Continuing from here I thought it would be a cool to have a thread for discussion of synthesizers in all forms.

Nice! I think there might have already been a thread for this, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, this is my response to your last post...

Yeah, the 707 was digital samples. Had a thumping snare and bass. Mid to late eighties the only people really using 808s were hip hop artists. I wasn't until House really hit that they came back into fashion in Synth Britannia, which is what we modeled ourselves after. My first drum machine was a Boss DR-110 which was a poor man's 606.

Poly800s were super cheap (it also made it a great sandbox for mods- have a look online). IIRC I got mine for 950$CDN (12 monthly payments) We rented a Poly6 previously. I wish I had kept it. It was a poor mans Prophet 5.

I eventually got an MPU 101 which was a MIDI to CV/Gate interface which allowed control of the Pro One from my Atari instead of using the HR16 to trigger the on board sequencer. (The HR 16 had four outs so we would trigger by sending a closed hihat to the Pro One trigger in)

I think pretty much all the samples from the 707 were taken from the 909, weren't they? I always thought the DR-110 sounded way better than the 606, though they both sound pretty different to me.

I have seen a lot of crazy mods for the Poly800, I'd imagine you'd need to add a few knobs just to make it not a complete hassle to program! That's cool you had a Pro One, those things are legend now. I'd also love to get my hands on a PolySix, though again seems vastly different from a Prophet 5. Though I guess there weren't that many polys around at that point The Korg plugin version of the PolySix is pretty good, the Mono/Poly one sounds terrible unfortunately

Yeah, I did a search but all I could find was a VST thread.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/music ... 18404.html

I don't think this is really a duplicate then.

My understanding of the 909 is that most of the sounds are analogue and some are low bit rate samples. The 707 is fully digital and 12 bit. I always thought it sounded closer to a Drumulator than a 909 (had a Drumulator for a short tine as well-I should post a list of all the stuff I've owned/used).

The Pro One is amazing. I loved playing I had it in storage, pulled it out a few months ago and called a repair place to get a quote to clean the pots and keyboard contacts etc. they offered me $1500 for it. After some soul searching I sold it to them. Having it has made me nervous lately. It has become more delicate over the years and really needs more care than I could give it.

I've been thinking about the Arp Odyssey reissue now that they are releasing a full sized key version.

If I recall, it's the cymbals on the 909 that are samples. I've also read that for the 707, the drum samples are 8 bit and the cymbal samples are 6 bit. I just listened to a demo of the 707, and you're right -- it doesn't sound like 909 samples at all, much more like the Drumulator or the Drumtrax.

That's a pretty good price for the Pro One if the condition is questionable. I've seen them go for absurd chunks of change, 3 grand or so, but those ones are totally cleaned up. Those are the two big problems with vintage gear like that, either you pay out the ass for something that's been worked on, or you take a big chance that an old piece is going to shit out on you. The only vintage analog piece I've got is the Roland Alpha Juno 1, and that's because I got it for stupid cheap. Not the greatest synth in the world, but it at least gives me a piece of that gorgeous Juno warmth. I've also got a few virtual analogs like the Korg MS2000 (which has jumped up in price recently for some reason) and the Waldorf Blofeld. I love virtual analogs, but it seems like nobody else does

I was eyeballing the Arp Odyssey reissue as well, though I'm surprised they haven't gone down in price like the MS20 reissues have. I'm holding out that someday they'll do a reissue of the 2600, which is my holy grail of vintage semi-modular synths

Whoa! The new Behringer Neutron! Check that price!

http://www.factmag.com/2018/02/07/behri ... ease-date/

I also just got notice that my Live 10 upgrade is available for download.

felltoearth wrote:Whoa! The new Behringer Neutron! Check that price!

http://www.factmag.com/2018/02/07/behri ... ease-date/

Behringer have always been fantastic value for money. My hardware mixer had slightly noisy channels however...

Keep It Real wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Whoa! The new Behringer Neutron! Check that price!

http://www.factmag.com/2018/02/07/behri ... ease-date/

Behringer have always been fantastic value for money. My hardware mixer had slightly noisy channels however...

Which one and how old? Some of the build quality of their older stuff isn't that great.

The only Behringer piece I own and use is the BCR2000, specifically because no audio runs through it

That being said, the Neutron looks pretty cool. Haven't heard their Moog clone yet.

felltoearth wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Whoa! The new Behringer Neutron! Check that price!

http://www.factmag.com/2018/02/07/behri ... ease-date/

Behringer have always been fantastic value for money. My hardware mixer had slightly noisy channels however...

Which one and how old? Some of the build quality of their older stuff isn't that great.

Oooh :checks: Eurorack MX2004A. Bought it circa 16 years ago.

Yeah, everything I've read seems to say that Behringer mixers have imoroved greatly since then. I've read a lot of postive reviews of their Xenyx line. A friend has one of their tube based mic pre-amps. For the price it is pretty amazing.

I had a Eurorack back in the day and a Xenyx maybe 7 or 8 years ago, I liked the sound of the Xenyx preamps and EQ but it didn't have sweepable mids and the build was still pretty shitty. I think either the Allen & Heath Zeds and Soundcraft E mixers are well worth the price.

Mackie seems to have come down in price considerably as well.

Woah, I totally forgot that I had a Behringer Eurodesk at one stage. I can't even remember what model it was — only 8 channels (or was it 12?), I think. Thanks for bringing back that memory.

I just win a free copy of Audulus for iOS. Whoa. Quite chuffed about this. It’s $28 CDN normally.

I loved Jasuto, but the developer has yet to create a 64bit version and it won’t run on iOS11. So along comes Audulus. It’s Jasuto on steroids. Essentially it’s a modular synth but the mod capabilities are huge.

Check it out.

http://audulus.com

Moog just rolled out its app for the Model D at a low, low introductory price

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minimoo ... ?ls=1&mt=8

I already have the Arturia version, but for the price I thought I’d give it a punt as its AUv3 compatible and should play nice with Cubasis.

Too bad it's an iOS plugin, I've got absolutely no interest in trying to make music on my iPad using plugins that are weak enough to run on it. I've read a lot of complaints about the Arturia version, but I've always had great results with it. The ARP 2600 one might be my favorite!

So went to a synth expo and this happened.



Seriously fun little synth. The virtual modulation matrix is nuts. It was on sale and I had to have it.

I just picked up Behringer's SH-101 and TR-808, but fuck, I need this thing too!



Despite everything it's got, it actually looks very simple with only a few controls per sound type which I think will make it much easier to find cool sounds rather than getting lost in parameters. I'm getting a bit tired of SEM filters, but still!