What's Your Synth History??

jiltloop

What's your synth history? Focusing on hard synths rather than soft synths. And what synths do you regret parting with?
My first synth was a JP-8000 which was a wonderful synth especially to learn on and I did regret parting with that but I didn't miss it for too long.
No.2 I think was a Novation Bass Station keyboard which I always wanted, even though it looked like a toy it sounded incredible (and analogue!).
Next I got an SH-101, which was a dream come true. I still have it and I don't think I'd ever sell it, it's just too much fun.
I found that I needed to control this by MIDI to get the most out of it so I sold my Nov Bass Station and got the rackmount Super Bass Station which has CV out. It is actually a huge improvement on the original key non super version. The sub osc is great and also the filter envelope allowed some acid madness. All in all I loved this machine.
I think the next synth I got was a Novation K-station. Didn't click with this synth at all, It sounded too digital and trancey. Sold it very soon after.
I then briefly swapped the JP-8000 for a Jen SX-1000 which sounded great and looked great but was very limited and only had one connection on the back! Audio out! So swapped back after hearing the price of the MIDI retro fit.
I also got a Korg Prophecy as well after reading up on its reputation and favourable reviews but to be honest I hated it almost straight away. Didn't like the sound or the control. So that was sold quite quickly.
Recently I bought a Nord Micro Modular and sold the Novation Super Bass Station to fund it. The Micro Modular is very impressive but I'm not sure if I have the time to get to know it (it's vastly powerful and complex) so I'm trying to sell this now (after purchasing a TR-606) and now really regret selling the Super Bass Station.
So that's my synth history! Would love to hear other people's experiences and regrets. One thing I have learned is that I always have the best fun with synths just before I'm about to sell them and I'm having one last tinkle on them.

Helix

never went and spent big bucks, but off the top of my head my synth lineage has been:

1: korg ms2000 - rubbish, complete and utter waste of money because of the single most unstable lfos ive EVER come across
2: roland sh-32 - ill recommend this synth to absolutely everyone purely because its so amazingly fun
3: waldorf pulse - see above
4: akai sg01v - simple, effective, and an all round workhorse for practically nothing
5: novation ksr - i loved this. i love the v-station so i knew this was gonna be right for me. it doesnt sound great, it doesnt have the best engine in the world, but my christ if you need an all rounder to beef up your hardware audio arsenal you WONT do worse than this for the price
6: nor micro modular - i THINK thats what it was called... bought it, didnt work, sent it back, turned out it was a faulty plug. gutted.
7: kawai k1 - not fun at all tbh
8: yamaha an1x - loved it despite the stupid editing system
9: korg m1 - bought it for the organ, and served as a great controller too
10: nord lead 2 - loved it loved it loved it
11: korg m3r - bought it coz it was cheap, honestly dont think ive ever used it
12: control synthesis deep bass 9 - 303 clone that was better for subby sustained bass than actual acid, then the filter env knob stopped working
13: korg emx - ok technically not a synth, but im loving this and its sample based breatheren at the moment. amazing scratchpad if youve got 20 mins to kill
14: waldorf blofeld - not the greatest sound in the world, and the knobs misbehave a little BUT similar to the ems above, its a super little scratchpad. get your ideas down then refine with a soft synth. could most likely be very very useful if you were bothered treating the output as much as it needs

so yeh, no real high end stuff. just lots of comings and goings when i got gear horn

ive also forgotten at least 6 synths. but ive no idea what they were so theyre not in the list

empirix

Dave smith evolver: great synth but sold it, not sure if i regret this
Korg Radias: a virtual analogue - excellent synth, tried to sell it but kept it and have made the decision not to sell any more synths as i will only regret it later
Vermona Perfourmer: pure analogue with amazing sounds
Moog Little Phatty: Limited but love the sound
Alesis Andromeda: nothing comes near it, highly complex though

I dont need any more synths!!

Neurojazz

Erggg... should be fun to try and remember

Mostly borrowed or recorded with a lot - owned a few.

Prophet 5/10
Sequential Circuits Pro5 - Awesome - would like one again.
Korg Poly800 (Modded somehow)
Roland jp8000 (yes, i'd get that again)
Roland Sh101
Roland MC202
Korg MS2000 - cold and hard - crap

Doepher A100 *2 and all the trimmings.... sampled this to death - great stuff.

Novation Bass station
TB303 clones galore.

Octave CAT (i think it was called) - yes please, more!

Yamaha W7
Yamaha SY77
Yamaha SY55
Roland jv8000
Roland MKS80 (i think) - great stuff


Virus TI / TI2 - Awful under certain system setups - great sounds, and the way hardware should go.

