Short reviews and idiosyncratic thoughts and ruminations on synthesizers by someone who just wants to "try 'em all"
OB-X8: The best Oberheim ever?
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There's been a little gap since my last entry, but that's partly because my last post--the title of this one--was simply so profound that it ended up becoming an article for Greatsynthesizers.com. Check it out here.
It's 2023... the synthesizer market is SATURATED with analog monophonic synths offering "warmth" and "fatness" and "character". It's arguable that there's never been so many cheap and cheerful new analog synths to pick from and that's not even considering the offerings in Euro land. With so many new options, how does one choose? Don't. Instead buy the thing that kicked this all off (new analog monosynths that is, not reissues, a la MS-20) and get on with your life. What is that thing? It's the humble Arturia Minibrute. When it was released a lifetime ago, a lot of people weren't impressed. It was too gnarly, too aggressive, and not the Moog clone that (apparently) people only ever want. But hindsight has worked out in its favour and I can't think of any other modern analog monosynth that can still hold its own both in terms of sound but also connectivity. No specs review here, simply a Top 8 list of reasons why the MB is ...
I love wavetable synthesis a la PPG/Waldorf. It's not always a needed sound in my music (actually it rarely is) but from a purely synthesis POV it's probably my favorite type of sound--to me, it just harkens back to the earliest days of academic additive synthesis experiments and the notion that somehow digital synthesis could recreate anything . And yet it always sounds 100% synthetic; there's literally no equivalent for a wavetable sweep in the analog/acoustic domain. So I get excited when someone comes out with a new version of this but there's also the issue of redundancy. A common theme among my gear decisions is that one thing usually does something better than some other thing and to that end you don't need both. This isn't an argument for one synth to rule them all, just the notion that synth people are obsessed with subtle differences between pieces of that are meaningless in the context of actual music. My eyes literally roll out of my head across the...
In pursuit of analog poly greatness, it's easy to overlook a LOT of other synths, particularly VAs. I'm not an analog purist by any means, but VAs have usually just been something I ended up trying because of easy access or latent curiosity; not because of any great need for 20 voice pads or complex multitimbrality. And that means a lot of them have simply gone under my radar for a loooong time. So in an effort to be a little more au courant , I made an educated decision last year to buy a NEW VA. A few things didn't really click with me with that one and so rather than return or sell, I thought about checking out something I'd actually been curious about for a long time, the Nord Wave 1. In a case of wonderful serendipity, someone wanted the Gaia and had a Wave to offer and ta da, I had a Wave. I am no stranger to Nords. I had a NL2R when they were still somewhat fresh (so fresh actually that I kind of forgot what I even thought about it, "dry" is my only li...
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