Beginner synth recommendations

riddik

Looking to get into the synthesizer, but obvioulsy wana start somewhere cheap, anybody with experience have any recommendations are no a good model to start with?

Thanks

mike65

You mean a real synth? A plastic/metal one? How old-fashioned!

What kind of sounds/music are you interested in, synths tend to have thier own charactaristics.

Mike.

riddik

yeah a real one! like a keyboard thing, right?!! I was thinking something along the lines of this: http://www.thomann.de/ie/yamaha_mm6.htm. I have no idea what sort of sound I am looking for to be perfectly honest. By your comment I assume u think computer synthesizers are the way to go?

punchdrunk

get a korg ms10! i love mine!!

riddik

just googled it, it appears to be out of production. since the 80s! its a mad looking yoke! id prob be lookin for something newer as i doubt i'd find one of those

mike65

There are soooooo many. Some are pure synths - ie lots of knobs and sliders others are in fact modules - they come with a few banks of sounds in the memory and new user banks can be added using something called sysex files.
Many 90s keyboards fall into this catagory (various Rolands and Korgs esp).

Its worth doing some research Harmony Central has a huge database with user reviews.

The real "Wave-form/LFO/filter/ADSR/etc" synths tend to cost more and obviously have a much steeper learning curve as you can create sounds from the ground up.

Best to try a virtual one first I'd say - synth1 is the top dog for this as its good and completely free. You just need a piece of host software like EnergyXT so you can play it asuming you have a midi keyboard already of course!

Mike.

riddik

so a cheap midi keyboard and this synth1 software, along with some interface software for the keyboard is wat i should be lookin at so?

jimi_t

riddik wrote:

so a cheap midi keyboard and this synth1 software, along with some interface software for the keyboard is wat i should be lookin at so?

Depends. If you're looking to get into it from a performance end I'd nearly suggest getting a small 2 octave hardware synth such as:

Novation Nova
Novation Xio
Korg Microkorg
Alesis Micron
Novation A/K/S Station

Which can all be picked up for around 400-500 new and substantially less secondhand. I've used them all and they're all pretty damn good in terms of sound and playability. http://vintagesynth.com is your friend here for a pretty comprehensive list of everything out in the last few years.

If you're going the software route a decent 61 key or larger keyboard with plenty of faders and rotary encoders is a must. In terms of software, synth1 is designed to emulate the Clavia Nord 1 range. In this it does an excellent job, but the sounds are your basic bread and butter dated 90s stuff. I'd certainly have a look at the plethora of other free softsynths out there - stuff I use regularly would include.

MinimogueVA
HahahaCS33
SuperwaveP8
Green Oak Crystal
Tapeworm

riddik

wen i get a midi keyboard [today actually] and it goes in through usb, what do i use then? some sort of software to recognize the keyboard, and then one of the programmes above to emulate various sounds, or will they do both?

mike65

The midi keyboard is at the end of a line which goes

keyboard--->midi input/out hub (USB in your case)---->programme host software (EnergyXT for example)--->soft-synth

EnergyXt is handy as its light on resources and can be used as a freebie if you don't want to save any settings etc.

Mike.

jimi_t

riddik wrote:

wen i get a midi keyboard [today actually] and it goes in through usb, what do i use then? some sort of software to recognize the keyboard, and then one of the programmes above to emulate various sounds, or will they do both?

Pretty much any midi keyboard you'll be buying new will come with Ableton Live Lite and a driver CD. Install the drivers and hook up the keyboard to the computer via USB. It will now technically be interfaced with the computer but won't do much.

You then install Ableton Live (or energyXT as someone suggested). This is your sequencer. Other sequencers include Sony ACID, Cubase, Cakewalke, Logic Pro etc... These will host VSTi's (these are plug-ins which add software instruments - e.g. synth1).

You can use any VSTi plugins in any combination within Ableton. Some of them (Minimogue VA for example) can run as stand alone applications but the vast majority of them are plug-ins (.dll files in fact) and can only be used within a sequencer/VSTi Host.

For an explanation of how Ableton works, check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableton_Live