When this arrived in my inbox yesterday, I was surprised – not something which happens frequently when checking my emails. Infact, on reading the email, I strongly suspected it to be some kind of joke. Surely no one would actually be stupid enough to try and dedicate a polysynth to “all abused and oppressed women”, right?

Er, I’m afraid you’d be wrong. Dreadbox have decided to do precisely that – but it’s very much a case of blink and you’ll miss it! Looking at their website, you’ll either be reminded of that weird pink custard they used to serve in schools years ago, or you’ll be reaching for the paracetamol to get rid of a headache.

There’s a fair bit of technical info here about the polysynth, called the Nymphes after a goddess. And to be fair, the YouTube demo provided does sound pretty good – although it’s rare for the demo to sound crap. But once again, I keep coming back to this thing about abused women.

If you scroll all the way down to the end of the page, you’ll notice a graphic which states “each time you play a note on this synthesiser, imagine that you soothe their pain away”. Feel free to read that bit again. Your eyes really aren’t deceiving you.

Of all the things I’ve read over the years about synthesisers, the idea that women which have suffered abuse in their lives will feel better each time you play a chord on this thing is easily the most moronic and stupid by a country mile. And the notion anyone will be imagining anything of the kind when playing with this thing is beyond laughable.

And as for their claim of “support charities for abused women, we always do” – I cannot find one mention on their website or anywhere else about a previous donation to any charity helping female victims of abuse of any kind. Dreadbox have been contacted to elaborate on this statement, but have not responded at the time of publishing.

This synthesiser might well be absolutely brilliant. We don’t know because no one’s had a chance to review it yet. The trouble is you only get one chance at a first impression – and this polysynth’s first impression is one of utter contempt for women whom have suffered abuse in their lifetimes and the opinion they think their audience are totally stupid…