I was listening to some 70s and 80s synth music and realized that some of it has held up really well (Peter Gabriel "So", Thomas Dolby "Golden Age of Wireless", Kate Bush "Hounds of Love", Kraftwerk (lots of stuff), David Bowie "Heroes") but lots of it has aged very badly (Emerson Lake & Palmer "Lucky Man", Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer, most dance music from the time (though Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" still sounds great IMO).

What do you think is the key to making synth-based music that will still sound decent in 30-40 years vs. sounding like very dated music from a specific time period?

Woohoo! The EX expansion keeps on giving! Can’t wait to download this when I get home.

Supposedly fully functional

What was the first synth you played? What was the first synth you owned? (Yeah, let's see how old you are.)

I'll start.

The first synth I played was a monophonic modular synth built by my father. Patch cords and everything. My father was a composer and pianist and was doing electronic music when that involved cutting up tapes and taping them back together. He was thrilled when synths showed up.

My first synth is a little more complicated. If you think that string machines were synthesizers, my first synth was a PAiA Stringz 'n' Thingz. If you think that's more of a keyboard and less of a synth, then it was a Yamaha DX7 that I bought grey market in New York City. That thing got us through a bunch of gigs and was indestructible, although hard to transport on the subway.

How bad luck can one have… I've been thinking of buying my first synthesizer for several weeks. Finally I decided to buy a second hand Modal Cobalt8. I received it yesterday, and noticed that it's still on firmware version 1.4. So I tried to go to Cobalt's website to download the latest firmware and the Modalapp, but the site was down! And still is today. I'm sure I visited the site the day before, which means that the site went down on the same day I received my synth. I've also sent emails to their support and info addresses, but have received no response.

Maybe this is just some temporary problem. Or then they have finally gone down for good. Hopefully not.

In any case my problem is now that I'm not able to update my synth. Can anybody help me out by sending me the update file and Modalapp installation file (Windows), or providing a working link to download them?

Thanks in advance!

im lost on the whole synth thing so any help would be great

So yeah, I want something where I can make music on the fly without a computer, and the circuit tracks seems to tick all the boxes, including the price. It seems to be easy to use and the ability to controll my minilogue xd as well is a huge plus. I am a bit turned of by not being able to play samoles chromaticly and having a bit of a limited track count.

Are there any other alternatives that would work for a beginner like me? It would be the first device of this type for me.

Hi

I am seeking for some help, because i want to plugin my korg volca keys to korg minilogue xd to get some fx and also i want to plugin korg volca keys to Ableton, through focusrite scarlett 2i2

What types of cables do i need?

If u can, send me some links to thomann site so i can buy it directly

Thank you in advance

So, I'm planning to surprise my 21yo nephew with a Poly D. He's just been accepted to a musical school where he will live in a dorm away from his nutcase of an alcoholic mother. So happy for him!

He's already skilled with the guitar (self-taught) and plays in two different bands, and lately he's been showing an interest both in synths and music production in general, so I thought I'd help him with a gift.

But before I do this I just wanted to check with you guys if you think there's even better options in the same price range, with the same "bang for the buck" as the Poly D? Or if you have any other concerns about the choice of a Poly D in general. Any limitations?

And yes, I know Behringer did this and Behringer does that, but it seems the Poly D has received some good and valid praise?

He doesn't know anything about synthesis at the moment, but I'm not worried about that really. He's the kind of kid that learns stuff in a very deep and dedicated manner, just like he did with his guitar and drums, so I'm pretty sure he'd even master some synth with crazy menu diving if I was to give him something like that, given enough time.

Edit: I listened to your solid advice to not pick an instrument for a musician and simply asked him, so I guess it isn't a surprise anymore, but anyway he replied:

"I know nothing about synths yet, but I would like something to nerd away on and experiment with all kinds of different sounds, so I guess...a synthesizer? hahaha".

So it seems he wants to nerd away with it, not jam/play live with it, if you get what I mean. Not that it would hurt if it could do both well, of course.

If you had to emulate the "mod preset" from the TC Electronic Hall Of Fame reverb pedal via VST plugins in a DAW, how would you do it to have the exact same sound?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCVY80XO_Ro

Im looking to recreate the exact sound which can be heard at 0:51 in the video.

Many thanks in advance!!

I have 5 boutiques from Roland. The older jp08, jx03 and ju06a and the newer jx08 and jd08. I was thinking of selling the older 3 and getting a System 8 as they come with it, plus it uses the same ACB technology. Thoughts?

I want to get into synthesizers for music. I’m looking for

Polyphony Digital or analog Physical or VST (preferably physically)

Budget is less than a grand

I was just wandering if you could play dungeon on microfreak.

Recently I sold everything except the hydrasynth because of major life events but I'm missing that raw analog tone and decided to go more great value this time around and got it down to these 2.

Bass station 2: gets close enough to my prized matriarch for me to not miss it, at a quarter of the price and being 10x more versatile. The addition of the ringmod and additional acid filter type is what really interest me. Seems pretty robust and is definitely that sound based off of demos. The problem is I never really used my matriarch in tracks, I just enjoyed playing it because it was such a joy

Minibrute 2s: my main hyperfixation with this one is the super oscillator. I find it super interesting and think the brute factor would fit my grungy dubstep style a lot better than the bass station would and the fact you can now tune the second oscillator makes it that much crazier. Sure it doesn't have ring mod but it's something a bit different and that's what intrigues me the most. The sequencer also looks really fun to play with. I can "make due" with my vsts for classic bass/leads but the minibrute seems a little more unique and contemporary

Ideally I'd have both but I'm torn as to which I should get first. overall I think I'd enjoy both a lot though, both are versatile and sound amazing

Looking for a midi controller that feels like my OB-6 but 61 or 73 keys. Poly after touch required.