Plus a lot of stuff i used to borrow for a few days from music shops - everything from mc303s upwards basically anything that beeped from about 1992 - 2000 i had used/played with to be able to demo too customers

jiltloop

Jeez I've often thought about getting a Korg MS2000 don't think I will now. Of the above I would love the Andromeda. I hope to get one further down the line when I'm minted! Actually how much do these go for second hand?

empirix

jiltloop wrote: »

Jeez I've often thought about getting a Korg MS2000 don't think I will now. Of the above I would love the Andromeda. I hope to get one further down the line when I'm minted! Actually how much do these go for second hand?

yeah its the shizzle, only have it 2 -3 months now, still trying to get my head around it, i was lucky enough to get one in germany which was on display/got 200 off, i have as of yet to see any on ebay/2nd hand but im sure it happens sounds amazing with the nemo

Quiggers

I've had an Ms2000 for years and while the LFO's dont offer sync to midi clock, i've found that if you lock them by ear they stay where you want them.

Its mod sequencers are a thing of genius, far more powerful than lfo's and the flashy lights look great in low light.

I also have a blofeld, which is by far my favourite synth, its mod matrix
means you can really get a sound to evolve.

An a-station, never gets used, it doesnt do anything i cant do in the box

and an e-mu proteus, this is mainly a sound module but it allows you to do wavetable synthesis and use its z-plane filters, its quite powerful but fiddly to programme.

My first synth was a yamaha djx keyboard and it was great as a way to learn sequencing and basic preset editing, but it didn't allow you to build sounds from raw oscillators and now its been donated to my
little brother to use as a midi keyboard.

Valcin

1. Korg Microkorg- not a big fan of the VA sound really. It has loads of features though and I liked some of the digital sounds it made but hated the analog type ones. Sold it.

2. Dave Smith Instruments Evolver Desktop - My favourite synth. Modern Analog synth. Everything just sounds so silky from it. Loads of modulations. Can be daunting at first but great when you get the hang of it. Really cheap too. Love the feedback and delay on it. You can get sounds you've never heard form a synth before. It's meant to be good for bass but I think the oscilators are a bit thin. They dont really thump. I use it for leads and drones. The filter also isnt very funky either. I still have it. Will never sell it unless to get the keyboard version. Love it.

3. Roland Juno 60 - Love this synth as well. Its great for 80's sounds. The oscilators are huge and thick on it. You great really deep bass. The chorus on it is savage too. It can be fairly limited in features and it can be a bit bright in sound but its great. Still have it.

4. Clavia Nord lead 2x Keyboard- My newest synth. Virtual analog. Not as inspiring as my analogs but sounds great recorded and you can barely notice the difference. Has loads of polyphony so you can have 4 different patches at the one time which is great for making huge sounds. The sound seems to jump out at you. Still getting my head around it.

I thought that the Nord would be my last synth but of course I'm never happy. I am lusting after the Alesis Andromeda now and may sell the Nord to finance that in the future(if any one is interested ).
I would also like a TB303 sounding synth. Something with really funky filters on it. I was looking at the Spectral audio Neptune 2 modern analog synth which seems to have a fairly funky filter on it and sounds really good.

Valcin

Hey Empirix, How is the Andromeda for bass compared to the Little phatty? Which has the thicker oscilators? Any bad points to the Andromeda?

empirix

Valcin wrote: »

Hey Empirix, How is the Andromeda for bass compared to the Little phatty? Which has the thicker oscilators? Any bad points to the Andromeda?

you can get really great deep fat bass from it, obviously its not the moog sound but a lot of people would probably prefer the alesis bass,depends on what your after, you can use the alesis for everything,leads.pads, bass, efx etc etc,its the only synth you'll ever need having said that it is a bit of a mind fcuk to get around, which is the only bad point about it, it will take time to master a lot of time, well worth it though! In fact i am contemplating, even though i said above i wouldnt, sellall my synths and just work with this one, that is when i feel i have an in depth knowledge of it, possibly the most advanced synth around

PaulBrewer

Juno 6 , JP 8 ( I think) MKS 70 (was it ? ) yamaha x5 (I think) Nord rack 2, Korg Ms2000, Novation xio synth and Korg Poly 800 !

Roland 808, 626 - Yamaha Rx 5 , 7 and Roland dr8 (I think it was!)

Neurojazz

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Roland dr8 (I think it was!)

Good lord, with the bank of black pads? - was a dream drum machine... the humanize function on it was excellent at the time - a good, stable linn replacement!

