looking for a digital polysynth to compliment my blofeld.

[sheatheman]

the main thing 80s and 90s rack stuff gives you that daws can't is the sound of the converters, or bypass relay coloration on fx rack modules. Also, if it weighs 10lbs, it's just going to sound different than a dsp chip.

[sweepstakes]

 

 

also stuff like aliasing on the tx81z is hard to recreate, and it has other 'perks' such as a slight squeak from the envelopes at certain settings.

Oh god I hate that squeak

[kausto]

DSI Mopho desktop squeaks even worse

[sweepstakes]

Micron squeaks pretty bad too

[Auditor]

 

 

 

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/01/30/baloran-the-river-synthesizer-sneak-preview/

 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-electronic-music-production/1136256-baloran-rivera-synthesizer-mind-blown.html

[TubularCorporation]

the main thing 80s and 90s rack stuff gives you that daws can't is the sound of the converters, or bypass relay coloration on fx rack modules. Also, if it weighs 10lbs, it's just going to sound different than a dsp chip.

 

Also the analog antialias filters that are usually not up to modern standards (in a good way) and often well down into the audible range since a lot of these things were using 32kHz sample rates well into the second half of the 90s.  Also 16 bit samples stored as 8 bit via compansion, and there was a spo in the mid  to late 90s when processor speed was increasing but memory was still expensive, so it became possible to save on the latter by using the former to decode compressed audio, and every company had its own (pre-MP3) lossy compression scheme with its own artifacts.  There are definitely a lot of little things that add up to making them sound different from software recreations. 

 

I just coincidentally stumbled on this last night and it's a pretty fascinating, obsessively in depth breakdown of the technical differences between a bunch of 90s Roland ROMplers that theoretically should sound  more or less identical (same samples, same basic architecture) but don't.  It's a pretty interesting read.

 

 

I am fully on board with there being real, tangible, measurable, sonic reasons to use old hardware, it's more the inevitable cork-sniffer creep that gets me.  Still, even the most intense vintage synth snobbery isn't that bad compared to what you see in the vintage guitar world (which may have actually surpassed the audiophile world for religious fervor at this point).

 

But, I mean, I love old stuff too and always have so I get how someone can go down that collector rabbit hole. 

 

 

Something I've thought about before quite a few times is the similarity between creatively using samples of other people's music an creatively using familiar older gear or even presets.  In both cases there are a lot of extramusical cultural associations attached to the sounds themselves, and I thinkthere are very good reasons why someone might deliberately use a well known sound specifically for their associations.  Like, a stock DX-7 piano sound is going to have every bit as much emotional resonance as a familiar James Brown sample, and in either case as long as it works for rather than against the goals of the person using it than who cares? Which sounds completely obvious when I actually type it up, TBH, but there is so much anti-preset and, to a lesser degree recently, anti-ROMpler bias on line (not so much here, one of the reasons I post here is that people seem to be mostly above that kind of stuff) that it can like some kind of bold statement.

 

 

Anyhow, my final recommendations are:

 

Audiothingies Micromonsta

Yamaha TX802 or TX81z

Roland JV1080 or possibly D-550

Kurzweil K-2500rs

 

With the caveat that I've never owned or spent much time with the Kurzweil, D-550 or tx81z and am basin g the recommendations of of reputation and friends who use them heavily and get fantastic, non-dated stuff out of them.  Especially the Kurzweil, which is an absolute beast.

 

EDIT: just to be clear, I don't think about any of that ind of crap when I'm actually making music, it's just fun and maybe even instructive to think about in general.  In terms of actual music making, though, it begins and ends with doing things that make me feel something, and if it translates to other people all the better. Any kind of theory or analysis or strict technique is right out the window, those are only tools and for me they're usually not the right tools.

[Guest Chesney]

Wow on the River! Bonkers.

 

This thread inspired me to fnally try and fix my blofeld keyboard (again) as there are a load of  odd as fuck patches I made but been unable to use as the data pot totally died.

I ended up taking apart every pot and cleaning them as a YT vid suggested that grease on the encoders is making them skip and freeze. Got all encoders working great but the data one was only scrolling forwards, an improvement but does mean it's still unusable as I can't go back to parameters. There was a factory mod on that encoder it seems so I tested some combinations by unsoldering cap legs, got the encoder running backwards but not forwards. Decided to take the mod off totally and fuck, it works!

 

I love the blofeld, I used it so hard for years and now it's back. I'm hoping some odd shit is gonna come from these old patches being sequenced by an elektron box. Just need to fix my desktop version now.

[TubularCorporation]

If you could get someone to build one for you (or DIY if you do that stuff) the PreenFM is supposed to be great.

 

Also on the kit front, a lot of the opensource Mutable desktop stuff is available again here.  They also sell prebuilt PreenFM units.

