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.
A good chunk of this blog has been dedicated to older or at least "post-new" stuff, but never fear, my GAS keeps my new gear purchasing function working just fine. One recent acquisition that has now become a personal fav is the Moog Messenger. I've been in contact with all the various iterations of 21st Century Moog (Old School, Grandmother, and Sub25), and I can't say any were particularly mind-blowing. (I'm leaving out the Mother ecosystem synths here, I love those.) The Old School had a bass-heavy, dull high-end sound (plasticky, for lack of a better word) that I've come to feel is the hallmark "flavor" of modern Moog. The Grandmother definitely sounded "older" but was also flawed by a bizarre filter gain reduction design where the volume dropped when you opened the filter up past a certain point (completely independent of resonance; check out Tony Allgood’s excellent modification write-up here ). Sadly, they carried this filter desig...
Finally caved and got one of these. Tariffs are about to rain hell on the synth markets and while I've traditionally been very anti-B*, here was one synth where I didn't feel like it was really treading on the toes of anyone currently making products. Well, it does kind of sort of tread on the Waldorf M but in such a non-1:1 way that you can't just write it off as a copycat clone. So here's my brief take on it and, in reality, a simple Wave vs M take (Quantum gets to sit this one out). The M has a ton more features so I'm just sticking to the basics. Also worth noting that the 3rd Wave should also be in this mix but I’ve only played one briefly and anyway the basic feature overlap should be pretty obvious. Pros : -grit is great (seems to be the same as Waldorf M in MW mode, as Starsky Carr showed, but still feels crunchier?). The stepped modulation that comes with the OG oscillator mode is also very authentically crap (crap meaning good). -LFO in OG mode is awesom...
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 ...
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