PaulBrewer

Neurojazz wrote: »

Good lord, with the bank of black pads? - was a dream drum machine... the humanize function on it was excellent at the time - a good, stable linn replacement!

Aye ! First one in the country I believe - With the extra sound cards, individual outs , though we found out that some of the samples (a favourite kick was one as I recall) didn't instantly trigger or had empty space in the sample.

I also had a Smpte reader and writer midi box we used to stripe the tape with.
I had me own Jack to Bantam loom ....

I might as well have been driving a DeLorean I was so Modrin

That lot paid for itself in a couple of months ...;)

Actually wasn't it the R8 ?

I think I sold that 808 for £400 too .

Neurojazz

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Aye ! First one in the country I believe - With the extra sound cards, individual outs , though we found out that some of the samples (a favourite kick was one as I recall) didn't instantly trigger or had empty space in the sample.

I also had a Smpte reader and writer midi box we used to stripe the tape with.
I had me own Jack to Bantam loom ....

I might as well have been driving a DeLorean I was so Modrin

That lot paid for itself in a couple of months ...;)

Actually wasn't it the R8 ?

I think I sold that 808 for £400 too .

Yep, your right - the r8 and r5 (the little brother) - the pads were really well balanced - would still be a good trigger these days

PaulBrewer

They were hard plastic though .....my fingers used be sore after a day of programming.

The rubber pads were much more comfy.

Pa the Blah

Me first was a Casio VL1 (da da da) still have it.

regrets mmm I've sold off so many over the years but here's my two biggest regrets...
ppg 2.2 with wave term b and 8 voice evu and my sci pro 5 version 2 awesome sounding synth.

Had em'
Korg MS10 ... miss it
Arp Odyssey, Axxe, Avatar.
Roland Sh1, SH2, SH09, Jupiter 6, System 100m x4 191's
Oberheim Xpander, Matrix 6r Marion

Got em'
Roland System 100, SPV 355, SH5, SH3a, MKS80, Pro Mars
Moog Memory Moog
Oberheim 4 Voice, Matrix 12
ARP2600, Rhodes Chroma
SCI Pro 600, Pro 2000+, Pro VS, Pro one
Octave Plateau Voyetra 8, Maplin 5600, RSF Kobol, OSCar
Yamaha CS30, DX5 Crumar Performer

condra

Boss DS330
GM Midi thing. Sucked. Sold it.

Alesis Ion
I didn't much like this. Not much fun to tweak, and the sounds were meh. Sold it.

Novation K-Station
Tremendous hands on fun, sounds ok, and doubles as a dedicated V-Station controller. This is an unlikely favourite of mine and I hope to own one again some time.

Roland Juno D
Was being used mainly as a Midi Controller. Decent build quality and ok sounds. Sold it and got a Remote SL.

Roland Fantom X6
Great build quality, lovely sampled instruments, and tons of nice features, but very expensive and more suited to a proper musician than a geekey tweaker. Sold it.

Nord Lead II Rack
Didn't blow me away as I expected it would. Decent synth but fairly pricey. Sold it.

Novation Bass Station
Noisy outputs, dodgy oscillators, limited sound. Desite being genuine analog, this was a bit of a lemon for me. Sold it.

jiltloop

Pa the Blah wrote: »

Me first was a Casio VL1 (da da da) still have it.

regrets mmm I've sold off so many over the years but here's my two biggest regrets...
ppg 2.2 with wave term b and 8 voice evu and my sci pro 5 version 2 awesome sounding synth.

Had em'
Korg MS10 ... miss it
Arp Odyssey, Axxe, Avatar.
Roland Sh1, SH2, SH09, Jupiter 6, System 100m x4 191's
Oberheim Xpander, Matrix 6r Marion

Got em'
Roland System 100, SPV 355, SH5, SH3a, MKS80, Pro Mars
Moog Memory Moog
Oberheim 4 Voice, Matrix 12
ARP2600, Rhodes Chroma
SCI Pro 600, Pro 2000+, Pro VS, Pro one
Octave Plateau Voyetra 8, Maplin 5600, RSF Kobol, OSCar
Yamaha CS30, DX5 Crumar Performer

That's a nice collection of synths there! You could almost start a synth museum! Do you still use them all regularly?

Pa the Blah

jiltloop wrote: »

That's a nice collection of synths there! You could almost start a synth museum! Do you still use them all regularly?

Thx...Right now st.. st..st..Storage.. but shall be released very soon! Then the never ending story of what needs repairs... Analogues! Labour of Love

VinylJunkie

Any one see Synth Britannia over the weekend? I seen a re run of it last night, It was quite interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiGnTSrL5o