’m again using BALSAM’s special power viscosity to make each oscillator glide to the next note at its own rate when using the pitch sliders. This makes the sound feel so alive! I did use some external fx in this piece, @strymonengineering El Capistan and Nightsky. BALSAM sounds gorgeous completely dry as well, but I love a little space in a piece like this one. #synth #synthesizer #ambient #GLX #BALSAM by @glx.ltd
Welcome BALSAM! The first time I heard about BALSAM was when I was writing a review for a blog about an amazing record by an artist called Chorusing. On that record I heard absolutely gorgeous, slowly drifting synth tones, which I later found out had been made with the artist’s home-built synthesiser, beautifully named BALSAM. A little later (I think), I found out that the synth was being further developed for release, and I came across its website, which featured the most beautiful music. The warm tones, slowly gliding from note to note and moving through the stereo field, were absolutely mesmerising. I kept coming back to the website just to listen to this gorgeous music. That was the moment it became a dream of mine to play this synth, if it were ever actually released. Fast forward a year or four, and here it is! I’m so happy to have this synth in my studio. It’s been a constant source of inspiration from the moment I took it out of the box. In a nutshell, BALSAM is an eight-voice hybrid synth (VA with analogue VCAs and an analogue stereo filter at the end of the signal chain), with eight buttons and sliders instead of a keyboard. You pick a tuning from eight banks of tunings and use the buttons to trigger the voices. The real superpower lies in the sliders and a unique feature called viscosity. Each voice is assigned a pair of notes, and the sliders let you glide between them. Viscosity acts a bit like a slew limiter, slowing down the movement of the sliders. What makes it truly special is that you can set different viscosity amounts for each of BALSAM’s two oscillators, making them glide to their new notes at different rates. Hearing BALSAM slowly detune and gradually find its way back to target notes and intervals is unlike anything I’ve experienced with any other synth. BALSAM’s the perfect combination of familiar subtractive synthesis - so familiar that you don’t even need presets - and a truly unique way of triggering and gliding between notes. #synth #synthesizer #ambient #glx #balsam by @glx.ltd
7.22.2026 :: GLX Shipping Division :: 10 BALSAM units enter European retail circulation As of this week, 10 BALSAM units (Serial # 026-035) have been received and powered on by our European retail partners: @schneidersladen (Berlin)
@schneiderskeller (London) This marks the first opportunity to evaluate the instrument in person outside of the US. These will likely go quickly, and a larger shipment will follow later this year. Thank you sincerely for your kind attention and interest. Pictured: BALSAM film photo experiments on Mamiya 645 📷 by @asiaharman by @glx.ltd
12.09.2025 After a long period of development, BALSAM is ready for release. You can check out the demo video up on Youtube (link in bio). Preorders sold out but more to come next year. Thank you for your kind attention 🎚️ by @glx.ltd
12.29.2023 Balsam oscillator displayed on Tektronix 2224 by @glx.ltd

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