-=[THE SYNTH ZONE]=-

I dusted off my Volca Keys for the first time in ages recently (actually it was the last thing I recorded for an album), it was very satisfying to get some use out of it. One of my favorite tricks is to mix it with a digital synth, the combination of grit and sheen can be really nice.

teenage engineering joins the mini-modular craze:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2019/01/18/teenage-engineering-intros-poor-mans-modular-synthesizer/?fbclid=IwAR0kg8S1ZhPSwqtEjucZVziBaI-ziRL_e7d_sJF6JsCsh78PFvScCi210U0

The new Drum one looks quite sophisticated compared to the Beats and Kick, though.

don't sleep on the kick, it bangs

This seems ludicrous for £140:

https://www.factmag.com/2019/01/28/behringer-crave-synth-announced/

It's Behringer so it'll probably last 18 months before going up in smoke but probably still worth it.

Any suggestions for lesser-known, inexpensive (~$200) synths/toys/noise makers that don't take up too much space? I know about the Volcas, Critter & Guitari, etc.

Looking for a birthday present for myself. :)

Otherwise I'm thinking about the Volca FM, since I don't have a great FM synth (aside from Dexed, which I never really got the hang of).

The Landscape Stereo Field seems to have gone up in price recently but looks kind of interesting.

The Elettrorama WSG is about $200 and might be fun.

The Volca FM sounds great though.

If you can spend a little more or find one used, the Novation Circuit rules.

I got a Streichfett string synthesizer for Christmas. It's a load of fun, and makes these great artificial-sounding string sounds, but can also be tweaked to make a bunch of other sounds. I made a whole track with it. Once it's released I'll link it here.

Could always go for a Stylophone or an Otamatone. The Otamatone Deluxe has a line out so you can run it through pedals and other synths.

Not as tiny but as far as budget fm is concerned I’d take the reface DX over the volca.

Is the streichfett a take on the Solina type sound?

Yeah. This is a good review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_LVudzk-x8&t=735s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_LVudzk-x8

Not as tiny but as far as budget fm is concerned I’d take the reface DX over the volca.

Dan, does it make a difference if I'm not a keyboard player, and would only use it via midi (mostly for arpeggios, grist for processing, etc)?

Anyway I might just get some Crank Sturgeon contact mics & toys instead:
http://www.cranksturgeon.com/PIEZOCRANK.html

No. It’s easier to tweak the sounds on the reface than the Volca which is worth considering.

Anyway I might just get some Crank Sturgeon contact mics & toys instead

I want to get that multi-plunk gamelan thing and strap it to my bargain-bin cajon

That's what I ordered, super excited tbh

I reaaally want one of these cassette synthesizers, it's just a bit too pricey for me. So cool. And Marantz-PMD222 modded into a tape echo.

https://www.instagram.com/ondemagnetique/

i been having a little volca renaissance lately, never really found much use for the keys but FM through a few effects can do some good stuff

Not a synth but I have a Soma ETHER on the way to me from Russia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdiGn0LPMPs

That's some Quatermass type sound there.

http://cdm.link/2019/02/vcv-rack-1-0/

VCV rack 1.0 and 2.0 should be coming fairly shortly - with full DAW / VST integration for $99.

volca modular is a fun ole time. I keep it in my bag at work and break it out for jams at boring times!

I was messing around with VCV rack at a friend's studio (he's using it to test the firmware for an actual module he's releasing, and make presets), it's pretty wild. I'll definitely go in for a plugin version, for easy sampling.

Hopefully virtual modular isn't as much of a non-finishing-tracks time sink as real modular. Unless your music is based on recording modular-only jams, I really think the key is to just use it as sample fodder and chop out the good bits.

I received the ETHER today. This is the sound of my apartment:

https://soundcloud.com/user-414919605/ether-home

Pretty cool! I suppose it would be fun to chop that up and make it into a drum kit.

Yeah, I think it’s gonna be great for sampling purposes. And a fun listen on walks around town.

I recently got a new iPad, and have been playing with Beatmaker pro. It's pretty sweet, but a little tough to grok immediately. I made a little jam by recording some stuff from my Nord and adding some other stuff from Beatmaker - plan to post it when it's finished.

I want to play around with the Samplr app, but what I learned from my last dive into iPad apps is that it was just too much of a pain to integrate into my DAW workflow, so I stopped doing it quickly.

