-=[THE SYNTH ZONE]=-

just got my minlogue from sweetwater. only ordered in in mid march!

I love it. Sounds cool, fun to play with. love the little built in sequencer. Probably won't use most of the modes except for the arpeggiator and chord, which is a really smart implementation. Sure you can't use chord memory on some weird chord you come up with, but it covers all the basics.

here's me ripping it up on two VCS3s at once:

https://soundcloud.com/incrementalcontroller/vcs3-explorations

amazing setup - VCS3 x2, sample and hold module, filter bank module, pitch to voltage module and the keyboard! barely scratched the surface...

I'm thinking of upgrading from a Microkorg at some point - not particularly fussed on analogue or not but ideally something with lots of hands-on options for tweaking sounds in real time. I'm looking at the Sledge 2.0, Minilogue and Minibrute SE. I know lots of people don't like the GAIA. Is there anything else in the same sort of price range that stands out?

I think the Minibrute wins out unless you're really set on polyphony. The Sledge 2.0 seems to work best when it's hooked up to a computer, so that might remove some of it's hands on appeal. A Korg Volca Keys/Bass/FM combo works out at about the same price, the FM even managing to make FM synthesis moderately tweakable. The Novation Ultranova is in the same price range, but it's not much more accessible than the Microkorg, although it does have an LCD display running under the knobs to indicate what's what.

Thanks!

Also:
Moog Minitaur - it can do non-bass sounds but it's a little more work.
Pittsburgh Modular Lifeforms SV-1 Black Box - a standalone synth, but it can be interfaced easily Eurorack modules and can even be removed from it's desktop case to be installed in a regular Eurorack case with other stuff.
Makenoise 0-Coast - might be too far out sonically and a lot of the functions are hidden and accessed through 'program pages' (tapping on the two buttons labelled PGM).

Don't forget the Moog Mother-32 as well.

For mono stuff, I really like the bass station 2, as well. It's got 2 oscillators (whereas the minibrute only has one, I think), so you can do osc sync. It also has sub oscillator and ring mod. It could use a couple more knobs rather than context switches, but it's still pretty tweakable.

That being said, the Minilogue has most of that, but has 4 voices! The only things I miss on the Minilogue is a mod wheel and the lack of aftertouch modulation.

you guys I played an OB6 last night, phwoarrrrrrr

This looks pretty dope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmwxoho-o4o

ha holy shit I was coming here to post that video - just found out about it

Looks like a lot of fun.

Korg volca Kick demo - I have to admit that I thought this would be a bit limited but this video sells it a bit better by explaining how it actually works.

Also a more in depth review of the Arturia DrumBeast

(amazed that this is £379 although by the time the £ falls against the Euro and the $ it'll probably be more like £500)

played drumbrute last night, placed preorder swiftly after

Sweet. I want one too!

the 808-y kick goes loooooooooooow

luv all the cool sequencing stuff, I basically use my TR-8 with the beatstep pro exclusively so stuffing it all in the one box with extras, sign me up thanks

briefly tinkered with the matrixbrute too - hoo boy there's a lot going on there, will have to give it serious thought I think (after convincing myself I didn't need it). so many possibilities!

anyone have any of the yamaha reface series? my friend has the electric piano one and he loves it as a more portable option than his big rhodes, but i am tempted by the combo organ one. i love organ sounds and the simplicity/focus of it are appealing to me.

I'm excited about the new Korg Monologue

NA all the refaces sound really good and they are built solidly for the size and form factor. (I've got the DX one, bit of a sucker for that sound at times.)

and by that sound I mean fake gongs and bells and shit.

OK, the Teenage Engineering OP-1 looks urgent and key. Especially with the little antenna accessory that lets you apparently just sample right off of any FM station.

I own one and love it. Only drawback for me is the limited recording space and having to dump all recorded files to a computer after the 6 minutes are used up.

i know this is not meant to be the iOS synth/VST thread but I have to take the opportunity to say that Korg's iOS recreation of the ARP Odyssey is fucking killllerrrrr

Poison 202 is also pretty feature-rich for the price.

So I hear. That has Audio Units integration as well, which ODYSSEi doesn't.

