Reykjavik-based instrument developer Genki Instruments has announced availability of the eagerly-awaited analog polyphonic synthesizer instrument inspired by Iceland’s largest subglacial volcano as its natural namesake.
Katla features a multimodal voice-allocation engine that routes notes across five discrete voices, each with individually adjustable parameters.
We set out to build an instrument worthy of that legacy, something powerful and expressive.
Katla excels at generating rich, evolving, multi-layered textures, where each note stirs, swells, and erupts in its own distinct way. Its design embodies a balance between randomness and control, inviting experimentation and rewarding curiosity.
Katla features
- Five Independent Voices: 5 voice polyphony, with individual filters, amplifiers, LFO’s and envelopes for each voice.
- Sub per-voice: Each voice is paired with its own dedicated sub-oscillator with global controls for waveform and octave.
- True Stereo: Notes can be spread across the stereo field, shaped by dedicated left and right distortion channels, and immersed in a spacious stereo reverb.
- Clock Sync: Katla can be synced to the BPM of your DAW or any external clocking device, allowing its modulation to lock tightly with your music. Envelope and LFO timings can be quantized to musical intervals.
- Keyboard Tracking: Keyboard Tracking adapts envelopes, LFO timing, and filter cutoff to the pitch of each note, making every key respond with its own unique character and movement.
- Looping Envelopes: Katla’s looping envelopes blur the line between envelopes and LFOs, allowing you to craft rhythmic, evolving patterns or tempo-synced modulation.
- LFO per-voice: LFO’s offer unique combinations of their minimum and maximum outputs which are used to modulate the stereo effects. These operations allow for interaction between LFOs, resulting in unique, non-repetitive modulations that feel alive and organic.
- 80’s Digital Plate Reverb: Lush stereo digital reverb inspired by classic 1980s hardware, designed to add depth and ambiance to your sound.
- Four Distortion Destinations: Katla’s Four Distortion Destinations let you shape tone at multiple stages, each adding unique color and texture.
- Row Presets: Preset buttons are divided into three rows, with each row controlling presets for specific sections, such as oscillators or LFOs. This structure allows quick, targeted adjustments without overwriting your entire sound.
- MPE compatible: Katla is fully MPE-enabled, with per-note response to pressure, pitch, timbre, and aftertouch.
- External Inputs: Katla features five external inputs, each routed to its corresponding voice. You can feed audio from any source, sequence between the inputs, and process the signals through Katla’s analog signal path, adding warmth, distortion, filtering, and character to your external sounds.
- Unison Grace Period: When in unison mode, all voices are allocated to a note. That means when releasing a chord one of the notes will linger slightly longer the rest, and all the voices will be assigned to that note, resulting in a monophonic release phase. When Unison Grace Period is enabled, a slight timing offset is introduced, allowing Katla to let all notes fade out smoothly and naturally.
- Hand-Assembled, Limited Batch: Each Katla is meticulously hand-assembled, making every unit not just a synthesizer, but a rare, finely crafted piece of musical artistry.
Shipping on March 31, 2026, Katla is available to order now for €4,990 EUR (including VAT and free delivery).
More information: Genki
