-=[THE SYNTH ZONE]=-

that doesn't make one a shitty synth person!

goon tie, that's an impressive list. All I own is a Microbrute (awesome), a Novation K-Station (awesome, it also has VCO drift and filter drive settings which every VA should have) and a MicroKorg (Baby's First Synth, which I'm also selling right now). Oh, also the AN1x that should arrive soon. Not as cool as all the vintage stuff, but it gets the job done.
I especially agree with you on the Nords - the Nord Leads sound too commercial and "nice" to me and most people seem to use it solely as a keyboard with 70s Moog lead/organ presets. I'll never buy a Nord Lead.

There's nothing wrong with ribbon synthesizers, they look cute and sound awesome. And while you're at it you might as well get a Stylophone, too.

Twisting knobs and pressing stuff = Playfulness, and that doesn't make you a shitty synth person at all

Yeah I must admit I'm a bit sheepish about the synth collecting habit, as it's the result of workaholism + no car + no house + no kids + no joy in taking vacations. My real gear-embarrassment is the number of CP-70s (Yamaha electro-acoustic pianos, i.e. Joe Jackson "Steppin' Out") that I've bought in strange places for peanuts. I love CP-70s so much. (I hate digital pianos so much; I actually bought one specifically for aero to use while we were touring together because I couldn't stand to hear him play a digital piano every night it was making me crazy.)

I've used a bunch of DSI stuff too. I started off by hating the Prophet 8 because the knobs were drifty and the sound was very un-Prophetlike. I've semi-come around on them since I used a modified one where the knobs didn't drift? Or a later issue? And also stopped comparing them to Prophet 5s. But still unsure about how I feel. I know a couple people who've recently given up on their Mophos and unloaded them.

I've never used a Novation anything!

I always quite liked the Nord Lead, but agree with fgti about the piano sound.

MicroKorg (Baby's First Synth, which I'm also selling right now)

No need to be so dismissive - I'm using one of these now (my analogues are fucked and 'my' MS2000 stayed with the old band, oh yeah, and my AN1X is fucked too, oh god why am I so terrible?) and it's actually pretty great. Yeah, ideally you want more, but I'd consider having at least one of this range to be essential. I am a massive Korg stan, though.

Yeah, it sounds dismissive, but the MicroKorg was literally the first synth I owned and learned synthesis on. After I bought more synths I took it out again, played my patches - and remembered why I hungered for more synths, because something about that KORG Sound doesn't please me at all. Thank you for everything, MicroKorg, but bye bye.

It's kinda weird that people make Dave Smith look like he lost his grip on building synthesizers and it's also kinda sad that almost every polysynth he makes has to face the comparison to the legendary Prophet 5. I think he's still able to design great synths nowadays.

BTW emil.y how was the AN1x like?

I think it's a great synth, though it was vastly underused for most of my ownership as it didn't go with my band's sound, and I was under-confident and under-equipped for doing solo stuff... which is possibly why it broke when I started using it a fair amount ten years later. I mostly made horrible grotesque noises on it (I love horrible grotesque noises) but it seemed good for sequenced electro things too.

"Horrible grotesque noises" sounds good! "Electro things" sounds good as well. Can't wait!

my ARP 2600 VST plugin just made my laptop overheat and crash. Feels like I got some of the genuine vintage analogue synth experience there.

Did it go out of tune?

always wanted to try an an1x. i've played lots of romplers & fm synths but never done much in the way of VA

i have a fair amount of time for the DSI synths but i found the 'pro one' reference on the mopho circuit board laughable - it's a cool synth on its own but sounds nothing like an SCI synth no matter how hard i tried..

Which 2600 VST were you using? I used the TimewARP, very useful to learn, not at all like the real thing, not even a little, but still good for familiarizing yourself with "this does that"

I already downloaded the AN1x editing software from the Yamaha webpage. And from the looks of it the synth seems to have impressive features, eg. it has four automation tracks where you can record/draw automation lines and assign them to ~30 settings. I'm getting hyped!!!

Were you using the Arturia Arp VST?

it's a free knockoff one with the very subtle name 'Arppe2600va'. I have very little sense of how to use it (tbh I have very little sense of how synths work in general beyond ADSR) but it seems fun.

first thing i got to grips with after adsr was lfo modulation, v useful

I suggest getting an oscillator VST plugin so you can see how various synth settings affect the waveform. Helped me a bit

^^^

http://bram.smartelectronix.com/plugins.php?id=4

That's exactly the VST plugin I use, can't recommend it highly enough

The other Smartelectronix plugins are awesome, too

ooh that's useful, thanks.

