PWM wins rights to OSCar name

Last weekend PWM attended SynthEast 2025, displaying the Malevolent analogue monosynth, Mantis hybrid poly and some rare, exotic oddities - a classic OSCar monosynth and the only existing prototype of the OSC Advanced Sound Generator. Looking like the PPG Waveterm's evil twin, the monolithic black rack (complete with CRT) features 16 hybrid voices; a mix of DCO's and digital waveforms, that are fed into a flexible filter, plus sampling!

"That is the project that Chris (Huggett) was working on at the time he ceased with Oxford Synthesizer Company and joined Akai" - Paul Whittington

A contemporary article on the "ASG" stated that 10 seconds of sample time was available at 50Khz. Thanks to mu:zines for preserving this information:

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/osc-advanced-sound-generator/9011

These treasures were on display for a reason; to announce that Paul Whittington Group has acquired the rights to the OSC name.

"Now that OSCar is officially a part of our little family, we can talk more freely about Mantis being a successor to this, because Mantis is built on the OSCar and WASP code, particularly with the dual filter. Mantis is the logical successor to this. I cannot confirm or deny whether we will make anything using the OSCar name, but we'd be a bit daft not to, I suppose!" - Paul Whittington

As a Xennial, I will admit that the original OSCar kind of passed me by. However, from browsing sites like Vintage Synth Explorer in the early 2000's I always thought it was a very intriguing instrument for it's aesthetic and musical aspects. I look forward to seeing what becomes of this new acquisition! Please look out for my SynthEast show report in the next few days, as you'll get to see more of Paul and those classic OSC machines.

Posted by MagicalSynthAdventure an expert in synthesis technology from last Century and Amiga enthusiast.

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