ODYSSEi has the coolest fucking arpeggiator though. Simultaneously with the usual melodic arpeggiator you have three independent lanes of a 'parameters arpeggiator' which can be arping the values of just about any knob in the app. You can even have one of its lanes modulating the speed of the arpeggiator itself which is a wonderfully perverse effect.

Cool!

Also all the Korg stuff is 50% off in the App Store right now. So it's opportune that you bring it up!

If you have both Gadget and ODYSSEi, you can deploy and sequence multiple instances of Ody within Gadget (its in-gadget version lacks the arpeggiator unfortunately, but then again you can automate almost all those parameters in Gadget's piano roll... not as fun, though) (also, ODYSSEi is very demanding and I can't run more than two instances of it at once in Gadget before my device freaks out. Its sound is incredible, so I don't begrudge it its CPU hunger.)

The thing I don't like about soft synths is when you turn the (virtual) oscillator pitch knobs, you can hear stepping as it goes up and down. This makes for lame sounding osc sync sweeps, etc. How does the Odyssei do in that regard?

ok the OP-1 maybe has too many goofy hipster accessories

https://www.amazon.com/Teenage-Engineering-002-XS-903-Accessory-Synthesizer/dp/B00KRENSIA/

You don't need them. Accessories don't take away from how great a machine it is.

Xpost its sweeps sound really good to me -- I'm usually automating those movements with the envelope or the parameters arp* though rather than riding the ui knob/slider.

*The parameters arp has a lag slider which can smooth the transitions between arp steps

odyssey, hardware or virtual, ownz. here's mine on the drone tip:

https://soundcloud.com/incrementalcontroller/sunrise-drones

You can get the new Arturia Mini V filter for free if you download it from their site before the 25th:

https://www.arturia.com/arturia-festive-gift

Downloads are SLOW!

Got a DrumBrute this week. It's pretty fresh, and very fun to play. Downside is that none of the knob settings are saved, and cannot be midi controlled, so pretty much you want to work on one song at a time with it, or else you will need to take pictures of the knob positions or something. I'm thinking I'll use it to play a bunch of stuff live into... Live, and then cut together bits from there. The note repeat pads are super-fun, and the filter is a nice addition.

Downloaded that Mini V filter, but looked at their page for offline activation and realized I'm never going to do all that. :/

OK, the Teenage Engineering OP-1 looks urgent and key. Especially with the little antenna accessory that lets you apparently just sample right off of any FM station.
― El Tomboto, Sunday, December 11, 2016 11:20 PM

watched a video on that, not something i need but that interface/menu is amazing

I got the OP-1 and a PO-24 and have spent the intervening period playing with the ARP Odyssey and iDS-10 on my iPad instead. This is mainly because super hip Swedish UX design is actually fairly unintuitive and feels unwelcoming to me

also I need stereo mini patch cables now. lol the future

iDS-10 is so much fun. I do really wish that the quantization could go like one level finer than it does. But I really love the way it does knob automation (long pressing any knob bringing up its own piano roll)

i want a volca fm

I used to play the DS-10 on my nintendo DS. Esp. at the time it was really impressive feature-wise.

I'm fairly certain my entire contribution to the "no line on the horizon" ILX pre-cover compilation is made of DS-10 noises

hey yall, i've always wanted an MPC and now i'm seriously considering grabbing one. now that akai has basically discontinued the line in favor of a hardware/software combo, i imagine the older models are only going to get more expensive. any MPC users have any tips/tricks/advice for buying one? i'm looking at one of the tricked out refurbed 2500s from mpcstuff. also, any JJOS users? trying to figure out if its worthwhile to try and learn akaiOS first and then switch over

also, any alternatives for a hardware-only pad-based midi/sample workstation in 2016?

I have an MPC 1000 and have always used JJOS. It is 1000000% better than Akai OS. Don't even bother with Akai.

JJOS has had a bunch of different versions and it can be confusing. I was really used to one version then I upgraded and haven't used it as much since and a few things were shuffled about. There's no great documentation so it's annoying, but EVERYTHING is so much better in JJOS. Even just naming songs, adding grid edit, the last JJOS even had loop recording.

I'd pay for just the grid edit for starters. But everything is so much better.

ahh good to know. the lack of documentation with JJOS was making me nervous, given that i can barely even piece together which version of it i should be using

I know. That's confusing. But in the end, just get one of them and it'll be better than Akai's and you'll figure it out.