Wilshy Wrote:Nice one Ben. Tempted by the keys having seen Snicstates review. The waveform part is a bit of an issue.
You can record the modulation of the filters etc without a sound, then play the sound in afterwards. There seems to be some nice touches here and there but some frustrations elsewhere. But for just over a ton, they cannot be knocked.
Maybe do some sound demos Ben 
I'll definitely do some sound demos.
Going to set up the pair of them with my Korg ES-1 running drum duties.
Then see if the MIDI syncs all the transports if I run the MIDI out on the ES-1, through my splitter in to both the Volcas.
That'll have to wait until Sunday though I think..
Once they're set up though, I'll hit record and bounce out what I'm doing as a bit of a live play or something.
Had the Bass on for 10 minutes earlier (still only playing through the internal speaker though) and you can get some really sexy thick bass tones out of it.
I have a feeling I'll get way more use out of the bass than the keys, although once that delay kicks in on the keys, it does sound lovely.
The Sonicstate review slates the noise level a bit on the keys but personally, I quite like it. It gives it a bit of lo-fi gritty character. On a headphone jack output I wouldn't really be expecting a pristine signal path and have always been in to a bit of noise for stuff like that. Get the filter down low and the delay on and you get some weird modulating noise going on which sounds really cool to me.
WOW!
Just had them hooked up with the ES-1 and through the mixing desk for the first time and got some amazing stuff out of them.
I'm now firmly in love with the keys, got some seriously nasty noises from it, kinda like the the demonic reese noise from the end of Silver Blade. The filter does some really naughty things when you max out the resonance.
Unfortunately I'm using the leads I'd need to record out of the mixer to run one of the Volcas in to the desk or I would have been recording as I went along. I'm going to see if I can find something else to record it with so I can post some examples, failing that I'll grab a new lead tomorrow and save my current patches so I can get a recording done in the week.
Ensoniq DP2 (missed out on a DP4)
Korg Triton Rack
Korg Micro X (same as above really, but more mobile)
Waldorf Blofeld White (£100)
and I may have finally snagged an Akai S612
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WANT! 
That looks amazing Ben. But 249 EUR 
wow
100 notes for the blofeld, steal. i love it, more i use the more i like it.
I got a sony HR mp5 fx unit oer the weekend.
Akai S612 (arrived)
Jomox XBase 09 - this thing is sick. Would love a 909, but this is a pretty good alternative
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Yamaha AN200
my wife just bought an iPad, so I have been rocking iMPC when I'm allowed on it - so much fun. Built in bitcrusher = instant grime.
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I just purchased a Dynacord VRS23 reverb, from David Morley no less (!)
Chris; im thinking of selling my akai AX73 sounds great, but huge. Take up too much room. You interested before I ebay it? Its got the inputs for the s612, so you can use the 6 analoguge filters.
Works perfect, great nick.
No worries, cheers, Ben
Paradigm X Wrote:I just purchased a Dynacord VRS23 reverb, from David Morley no less (!)
Chris; im thinking of selling my akai AX73 sounds great, but huge. Take up too much room. You interested before I ebay it? Its got the inputs for the s612, so you can use the 6 analoguge filters.
Works perfect, great nick.
No worries, cheers, Ben
I am indeed - PMs
Does it have the cables to plug the sampler in?
Roland XV2020, and an SRX98 analog essentials card (hopefully it works)
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So it's not actually a synth, it's a sequencer kind of thing but I got my MTRX-8 today.
First impressions were that it was really confusing! Then within 10 minutes (and having actually read the manual and realised it had a fairly major typo referring to a section that didn't exist!) I got the hang of it.
It's great fun, really easy to chain patterns together and you can get some really weird stuff pretty quickly.
Tried it with the Korg Volcas, both Bass & Keys and got the bass doing some amazing squelchy detuned square bass stuff and then the keys doing some bizarre ring modulation acid synth stuff (basically doing the opposite of what each of them are supposed to do) and helps that it has CC presets built in for the Volcas to tweak filter, envelopes, delays etc.. on the fly.
Great fun, just need to figure out how to fit it in to a live set properly now but sure that'll come with a bit more playing.
