all things SYNTH & KEYBOARD thread

[jibberish]

I was looking through more synth demos and I started noticing how everyone has different preferences of synth types.

I seem to go more for the big pad crazy ambient ones.

so in my list of what I would snag at a moment's notice would be
waldorf blofeld like $500
mininova $500-$600
korg volca keys and bass sequencer $300 total

and my holy grail synth, the dave smith prophet 12, which is way out of line pricewise ($3200 or so) just came out in module form for like $2000. that was a brutally cruel thing to do to me.

but first a QSC 500w/ch amp for $325 offa craigslist, so I can sub-harmonically destroy all that lies before me with my army of synths and old school kicker subs.

edit: btw, the micro-brute is a beast. they have some really slick tricks built into that lil fucker.
edit #2: the casio WS P1 and G1 are the sleeper synths of the century.  way too much features for $500(P1) or $600(G1) holy shit.   just...holy shit.

edit 3: those QSC amps are $399 new..so no, i'm not driving around for an hour to buy a used one for $325..ok, that's settled. maybe I offer him $300 to bring it out to me.
how's that for shithead negotiating? or maybe within bounds considering the  brandnew in box with some semblance of warranty price...heh.

[giantchris]

I was looking through more synth demos and I started noticing how everyone has different preferences of synth types.

I seem to go more for the big pad crazy ambient ones.

so in my list of what I would snag at a moment's notice would be
waldorf blofeld like $500
mininova $500-$600
korg volca keys and bass sequencer $300 total

and my holy grail synth, the dave smith prophet 12, which is way out of line pricewise ($3200 or so) just came out in module form for like $2000. that was a brutally cruel thing to do to me.

but first a QSC 500w/ch amp for $325 offa craigslist, so I can sub-harmonically destroy all that lies before me with my army of synths and old school kicker subs.

edit: btw, the micro-brute is a beast. they have some really slick tricks built into that lil fucker.
edit #2: the casio WS P1 and G1 are the sleeper synths of the century.  way too much features for $500(P1) or $600(G1) holy shit.   just...holy shit.

edit 3: those QSC amps are $399 new..so no, i'm not driving around for an hour to buy a used one for $325..ok, that's settled. maybe I offer him $300 to bring it out to me.
how's that for shithead negotiating? or maybe within bounds considering the  brandnew in box with some semblance of warranty price...heh.

I just want to throw it out there I'd get the Volca Keys regardless of what you end up buying, for $150 the value is totally worth it.  Mine finally showed up on Tuesday and I've been playing it a ton its really great fun but I just want to mention the Volcas do not come with a power supply and the keys are extremely small you will most likely have to hook up a MIDI controller to consistently play it well.  The onboard speaker sounds mediocre but it sounds GIGANTIC through headphones I am willing to bet it sounds even better through a full rig.  All in all it's totally worth the money but I would say you can get fantastic bass sounds out of it as well I know the filters on the Volca Bass are a little different but it seems somewhat redundant to have because the keys sound so nice for bass.  Obviously the Mininova and Blofeld are a big step up but I'd consider getting the keys at some point anyways because its such a great deal.

[jibberish]

thanks for that info, especially about the no power supply. i'm stoked to get one for sure.

[giantchris]

thanks for that info, especially about the no power supply. i'm stoked to get one for sure.

NP.  The no power supply is pretty annoying it does come with 6aa batteries though they are still working several hours in which is nice but still they should clearly state that it comes with no power supply.

[RAGER]

Still waiting on getting back my Novation from the tech.  Thinking I might pick up a Microbrute the run with my Minibrute.  They seem to play nice together with the arpeggiator and sequencer.

Still having gone through the soldering again on my Shruthi 

[RAGER]

I knew I was going to have some alone time at work today so I brought my Shruthi and some tools.  Re=flowed a bunch of suspect solder joints and all is well except that the enclosure doesn't quite fir so I'll need to look into that or not.  Right now I've got it cobbled together with all but the top cover and some rubber bands.



Should have my Novation back this weekend.  Been missing it

[jibberish]

when I went to GC for the mixer, I spent about 1/2 hour with a mini brute.  very nice. I ended up getting stuck with some LFO repeating sound that I couldn't stop tho, at the end.

