looking for a digital polysynth to compliment my blofeld.

[pcock]

im having loads of fun writing some melodic stuff again now ive gotten into the blofeld, but it would be really nice to have another synth so i can do melody and accompaniment similtaneously through my modular automations for it. 

 

whats good and fairly cheap? i like presets, i tend to just pick something close to what i want and then fiddle a bit when looking for pads and leads for tuneful stuff. 

[auxien]

Another Blofeld? lol but really I can't think of a cheap digital polysynth other than used/decade+old stuff. I'm probably forgetting something I'm sure. Korg Minilogue is probably decently cheap, especially second hand, but it's not digital. Pulse 2 would be a nice complement to the Blofeld I'd think, but it's poly capabilities are very limited and it's analog not digital.

[TubularCorporation]

Audiothingies Micromonsta?

 

I've never tried one but I built the P6, their previous generation kit-only version, a few years ago and it's pretty great.

 

This one seems to sound better, has more voices, and allows you to import 30 custom wavetables, comes fully assembled, and only costs a hair above 250€.

 

 

Apparently these were originally a branch of one of the Mutable Instruments desktop synths (Shruthi probably) but with he firmware massively rewritten to be geared toward more standard polysynth sounds.

 

EDIT:

 

Pretty decent demo of the features.

 

Doesn't actually sound analog like it's apparently supposed to, but sounds good.

[sweepstakes]

This is a pretty general request and I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but an old Yamaha FM synth (or a volca FM/Reface DX, if you don't want to deal with used) might be fun. FM synths are notoriously annoying to program at first but, especially with a decent editor, are surprisingly expressive once you get the hang of them. The older FM synths have a bit of grit and aliasing that seems like it would nicely complement the clean Blofeld sound. The volca has a bit of this character as well and it also has a dedicated LFO control and some nice envelope macro controls. I defer to the Reface owners (I believe there's at least a couple on this board) for how well its sound would complement the Blofeld.

[th555]

Have you looked at the Blofeld multi mode yet?

[Guest Chesney]

Multimode is riddled with bugs so it's not that reliable. If you want something to compliment it, the microkorg or a Yamaha AN1x are perfect. They sound alot more earthy, perfect to go alongside the blofeld's cleaner sound.

[pcock]

does multimode allow you to play more than one patch at a time? i dont really understand how you would be able to change different parameters similtaneously if thats the case. 

 

the audiothingies mircomonsta looks really interesting. 

[Guest Chesney]

you can edit one layer at a time for performance and switch between them. pretty sure it's only 25 note poly so depending how complext your patches are you can stack a fair few. It does work in a studio environment but I wouldn;t trust using it live.

 

This should have everything in here 

[auxien]

Yamaha AN1x

Had to look this one up because I know I'd seen it before but couldn't remember, and of course there's a 45 minute Jexus video demoing it and it's great...beware that he makes everything sound pretty amazing, but nonetheless I had to share the glory.

 

[Guest Chesney]

yeah man. I think it's one of the best sounding digi's around. Not to be confused with the CS1x. Although that sounds great too, just far less editable, more a sort of a workstation preset keyboard but without the sequencing etc. You can pick them up for cheap too, I sold mine to a local kid for £20.

 

You could also try a novation nova module.

[pcock]

i forgot to mention i need something either small or rack based. i dont have any space for keyboards, its the reason i unfortunately cant just use my prophet 08. 

i think i might go for the micromonsta, looks like exactly what i was looking for, 8 voices, 100s of presets, small, and 260 quid. 

[Guest Chesney]

A station rack or KS module?

 

Waldorf Q or microwave are amazing but too much overlap with blofeld.

[TubularCorporation]

This is a pretty general request and I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but an old Yamaha FM synth (or a volca FM/Reface DX, if you don't want to deal with used) might be fun. FM synths are notoriously annoying to program at first but, especially with a decent editor, are surprisingly expressive once you get the hang of them. The older FM synths have a bit of grit and aliasing that seems like it would nicely complement the clean Blofeld sound. The volca has a bit of this character as well and it also has a dedicated LFO control and some nice envelope macro controls. I defer to the Reface owners (I believe there's at least a couple on this board) for how well its sound would complement the Blofeld.