I multi-tracked my Microbrute to play chords on one of my songs and it sounded good, really really good... It's a shame that the price gap between monolog and polylog synthesizers is still so huge nowadays. If Arturia released a four-voiced affordable Polybrute they would cause another revolution in the synth market... Alas...

I'm still hyped about the AN1x though!

i've been meaning to try the same thing with the microbrute.

on the same note, i finally got the routing set up so that i can send midi out to my Volca Keys and record it back in as audio, and it's that thick analog poly saw sound that i've been trying to get for years.

unfortunately i couldn't get it to record as stereo, i think it might be the 1/8" to 1/4" cable that i'm using? i don't know why most of these little analog synths make you use the 1/8" headphone jack as an out...it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to have a 1/4" line out but what do i know. so after a lot of fucking around where i could only get it to return as the left or right half of a stereo channel, i set up the send/return as mono and that sounds fine (i usually end up copying the audio to a stereo channel to add stereo effects, this feels like i'm doing something dumb but it works for me).

Most line out jacks are mono anyway, most synths use two line outs for stereo recording and I don't think you can coax a convincing stereo sound out of a simple mono synth without effects like chorus/panning/delay...

If C&P'ing synth recordings feels like doing something dumb you can always double-track a synth line, ie. record it twice on two mono channels, pan them left/right and add effects so it doesn't sound so samey.

As for the mini synths using mini line outs, I guess it's just a "mini" thing. (Microbrute has 1/4" jack tho)

I hate digital pianos so much

OTM! no sympathetic string vibrations = you are not actually playing a piano part, even though you think you are

thanks - so i think the mini jack is stereo but my cable is converting the signal to mono, maybe?

i don't mind my current method at all but since i usually just futz with my setup until it works, i assume i'm probably reinventing the wheel and that there's an easier way that i don't know about.

So I checked the manual and the mini jack is indeed stereo - it's probably the cable and/or recording jack you use. Do you have a 3.5mm stereo jack to 3.5mm twin mono cable?

nope, i'm just using 3.5mm -> 1/4" single mono i guess (need 1/4" to go into my audio interface, of course).

If you get tired of fitzing around with stereo jacks mono cables: This cable should solve everything.

If you want a cheaper cable just search for "3.5mm mini stereo jack to 2x mono"

stereo jacks and mono cables*

or get a Cordial cable that's not 6 metres long

UK-only, huh? i'll probably look for a cheaper cable but ty!

i think i prefer recording synths in mono unless it's the sole tenor instrument

otm, record synths in mono, fear nothing

BTW, when I posted the cable recommendation yesterday I thought the Volca Keys was monophonic when it's in fact a three-voice monolog synthesizer! That makes me almost want to get it if the filter wouldn't have this obvious stepping problem. Anyway, now I can imagine some stereo shenanigans going on with the VK, but yeah, recording synths in mono is the norm anyway, you can always stereoize it with FX like chorus..

stepping problem?

You can hear it in this vid at ~2:30:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVTm0mT53fU

The filter seems to react in quantized steps instead of a "smooth slide" like you would expect from an analog synth - I think it's so it can be compatible to MIDI but for me it's the deal killer

But no synth is perfect and I'm a bit of a pedant when it comes to stuff like that

ah, interesting. i haven't done much recording with it yet but so far it sounds a million times better than using Massive or whatever for saw chords.

Haha, Massive, I actually played around with Massive a few months ago and it was pretty okay, but way too overused in certain electronic music genres IMO.

And I realized that you can connect the Volca Keys to the Microbrute to use the smooth MB filter so my criticism pretty much went up in smoke

oh, connect them how exactly?

i like how quickly i can create and modulate a patch in Massive but i'm getting sick of how it sounds, i'm only using it for certain things these days (big fan of the 'Classic' waveform).

1. Use one of the orange patch cables to patch "Gate In" to "Gate Out" on the back of the Microbrute
2. Connect audio output to the Microbrute "Input" jack and set the Input Level
3. Press a key on the Microbrute and the audio input signal is permamently triggered! Have fun!

Oh, you should also turn off all MB oscillators and set the VCO to Gate (I think)

uhm, VCA, not VCO. Sorry, it's been a while since I did that with my Microbrute. But you should get some sweet results out of that. Anything from simple filtering to overdriving the filter and making a mess with the Brute Factor knob.

Also I misspelled "permamently", why am I doing all these mistakes today

And I did it again....

aargh... just outbid on a Voyager

The Minimoog Voyager?? I don't see many people talking about that synth for some reason... a shame.

So my AN1x finally arrived today...

... yeah, it's a pretty good synth. Some of the factory presets are cheesy though. What's with synths and truly cheesy factory presets?

If your on PC there is a great midi manager /patch randomizer program called an1x genetix.