What made the original Gleeman Pentaphonic so rare?
Brothers Bob and Al Gleeman built the Pentaphonic in a Silicon Valley garage in 1981, at a moment when most analog polysynths were still hand-wired beasts. Theirs ran on Intel microprocessors, with digitally controlled oscillators and computer-controlled tuning, a five-voice analog synth that was unusually ambitious for a two-person operation. Fewer than 70 units ever left that garage between 1981 and 1994. A transparent 'Pentaphonic Clear' variant, its plexiglas chassis lit from inside so owners could watch the circuitry work, pushed the idea further: only about 20 of those were built.
Who actually got their hands on one says a lot about who was paying attention to oddball American synth-building in the early 1980s. Jazz giant Oscar Peterson owned one. So did Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, whose band's entire early sound leaned on exactly this kind of boutique analog gear. A synth this scarce, owned by people like that, is the definition of a studio unicorn: everyone who knows what it is wants one, and almost nobody could ever buy one.
What does $59 buy that the hardware never could?
Cherry Audio's plugin recreation does not just clone the Pentaphonic, it dramatically outgrows it. Where the hardware topped out at five voices, the plugin runs up to 16, with three oscillators per voice across eight waveforms instead of the original's single digitally controlled oscillator per voice. The filter section, modeled on the Curtis 3320 chip, adds a switchable 2-pole mode alongside the classic 4-pole character. There are two LFOs where the Gleeman had one, two ADSR envelopes, a syncable arpeggiator and a 16-step polyphonic sequencer with chainable patterns. A Parameter Animator lets four controls run their own sequences at once, something no 1981 synth, however advanced, could offer. Layer in a 22-effect processor and 375 presets across 14 categories, and the $59 price tag buys a studio-ready synth deeper than the collector's item it imitates.
Cherry Audio's own framing leans into that tension between heritage and modernity.
It's rich and vintage, yet also modern. It fits well in modern tracks.
The plugin ships with three UI skins, including a black theme and two transparent ones, an 'Audities' clear and a straight Clear, both of which nod directly to the original plexiglas unit's party trick.
Why does a 45-year-old boutique synth matter to house producers now?
House and techno production has always fed on the gap between what analog hardware could once do and what producers can now afford to put in a session. A synth that circulated in single-digit quantities among jazz royalty and new-wave icons was, by design, never going to show up on a club record unless someone owned one and brought it to the studio. Putting that sound, expanded well past its original limits, behind a $59 download collapses that gap entirely.