Siel Mono
Nord Micro Modular
studio is looking pretty spartan atm, have sold a ton of stuff and the rest is all boxed up ready to go on eBay. I've only really kept the samplers, Prophecy and the analogues. Almost back to basics.
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haha, I've just re-read this whole thread and I sound like a lunatic with the amount of gear I went through...
I picked up a Yamaha PSS-480 as a curious aside, namely because I found out that Cajmere used one when he started out. It's a toy 2-op FM with speakers, and a few features like vibrato, reverb and portamento, but this is the beast that you can obtain this kind of vibe:
Running a really spartan studio now in comparison:, custom MPC2000XL, Filtrex and Akai S612 are the main bits running through the Tascam mixer, and a couple of synths and fx in rotation. I have a VariOS set up to run through an old laptop as well for some really creative sampling, but have not fired that up for a while.
Got rid of the Micro Modular, but I am looking for the original modular as a replacement so I can re-use some of the patches I made. No drum machines at all anymore... all gone.
If you want a really good technician I recommend Jazzcat (find him on Facebook). He is currently fixing my MPC, and tricking it out with a proper card reader (no more zips for me). Whilst routing around it turned out it had an fx card already installed - so I picked up a 32MB, 8-out, fx-carded MPC2000XL for £120 which is probably the deal of the century.
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hah, i have also been thru a lot, still got most.
where to start;
Still got ax73
Got 2x Tam21 flangers and a SRS56 delay not working cheap, got the two flangers going, and the delay is started, got sound but a bit broken.
Casio thing with analogue filters i was going to bend but will probably shift.
Oakley TM3030 tb303 clone, so so nice. somehow reacts better than the x0x
Lexicon MPX550 fx
Behringer vintage phaser, new with free delivery, £17 ;o
Diabolical devices TR707
Need to fly to america in july so thats taking muchos wonga.  Really want a minibrute and/or ms20 mini. or juno 106/60/6.
That MPC was a steal man, ebay? gumtree? I want one, not fussed which particularly, for sequencing. Any good tips? the newer ones are meant to be a bit shit. dont need usb/tons of storage, just a basic sequencer and sampler.
Nice one
Been in love with Push (and ableton). Got bit bad by the modular bug (eurocrack) and just placed an order today for a synthrotek case and psu. Sold the Shruthi and LXR to fund it as I wasn't using them enough. Probably going to offload the MiniAK as well, feels like I can do anything on that inside the computer.
Will keep my ESX always and forever by my side. Such a great piece of gear, a true work of art. Paired that up with the x0x for whimsical acid jams.
Can't wait for the modular!!! So psyched. Intellijel Atlantis and Metropolis, MN Function and eventually a Tyme Sefari by TheHarvestman (I'm thinking so far...). Doomed.
Finally, finally got a Monomachine. I splashed out after my wedding and honeymoon, not with wedding money I must add 
I'm reserving judgement at this stage. It's clearly a lovely piece of kit and I like it's simplified synthesis methods - but I'm worried it doesn't go deep enough then again I like it's quirky way around some of the limitations imposed.
Got it pretty much mint, current model for £650 on fleabay. So if I do sell I won't lose a lot at all. Full SFX60+ MK2 with +drive.
^ hopefully you'll get more out of it than I did.
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Wilshy Wrote:Got it pretty much mint, current model for £650 on fleabay. So if I do sell I won't lose a lot at all. Full SFX60+ MK2 with +drive.
Definitely the way to go. At one point I read a comment along the lines of any "loss" is pretty much equivalent to a rental fee.
Also - got an Echophon!!! On it's way from LA, case should be arriving from Synthrotek pretty soon. Going to pull the trigger on an atlantis pretty quick and then a metropolis when they're back in stock. Hopefully I can hold out with that setup for a little while....
chris.innocence Wrote:^ hopefully you'll get more out of it than I did.
How much was that?
I'm biding my time, going to give it a proper go rather than sell after a month. I regret a couple of sales in the past not giving them a proper chance so I want to this time.
Yes it's absolutely a rental fee when you buy something with eBay these days.
Wilshy Wrote:chris.innocence Wrote:^ hopefully you'll get more out of it than I did.
How much was that?