Is it the Arturia Lab series? Or the NI? Nektar is getting good reviews too, but much cheaper so assume that costs were cut on keyboard.

Thanks!

Not sure if I'm the only one that has this problem or if this is a common issue within the hobby.

I struggle to mix different synths and make them feel 'matching'.

I have a Circuit Tracks, and an MPC One, the Circuit is great for making quick beats and coming up with melody ideas as everything is so intuitive and quick, and once I've got a quick beat, I use the MPC One to turn them into fuller tracks.

Both have Synth engines, but both sound wildly different, and often when I make a quick beat, I re-make it from scratch in the MPC, else I feel the synth sounds I make on the Circuit don't seem to 'match' any sounds I input after with the MPC One in order to make the track fuller.

The main issue is I seem to really struggle to mix the different engines together, I'd love to just record the tracks' tracks into the MPC and use them in their raw form, but I always end up re-making the beat in the MPC because it never sounds right.

What do I need to learn to sort this, my general mixing is fine, but changing the sound of my synths so they feel cohesive is a real barrier for me, how do I go about getting better at this, or is this something where the Synth engines are so wildly different that I may as well continue re-making the beats in the MPC?

Hey all. Looking for some recommendations between the 3 controllers in the title, or if there are any others I should be looking at in the similar price range.

Mostly for keys/piano work, but i will be doing some other stuff too.

Hello!
do you know what would be the best solution to do what in the title?

If it has also a minimum of utilitities like eq, panning and limiting (32 bit float like some zoom would be even better) per channel it wuold be nice.

Do you know what would be the best solution? If I can save on the budget I would be happy. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, I would connect either several synths or synths, microphone, guitar or other acoustic instruments

I know it's not a fair comparison as the 505 is super limited and the RD9 seems to be a great remake of the 909. My dilemma is that I'm in the market for a drum synth and I'm madly in love with the sound of the 505 (well, probably the sound of that era in general). I think there's something cool about the synths/drum machines from that era, and the 505 is even affordable.

Anyone with experience with both that can tell me if it's possible to get the sound of the 505 on the RD9, and if there are any limitations that will be so frustrating that I will pull my hair out? I will be sequencing the drum synth from a beat step pro, so the built in sequencer is sort of out of the equation.

Listening to the 505 just gives me the feeling of "that's my sound", so part of the dilemma is that with the 505 I will not waste any time on sound design, but on the other hand I will never be able to tweak the sounds except external effects/mods like delay/reverb/EQ.

I've got a lead on an 01/W Pro X for unbelievably cheap, but the seller says that there is a slight delay or slow response time between pressing a key or a button on the face of the synthesizer and any reaction. Does anybody have any idea what may be causing this and how easy the fix would be? I'd love to pick this thing up, but I don't want a synth with a laundry list of fixes to do or just one painstaking one.

TLDR: I'm trying to assemble a fully battery/USB-powered performance setup and am wondering if my OPZ is the best tool for the job or if other alternatives would work better.

I'm currently trying to put together a portable live performance setup that I can use to play out at open mics, take to park when the weather is nice, etc. One of the main things I'm trying to accomplish is to avoid having to plug anything into an electrical outlet for power.

For amplification, I'm using a little battery-powered Blackstar amp, which has a 3.5mm aux input jack along with the guitar input (and incidentally, sounds way, way better than a 3" speaker should).

For sequencing and all non-guitar sounds, I've been planning on using my OPZ. Overall I am pretty happy with it: the sequencing possibilities are impressive, and it absolutely can't be beat as far as portability, but it's a little limited as far as realtime performance and sound selection.

Adding a LaunchControl XL has really expanded the usability as far as performance, and I've been thinking about adding a nanobox to the setup to expand the sound possibilities as well, but I figure if I'm going to be adding gear to offset the built-in constraints of the OPZ, I may as well see if there are other synths/sequencers that might fit the bill instead.

My main criteria right now are:

• Battery power. Internal would be best, but running off a USB power pack could be okay too
• A robust sequencer. I would love to be able to use it for backing tracks for traditional rock/pop-style song arrangements as well as more traditional electronic/synth-based bleeps-and-bloops-style performing
• A reasonable variety of decent-quality sounds
• Portability. I would love to be able to toss sequencer and amp (and possibly LaunchControl) into a single bag/backpack, strap on my guitar gig bag, and be out the door. I doubt I'm going to find another tool that is as compact as the OPZ.

The OPZ does pretty well on all of the above, but it does have some shortcomings. The sound production abilities are impressive for what they are, but they are still pretty limited. The step sequencer is great, but it's frustrating that you have to choose between shorter sequences with smaller note subdivisions or a longer sequence with increasing large note subdivisions, and trying to do things with the step components in realtime can be rough.

All that being said, do folks have suggestions as far as synths/sequencers that would fit the criteria above, or am I going to have a hard time beating the OPZ?