Yeah apparently there are some iPad apps that will export to Ableton .als files. That would be sweet. Otherwise it’s going to be annoying. I can render out stems to my Dropbox with Beatmaker, though, which isn’t too bad.

I just got a Rackbrute and Plaits to pair with a Mother 32 and it is lots of fun.

thinking of selling some stuff off, and was simultaneously feeling a bit uninspired by the toy selection, so acquired a minibrute 2s last week.

still feeling my way with it a bit (work's been p. intense lately) but it's really hitting the spot for me, really good balance of immediacy and complexity, even without cross-patching it with eurorack stuff or another semi-modular it's got so many ways to quickly alter the sound. the sequencer rules - being able to switch the velocity and pressure lanes to be an auxillary LFO, or random source, or envelope, or various free voltages... so good. absolutely savage sync for your cars 'let's go' impressions or whatever, too.

feels very solid too if anyone is still worried about arturia QA issues. lots to get lost in if you're not a keys player and like an alternate interface.

i recently sold my drumbrute but yeah the arturia sequencers are really nice, definitely the best part of the machine as i felt the voices were kind of anemic.

The Microfreak looks fun. It has a bunch of the Braids oscillator code and an unusual Buchla-style touchpad.

I just got a Rackbrute and Plaits to pair with a Mother 32 and it is lots of fun.

― ShariVari, Friday, 22 March 2019 15:14 (two weeks ago)

This escalated quickly tbh.

https://i.postimg.cc/g0yYR4F2/0-F66-AA93-FE91-4-A98-8-D03-2-C8-BAB0-B3-C6-F.png

is that a mutable instruments blinds on the bottom row? i just bought one

my monome teletype should be delivered today about which i am fuckin psyched

It’s Veils on the left and Tides on the right. Èmilie from Mutable is such an inspiration. I saw her called the Bob Moog of the 21st century the other day and it’s hard to disagree. There is so much thought and invention in all their stuff.

yeah she's amazing. just the manuals on the mutable site make for good bored office reading.

my next few purchases are going to be some mannequins modules (https://www.whimsicalraps.com/) which are sort of mysterious in aspect but seem really interesting in practice.

i had been going a cheaper DIY route of buying simple kits, building them, and trying to have fun with them. eventually i realized that while making interesting sounds from first principles is a noble goal i don't really have the time or skill. maybe when my daughter is older i can really go full Synth Dad and DIY up some cool stuff.

If everybody's gone modular this might not be of interest, but noted synthesizer guy Jexus recently came out of hiding and posted all of his patches for download. So if you have any of the synths listed in the downloads section on this page you might want to check it out: http://syntezatory.net.pl/wcog_synth_patches.htm

(they're really, really poorly labeled and basically completely unorganized but some sound very good!)

https://reverb.com/item/20707002-gnomik-w-box-manual-soviet-vintage-analog-toy-synthesizer-made-in-ussr-80s

is this the coolest-looking synth ever

of course not, but look how cool it looks

that is very cool

if we're posting attractive synths from reverb then https://reverb.com/item/18493509-jomox-resonator-neuronium-rns-n6

I'm just waiting out this whole modular thing until VCV Rack 2.0 comes out

daaaaaaaaaamn that jomox

really wasn't interested in the microfreak...cheesy promo vid, questionable name and design etc, but these videos have me more intrigued.

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2019/04/20/arturia-microfreak-synthesizer-review/

That's a very comprehensive video. Certainly sells the Microfreak a lot better than the other demos I've seen. I'm not interested in the keyboard mechanism, but if they made a desktop module version I'd be more likely to pick one up. However although there are a lot of the oscillator engines, each one feels kind of limited in what it can do and how much it's sound can be varied. The Microfreak has some of the code from the Braids module, but the module would be part of a larger modular system. When it's more isolated like it is in the Microfreak, the limitations of each engine become more apparent. I like the filter though, it's nice to hear a filter that seems to have been designed to be usable when the synth is used in a track rather than make the most obnoxious screaming sound possible. I guess the nearest synth, both in size and price, is the Modal SKULPT, but that seems more firmly routed in being a VA synth rather than multi-engine like the Microfreak. I suppose one way of comparing them would be that the SKULPT has deeper programming but the Microfreak has a broader range.

A friend of mine finally released the modules that he's been working on for the last few years. I'm not a modular person but having been able to play around with them and see them develop, they're pretty unique and cool imo:

https://starling.space/via

Nice quick demos here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwVrOaylb0V/