I had the envelopes down, all waveforms down, arp off all shut down as best I could see, yet it kept sustaining some pulsing sound tied to LFO rate, but I couldn't get rid of it haha.

so YEAH I got lost in a mini brute.  love it.   but before that I was getting some gnarly combos of repeating and filter sweeping all at once. very impressive synth.


then I played with that original mini korg with the vocorder.... I did not like that keyboard at all.  even the vocorder was not all that slick.

there were no korg volca series, which I really want to audition

[RAGER]

There are some very cool sounds in the microkorg but its the least used in my setup. I actually haven't turned mine on in about a month.  It might be on its way out. I don't like the mini keys for playability. When I get the microbrute I won't actually be playing it so much as using its functions through the minibrute which is a badass synth on its own.

[jibberish]

There are some very cool sounds in the microkorg but its the least used in my setup. I actually haven't turned mine on in about a month.  It might be on its way out. I don't like the mini keys for playability. When I get the microbrute I won't actually be playing it so much as using its functions through the minibrute which is a badass synth on its own.

I can relate. I mean I told myself that I can MIDI my way around the mini keys, which really are cheap feeling, like scary heh, but never a deal-breaker. I just didn't find anything really cool on that guy that would sway me off the mini nova.
I have been narrowing down the field. the waldorf blofeld is mostly a patch synth. beautiful sounds , but sort of redundant.
I would get a second korg x-50 for patch sounds OR the sleeper patch synth of all time Yamaha psx49(something like that heh).  just a patch synth loaded with all motif patches for $499.

so the field is down to the mininova, those brutes<-seriously pro sounding: rich , no aliasing or noise residuals. and a dave smith tetra plus the korg volcas
even a couple patches on the x-50 are shit and that is the sound set from some nicer keyboard, so it is no small feat to keep all that craziness clean sounding
and the gaia I played with really sounded low end for a roland product. so versatile, yet so crummy sounding. too bad. so gaia is out, but that synth is layed out about the coolest of any I have toyed with. too bad they didn't do that guy in the like $1000 price point to buy for $850 or w/e and put some cash in to the circuitry to clean it up a little more. then I would be hot for that synth too. it can make every, and I mean every, old famous synth sound ever used. crazy.

edit btw: when I tried out the vocorder on that little korg in the GC showroom, I did the do-re-me beer song. haha. it was pretty funny sounding. I started laughing too much and fucked it all up. what's funny is you dont have to sing. the keyboard does the notes, but I couldn't stop myself from singing the notes too haha. that did not help, so silly.
I will have some crazy fun with a vocorder when I finally end up with one.

edit2: I am looking forward to testing out that mambo crown amp with some synth bass.   "i'm from a small town and I ain't never owned nothing with that kind of horsepower"

THEN, after watching john lord interviews(RIP just when I needed him most) he explained his awesome sound from his Hammond.  actually quite simple. he ran the pre outputs straight into a marshall combo amp.  and there was his patented wicked overdrive sound. so this should be pretty easy to feed a synth into one of these little tube amps and mimic his sound.  got some cool things to try out with the keyboards

[RAGER]

Web based modular!  Whoa!  great introductory for learning what you want in a modular setup.  Shit's really slow on my laptop.  It's about time for a new one with more RAM.

http://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/synth

[jibberish]

Web based modular!  Whoa!  great introductory for learning what you want in a modular setup.  Shit's really slow on my laptop.  It's about time for a new one with more RAM.

http://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/synth

are you getting ready to spring for a Pittsburgh modular rig? haha.  ok, if some Dubai sheik comes in and buys a whole fucking caravan of top shelf winny-baygos.
cool more info. info is good. heh.

edit: oh boy. i'm going to waste some time there. curse you haha

[RAGER]

I would love for some dude in a turban to pull in and point at this 200K diesel pusher and say "I'll take three".  But yes eventually I will get into soem modular stuff.  I do need a bigger sub/line mixer.  Any recommendations of what to look for.  I want used if at all possible but whatever your input is appreciated. 

I wish my laptop was faster.  That site would be funner to me.

[RAGER]

Oh and the lady is gonna go have dinner with some friends so I'm gonna sneak over to Control Voltage after work and pick up a Microbute and feign I've had it for a while.

[RAGER]

Here watch this video about the mini and micro together and see if that doesn't put a bug up yer arse.

