Nikolator is a physical modeling synthesizer from Hügelton Instruments, released in September 2026. It does not use a conventional oscillator. Instead it models a musical Tesla coil, simulating the resonant circuit, the electrical discharge, and the sound that discharge produces in the air, which gives it a timbre that no waveform generator or sample can copy. The current first look is AAS Player 2.0.
You shape the sound with electrical controls like voltage, current, and arc length, along with a drive envelope, a 4 by 6 modulation matrix, and a paraphonic valve low-pass filter. It plays in mono or poly, costs as little as $1, and runs on macOS and Windows. For the full breakdown, see the Nikolator first look.