 

 

Yeah, I assumed you meant something new, if old is OK then there are probably literally a few hundred choices out there for not much money. 

 

If you want cheap, small and characterful and like presets the Yamaha FB-01 is very cheap (shouldn't be more than $50usd), has a nice grittyness (it's an almost identical FM chip to the one used in a lot of 8s and early90s Sega arcade machines, with a combination of low headroom op amps and excessive lowpass filtering on the outputs that gives it a nice dirtiness none of the DX series stuff quite has, it's completely programmable from a computer, 8 parts multitimbral and small.  you could load a bunch of patches in to it and just use it as a preset box, plus the multitibrality makes it easy to use for FM drums, since you can assign 8 different sounds to different ranges on the same channel.  Only downside with it (and all the Yamaha FM synths) is that the battery is soldered to the board and uses a pin spacing that's hard to find a battery clip for (although there's an adapter PCB you ca get for a couple dollars to get around that) so it's a bit more of a hassle to change it.

 

A TX81z is always useful, one of the few things I might see myself still getting down the road.

 

I'm a big fan of the Kawai K1/K1m but they seem to be a love/hate thing ad last I heard the prices were too high these days.  Mine was a little under $50 on eBay last summer (for the k1m, not the keyboard version) and that seems about right. 

 

Roland D-10 is really undervalued because of it's reputation as a lesser version of the D-50 but it's a pretty great sounding synth on its own terms, does some stuff the D-50 can't (and vice versa) and the rack version has 6 assignable outs. 

 

CZ series Casios are great and if you don't mind the size a 1000 is usually a lot cheaper than a 101 and is functionally identical, just bigger.

 

 

All kinds of relatively cheap rack ROMplers floating around, too.

 

 

None of this stuff should be more expensive than a new Volca, even if you have to get it on eBay (except the CZ-101, and I guess the 81z sometimes gets up near $200 these days but they're still common and you should be able to find one for less easily).

[pizza]

system-1m seems p hands on

[TubularCorporation]

i forgot to mention i need something either small or rack based. i dont have any space for keyboards, its the reason i unfortunately cant just use my prophet 08. 

i think i might go for the micromonsta, looks like exactly what i was looking for, 8 voices, 100s of presets, small, and 260 quid. 

 

It's not a perfect analogy, but you can get in the ballpark of what the p6 (and by extension the Micromonsta) is like if you think "VA Oberheim Matrix 6."

 

 

That's not how it's presented, that's not exactly how it sounds, and the architecture and feature set aren't exactly he same, but there's a lot of overlap.  Similar enough that when I got a Matrix 1000 I almost sold mine, but it's so convenient I've been holding on to it to use live.  The wavetables probably make the Micromonsta a lot more flexible.

[TubularCorporation]

A Kurzweil K2500 is probably not as immediate as you're after but it's a lifetime investment.

[fxbip]

FM is the way.

Get a DX7 or DX21.They are amazing.

FM is king of digital forever imo.And you already have a Blofeld for nice clean digital.

FM brings something else to the table.Old Hardware especially,they have more balls then lets say FM8 or any software,they have a machine-like sound that is way more dirty and ballsy and when mixed with analogue:

 

Lushness happens believe me.

[fxbip]

And they sell for peanuts for what they are worth in musical power.

[Nil]

If you're not reluctent to also use the computer... U-He Bazille.

[user]

Roland jp8000 rack I'd say.

Or just fuck it and buy a novation peak.

[TubularCorporation]

Novation Peak looks pretty cool, digital/analog hybrids are pretty great.

 

To this day I regret not being able to afford a Mutable Instruments Ambika kit when they were available.

[auxien]

Didn't OP say the synth needed to be relatively cheap? Peak is over a grand, isn't it?

[psn]

Your Blofeld feels unadmired?

[pcock]

no, i just want to be able to jam out melody + chordal accompaniment similtaneously through my processing rack. love the blofeld. im really getting stuck into the modulation matrix now aswell.

[TubularCorporation]

Didn't OP say the synth needed to be relatively cheap? Peak is over a grand, isn't it?

 

 

Yeah, it's not particularly on topic.