[TubularCorporation]

Also don't forget the Axoloti + inexpensive MIDI controller (Korg Nanokontrol or similar) option.  Cheap and extremely flexible.

 

Entire rig made from 5 Axoloti boards with custom control surfaces:

 

 

He gets to the wavetable keyboard around 10 minutes in.  Obviously this isn't exactly what you're after but it's a good demo ofthe possibilities, you could definitely patch up a decent subtractive-architecture polysynth in an afternoon or two, stick it in one of the little acrylic enclosures you can find on the user forums (should be like $15-$20 USD from Ponoko), add a MIDI controller and you're all set.

[kausto]

Yeah, PreenFM2 and Axoloti are great fun. Actually, prebuilt PFM2 is an awesome digital poly offer x4, since it is 4 parts multitimbral. RDJ and Dave Noyze seem to keep their eyes on it.

[Bubba69]

Yep actually if you like to tinker, it's a great deal. I have two axolotis and you can basically make them into anything you want. Somebody even ported the mutable instruments eurorack module code into modules in axoloti. There are tons of things in the library at this point. so many different kinds of filters, oscillators, fx.

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I'm seriously considering getting a second Axoloti to use as a standalone vocoder now that the MI phase vocoder code has been ported over.  It takes 90% of the CPU so you'd pretty much have to dedicate a board to it, but I could sell my old Electrix Warp Factory and get enough for an axoloti core, an enclosure, some pots for adding a few controls, and still have enough left over for a pizza or two.

 

Really been neglecting my Axoloti far too much lately.

 

The Electrix is pretty great in its own right, though.  I really like it AFTER a reverb on an aux send, with the reverb going into the carrier inputs and then the dry signal coming out on another aux into the modulator input, so the reverb tail is being vocoded by the dry signal.  You can get some really unusual reverbs that way, especially by manually tweaking the number of bands in real time.  It's just too bulky to carry to a show.

[sweepstakes]

Also on the kit front, a lot of the opensource Mutable desktop stuff is available again here.  They also sell prebuilt PreenFM units.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I love my Shruthi but I'm sick to death of the digital filter (which is probably super rare and covetable but fuck it, it sounds like shit)

[TubularCorporation]

 

Also on the kit front, a lot of the opensource Mutable desktop stuff is available again here.  They also sell prebuilt PreenFM units.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I love my Shruthi but I'm sick to death of the digital filter (which is probably super rare and covetable but fuck it, it sounds like shit)

 

 

I didn't know about this either, I just clicked through on the link from the preenfm site, and there they are.  If they're still in stock next winter when I do my next big editing job I may have to get an Ambika kit.  Always regretted not having the money for one when Mutable was selling them, it looks amazing and it would be great for live use, so portable. Don't really need it but

[sheatheman]

Wow that don Solaris tome is insane

[TubularCorporation]

Wow that don Solaris tome is insane

Yeah, that ribbon synthesizer at the end pretty much sold me on getting a second Axoloti, a few ribbon and pressure sensors and a hunk of wood and making myself some kind of guitar (or more likely bass, since the ribbons are too wide for guitar-like spacing) style synth/MIDI controller this summer and fall.

 

3 or four ribbon sensor "strings" for pitch and matching pressure pads that you could "pluck" by pressing on them to control volume/velocity/any arbitrary CC message (I'd probably go for initial pressure over some threshold = noteon, pressure changes after that = aftertouch and dropping below the threshold again = noteoff, that seems the most guitarlike) , plus some kind of controls for the internal synth engine and MIDI output.  Seems like a big project but a very doable one, I think the ergonomics would be the hardest part.

[sweepstakes]

If anyone cares, what I said about the Shruthi digital filter is blasphemy. It's actually pretty awesome as long as you're not trying to use it for basslines. Found some old jams this morning where I was just using it to make fucked up delay sounds and it was pretty great, just not the kind of thing you want to carelessly unleash into a mix.

[TubularCorporation]

If anyone cares, what I said about the Shruthi digital filter is blasphemy. It's actually pretty awesome as long as you're not trying to use it for basslines. Found some old jams this morning where I was just using it to make fucked up delay sounds and it was pretty great, just not the kind of thing you want to carelessly unleash into a mix.

 

Well if you're still feeling blasphemous this winter and I have the money and interest to build an Ambika, those kits ship with all Roland-style filter boards and I'd probably be down to trade one for your digital filter board (they're interchangable between Shruthi and Amika I'm pretty sure).  But that wouldn't be until probably December at the earliest.