[jibberish]

I know I should not watch this, but I have to.

edit: almost forgot. I specifically have been watching for a 4-buss mixer for cheap. you can find 2 buss mixers all day, but I want to have my "circle of death" quad surround mix some day and I have to go all 4-buss to do that. wait until the crazy ass synth sounds get to spinning around your head while listening to take it to the next level. so I want this to start figuring it all out.
IDK WTF went on, but the north Olmsted guitar center got 5-6 Mackie vlz 1604 mixers in used. at first I was going to bust them for padding their used gear page, but no, there were 6 of them.  $300 is steep for a 16ch 2 buss, but not a 4 buss, they had a 24ch for like $699. I would like that, but I think 16ch will hold some synth modules and other normal stuff for now. Mackie is good shit.




btw, I see why that guy in the video was freaking out. he needed about 6 hours to keep exploring. that microbrute patch bay with all the control outs is sick squared and really opens some doors.  yeah , that is some power right there.

[jibberish]

hey rager, if you had a MIDI splitter/buffer, you could run MIDI from the minibrute to several modules(daisy chaining goes to shit after maybe 2 modules because MIDI is slow although, intentional delay may be uselful via MIDI lag heh)). then run all th emodule outputs in to a little mixer. then run that whole mixed mess back into the minibrute like th guy on the demo was doing. that's what ima gonna do when I get those haha. run the whole orchestra through brute filters, including vocals.

edit: what if you played the news into th epitch control of the minibrute heh some dude talking making the pitch of a note move around.  that dude is lucky I wasn't there playing the brutes with him. 6hr video for sure.

[jibberish]

you know what. if you knew the I/O specs of those various functions of the brutes, you could build little op-amp controllers dirt cheap.

when I first learned what an op amp was in one of my classes, I freaked out. here was an entire amplifier in a can. you just externally controlled it and put the I/O and power to it, done.  making waveform generators is stupid simple, and with a tight variable gain, you can control output voltage quite precisely.
simple V control is a voltage divider like on the base of any stomp box transistor is using a voltage divider to set the bias voltage.  you can do this with 2 pots and a battery, or a pot, resistor combo if you want to ensure you don't short your battery due to one fixed resistance.

you literally could make a rack of voltage controllers to feed all those things from outside. LFO is easy, especially the standard sin/saw/square wave shapes.
THEN you put non-linear stuff like diodes in the op amp feedback circuits and the small sigal responses go all over depending upon how you placed your diodes.
I have a whole book of that shit. op amps are truly the way to be an electrical engineer without being an electrical engineer.

huge jump into modular thinking too now that I think about it.

edit: wondering if those microbrute patch jumpres are single conductor or 2 conductor. if they are 1 conductor, the ground has to be passed around somehow to make a complete circuit. if they are 2 conductor, it is like a guitar, any guitar can plug in to any amp since they are all complete self contained circuits via 2 conductor connection
if those brute jumpres are single conductor, there HAS to be a ground between the mini and the micro.  the only thing I can see is the ground on the MIDI cable. the MIDI is old OLD school serial port level shit so it has dedicated ground line.  i'm thinking the demo dude may have sidestepped a huge pitfall and not even known it.

[RAGER]

I'll post this here too just in case.  Got it last night.

[jibberish]

so tell me please, are those little patch bay jumpers single conductor or 2-conductor? details in post above.  I wonder if arturia has some dedicated attention paid to grounding issues between modules, or that mini-micro guy was taking it somewhere new.

[RAGER]

[jibberish]

excellent. 2 conductor. shouldn't be any problems then if that is the only line going to the other brute and no midi or anything else

[RAGER]

I really didn't need to see this.

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/msg/4351114622.html

[jibberish]

you know chief, I think I would pass on that guy.  way too vintage and not cool enough. those had the oscillators that drifted when they warmed up and other old school compromises.  plus the standard old electronics problems: pots get noisy, caps dry out...I wouldn't get it. it will probably also fail soon.

like that mountain of 1980 receivers in that other thread imo: for collectors.

[RAGER]

You're probably right.  meh.  It's just my nature to jump on that shit.

[jibberish]

I was thinking about the brutes.

are you familiar with that No Doubt song "Hella Good"? that has some of my favorite synth sounds and those strangled filter low notes(the wave is just buzzy pulses) right at the very end sounds like a brute sound.
here i'll link it. it is a fun video and really hard to not get distracted heh,  try to follow the synth sounds.

the synths on ray of light. an older Madonna album are amazing. she didn't fuck around getting her synth players. they are good. this is sort of mellower and trippier than most Madonna. I think it was up for a grammy even. the first 3 songs actually have the coolest synth.