Borg ER-31.0.3

Borg ER-3 lets users generate tones, shape them, and experiment with synthesis from a Linux desktop. Created by James William Fletcher, it is inspired by the Korg ER-1 and serves as a spiritual reboot of the earlier Borg ER-2 Windows application.

This fixed-state modular synthesizer uses FART oscillators, meaning Frequency, Amplitude, Resolution, and Transformation oscillators. Resolution controls harmonic detail, while Transformation determines the waveform shape produced by each oscillator. Users can click and drag the envelope into any desired shape, then configure each biquad filter manually by entering its individual coefficients. The filters run in sequence, with BIQUAD 1 processing the signal first.

Borg ER-3 suits musicians, sound designers, and curious synthesizer users creating tones or exploring unusual timbres. It runs on Linux with snapd and targets x86_64 (amd64) systems, and it is released as open-source software. The Snapcraft version can present a non-functional interface, unresponsive clicking, missing sound, or degraded audio quality; users encountering those problems can use the binary or compile the program from source instead.

In version 1.0.3, exported files are saved in ~/EXPORTS/Borg_ER-3/. That export location gives generated audio a consistent place to find after working with the synthesizer.