I stand by my review
btw, I don't hate the machine, there are far worse items of gear, I just felt like it wasn't for me and I offloaded it for some things I thought would suit me more. Saying that, out of those things I kept the M1R, but offloaded the EMU e6400 Ultra. I have an E4X fully maxed, so I still have an Emulator 4 in the mix.
The MM MKII is supposed to be a big improvement over the MKI, so I would take my review with a large pinch of salt. I also did not have the UW+ option either, and I know that would really open up the machine (I underestimated how much I would want to mess around). So as to the vanilla MM, I felt the FM and SID emulations were not great, and I have dedicated pieces that can cover those areas, so perhaps I am skewed towards criticism of, rather than embracing the MM engines. To talk of its positives, the screen was excellent, the other engines I thought were quite good, the SWave engine in particular although I didn't have much use for the others. I quite liked the TR style programming as well, and I liked the lo-fi drums.
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From my early dealings I would agree in some areas. It's definitely thin sounding but I think that's to it's benefit. It's all too easy to get caught up in making everything sound analogue and meaty. Interested in the UW+ option certainly and mine has that. I like the sequencer and the overall architecture. Found the RM1x very confusing in the way it sequenced other than on one bar loop.
Just read back on your SammichSID brief write up. How are you finding it still? Still got mine in kit form. Really needs to be made, while I like the MM SID emulation - it does the job - but I know the midi box OS implementation will breath life into the SID.
Wilshy Wrote:From my early dealings I would agree in some areas. It's definitely thin sounding but I think that's to it's benefit. It's all too easy to get caught up in making everything sound analogue and meaty. Interested in the UW+ option certainly and mine has that. I like the sequencer and the overall architecture. Found the RM1x very confusing in the way it sequenced other than on one bar loop.
Just read back on your SammichSID brief write up. How are you finding it still? Still got mine in kit form. Really needs to be made, while I like the MM SID emulation - it does the job - but I know the midi box OS implementation will breath life into the SID.
I agree with the benefits of having "thin-sounding" timbres; I certainly did not by the MM thinking I was going to emulate the classics, but I still thought it compared badly to my 4-op and 6-op Yamahas. I only really have the TX81z left, there is no chance I will get rid of it as it's 4-op + the additional waveforms. I miss my DX21 and the built-in chorus, but in the grand scheme of things I have decent external fx that have a better chorus. I offloaded the TG77 as it was too big and cumbersome, plus I am in the market for a FS1R for crazier 8-op FM goodness.
RM1x was a nightmare for me, I gave up on that pretty quickly. Similarly the AN200, that was 1bar loop as well.
The SammichSID is awesome, no other way to describe it, I love it to bits. I really need to delve in a bit deeper, but it packs so much punch and power into such a small size I can see why it's highly sought after.
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chris.innocence Wrote:The SammichSID is awesome, no other way to describe it, I love it to bits. I really need to delve in a bit deeper, but it packs so much punch and power into such a small size I can see why it's highly sought after.
In a round about way you're saying I've got to build mine!! I know what the sid is capable of having dabbled on a real C64 for years.
Wilshy Wrote:chris.innocence Wrote:The SammichSID is awesome, no other way to describe it, I love it to bits. I really need to delve in a bit deeper, but it packs so much punch and power into such a small size I can see why it's highly sought after.
In a round about way you're saying I've got to build mine!! I know what the sid is capable of having dabbled on a real C64 for years.
and with me saying all that, I just offloaded it (back to its original owner). Practically everything else is on eBay.
I have a Nord G2 Engine on the way from a very nice chap in Finland, and a Behringer BCR2000 for controlling it sitting on my desk at work. I am afraid that this is what I would see as the end of my time dabbling in hardware synths, its been fun.
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Got myself an Arturia Microbrute. The filter is nasty! I really like the oscillator mixer as well.
Obviously it's got some serious limitations (look at the price!  ), but I love it! (besides limitations can be a super boost for creativity)
Also I'm getting into electronics, I was able to make a couple of different oscillators already, and one of them even REALLY badly voltage controlled. FUN. Also built a resonant low pass filter, which so far has a really bad sound, but I'm going to try a couple of different designs and hopefully find something that rocks it.
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