[Hautlle]

 

Also on the kit front, a lot of the opensource Mutable desktop stuff is available again here.  They also sell prebuilt PreenFM units.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I love my Shruthi but I'm sick to death of the digital filter (which is probably super rare and covetable but fuck it, it sounds like shit)

 

 

Laurentide synthworks is WAS a good US based site for access to some of the old MI stuff outside of TubeOhm (I have and LOVE the TubeOhm Ladder filter for the Shruthi)

 

seems they've passed the torch on to Modular Addict for their Shruthi/Ambika stuff 

[sweepstakes]

 

If anyone cares, what I said about the Shruthi digital filter is blasphemy. It's actually pretty awesome as long as you're not trying to use it for basslines. Found some old jams this morning where I was just using it to make fucked up delay sounds and it was pretty great, just not the kind of thing you want to carelessly unleash into a mix.

 

Well if you're still feeling blasphemous this winter and I have the money and interest to build an Ambika, those kits ship with all Roland-style filter boards and I'd probably be down to trade one for your digital filter board (they're interchangable between Shruthi and Amika I'm pretty sure).  But that wouldn't be until probably December at the earliest.

 

Sorry for not replying sooner. Unfortunately, the filter boards are not interchangeable, they have different form factors. The fact that the filter names are the same probably gave you that impression. Thanks for the offer though.

 

I could probably be coaxed but I'm not sure which filter I want... I want something that can do LP/BP/HP so maybe the dual SVF or the 4PM. 

 

 

 

Also on the kit front, a lot of the opensource Mutable desktop stuff is available again here.  They also sell prebuilt PreenFM units.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I love my Shruthi but I'm sick to death of the digital filter (which is probably super rare and covetable but fuck it, it sounds like shit)

 

 

Laurentide synthworks is WAS a good US based site for access to some of the old MI stuff outside of TubeOhm (I have and LOVE the TubeOhm Ladder filter for the Shruthi)

 

seems they've passed the torch on to Modular Addict for their Shruthi/Ambika stuff 

 

Yeah, too bad I missed the boat on that. TubeOhm does seem to offer a couple interesting filters that Modular Addict doesn't, like the stereo one and the ladder. 

[TubularCorporation]

 

 

If anyone cares, what I said about the Shruthi digital filter is blasphemy. It's actually pretty awesome as long as you're not trying to use it for basslines. Found some old jams this morning where I was just using it to make fucked up delay sounds and it was pretty great, just not the kind of thing you want to carelessly unleash into a mix.

 

Well if you're still feeling blasphemous this winter and I have the money and interest to build an Ambika, those kits ship with all Roland-style filter boards and I'd probably be down to trade one for your digital filter board (they're interchangable between Shruthi and Amika I'm pretty sure).  But that wouldn't be until probably December at the earliest.

 

Sorry for not replying sooner. Unfortunately, the filter boards are not interchangeable, they have different form factors. The fact that the filter names are the same probably gave you that impression. Thanks for the offer though.

 

I could probably be coaxed but I'm not sure which filter I want... I want something that can do LP/BP/HP so maybe the dual SVF or the 4PM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No worries.  I could have easily looked it up, too. I never really looked at the Shruthi much when they were available, actually.

[sweepstakes]

Yeah, I got in 2011, just a couple years before the volcas and the Microbrute and the sudden explosion of cheap analog monosynths (thanks Tats!!). I wanted a monosynth and the closest alternative was the DSI Mopho which iirc was just a little pricier than I felt like it should be. With the 8-bit engine, the Shruthi has its own sound, which at the time reminded me of the SQ80 that I had just sold, and was way nerdier than the Mopho. I ended up picking up a Microbrute a couple years later but they actually complement each other pretty well. Nothing else I've used really sounds like a Shruthi - even the SQ80 sounds pretty "shy" in comparison. It's a weird little synth that has a life of its own.

 

I do think the analog filters take the edge off the inherit "chip" sound it's got (owing not only to the 8-bit amplitude resolution but also the sharp, unfiltered 7-bit parameter resolution), kind of like a SID. But while the digital filter's LP/HP aren't the most pleasing, the effects, although simple, are pretty unique and can be controlled with the mod matrix. They definitely emphasize the Shruthi's weirdness.

 

I recently found a cache of Shruthi samples on my MPC that I might compile and throw up somewhere to share.

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, I got my Anushri around 2012/13. Got a Microbrute, it arrived with the entire digital section DOA (LEDs wouldn't even light) and the pitch wheel not working right at all - went from no pitch bend to full pitch bend very suddenly around 2/3 of the way to the top, and had no effect across the rest of the range.  Returned it, bought an Anushri kit for abut $50 less, and never regretted it a bit, great little monosynth.

[sweepstakes]

OK here's some samples if anyone is curious. Should give you an idea of the sound:

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5z9_4mGl_ekRm0zOGtTMzJzX0E 

[TubularCorporation]

OK here's some samples if anyone is curious. Should give you an idea of the sound:

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5z9_4mGl_ekRm0zOGtTMzJzX0E 

 

Were you aware of this?

 

https://cs80-com.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/cs80-filter-board-for-shruthi-synthesizer