Nopia Mk.1 – From Prototype to Gorgeous Finished Product!
4,7 / 5,0 | 
This ingenious and extremely pretty synth concept from Argentina has resurfaced in its finished form and is now in extensive testing ahead of a launch sometime soon!
[UPDATE: 16th December, 2025] I have to admit that I’d almost forgotten about the Nopia, a delightful prototype of a synth that focused on Tonal Harmony and combined Love Hultén-esque design with a chord building function that aids and inspires creativity.
Well, two and a half years on, the prototype has shed its cocoon and become the Mk.1 and boy, it looks and sounds fantastic! Design-wise, it hasn’t deviated much from the original, although it is far more refined than the wonky-keyed version we saw in May of 2023.
The synth engine is now both sample and VA-based and now features a multi-touch capacitive sensor for strumming and pitchbend. There’s an OLED display for feedback of settings and parameters. Around the back, there are now inputs for USB-C, TRS MIDI, MIDI Sync, sustain and audio outputs.
They also now have a website where you can learn more and sign up for their newsletter! And there’s also a new video to watch! We can’t wait to see and hear this in action, although there’s not firm release date or price as yet.
Nopia – Intelligent Chords, Bass and Arps in a Box
[May 19th, 2023] The Nopia is a clever box of tricks from Argentina that could be helping you make great tunes in a flash. We take a quick look at this new prototype!
In recent years, we’ve been inundated with super helpful tools that allow us to get tunes down quickly. There are plugins and tools all over the place that can generate chords sequences or bass lines. Drum pattern generators have been around for ages. But the bulk of these are pieces of software. Take the Player tools found in Reason. Drop one into the rack, connect it up to your synth plugin and BAM! Instant inspiration.
The Nopia Prototype
Now it seems that some people in Buenos Aires, Argentina have developed a hardware concept that collects together similar tools into a cool box. The Nopia looks like something that might have emerged from the design studio of Love Hultén or even Critter and Guitari. Its soothing pastel colour, soft lights and quirky one octave keyboard certainly put it in that particular design world. It’s what is under the hood that should really be catching your eye, or ear.
First of all, this is a prototype. A really good prototype, but a prototype nonetheless. But what do we have here?
How Does It Work?
Well, a single octave piano-style keyboard and a corresponding keyboard layout of buttons occupy the lower half. You choose your key with the buttons and then every key you play on the keyboard generates a chord within that key. Nothing revolutionary there, you might say. Nopia works with Tonal Harmony, a concept that emphasises the relationship between chords, specifically the relationship between tonic, the home tone of the key, and dominant, the fifth note in the key. Nopia then allows you to generate simple or complex versions of the chords with extensions. For example, C, Cmaj7 or Cmaj9.
All About The Bass
The chord builder then drives the bass section. A single pad gives you the common root bass note, but a second pad adds a suitable variant. Better yet, this can all be clocked to MIDI for an instant rhythm section! The arpeggiator then takes the notes in the chord, breaking them into a suitable arpeggiation that can also follow MIDI clock. Nopia features a built-in sample based synthesizer and they’ve already developed a rack unit within Ableton Live and the hope is to turn Nopia into a standalone instrument.
Round The Loop
To finish things off, Nopia has a built in looper so as well as being a compositional aid, Nopia could very well be on the desks of many a hardware jammer or EMOM’er.
The two people behind Nopia, Martin Grieco and Rocío Gal, seem to be on to a winner here. The video on YouTube has only been up a day and had over 133,000 views in 24 hours. A few of us here at Gearnews have become very excited by this, including our guitar-head Jef! We can’t wait to see how this develops.
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14 responses to “Nopia Mk.1 – From Prototype to Gorgeous Finished Product!”
I am very interested in purchasing the Nopia mini .
I’d love to purchase Nopia !
I need more information about the prive.
The unit is still in prototype phase, so prices won’t be available for a while 🙂
seen a demo of this device!! now take my money 💰 and send me one
Such an attractive presentation of such a well thought piece of bliss. I can’t not have this device. It’s a “must have” in my book.
This is one of the funniest comedy bits I have ever seen
looks too easy. does all the work for you, what’s the point?
How much will the estimated cost be in Dollars?
This is not currently known as the unit is still a prototype.
Ok see you when you will be officially on the market
A very bizarre instrument. However you can tell that the production in manufacturing is slightly sloppy on this one.
Perfect example of form over function.
The most surprising thing about this, is that this was designed before generative AI was a thing. It looks like it belongs on Instagram, instrad of the real world
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