Synthesizer Gear Porn ;-)

[battema]

For me the CS-80 still represents a bit of a pinnacle for analog synths. The closest I get now is the Deckard's Dream (which has the engine and the sliders) paired with a Hydrasynth in MPE mode (which means I get poly aftertouch plus the ribbon). And I can't lie....it's fun to play.

[Top Cat]

^^ Ha ha....so I've got the Hydrasynth for general wavetable synthesis, and the pretty good/great Waldorf PPG VST which has all the original sounds. So I'm probably AOK on this one...but it does look pretty darn sweet!

I hear ya, I have the Waldorf VST as well, and out of all the recent synth releases in the last several years, the Hydrasynth is probably the one I'd go for. I love how they have it in 73 key version now.
A lot of synths sound good, and others have a certain "mojo" or "magic" that put them at the top of the list, and I think the Hydrasynth does just that.

I had a Waldorf XTK for a couple of years and I loved loved loved it, but it has a special sound, and when you can only have a few synths/keyboards in your studio, it's hard to hold on to a "special sound" synth when you have to maximize the possibilities with the gear you have.

I still have my Korg Arp Odyssey and Moog Voyager for my analog sounds, and VSTs for the classis synth stuff.
I also still have my original Ensoniq VFX-SD for wavetable stuff when I want it, although the waves are completely different than the PPG style.

[Rarebird]

Not really a keyboardplayer and on a budget, so I go with my softsynths and the other stuff I own, like my trusted Nord G2 Engine.

[smcfee]

You're also spot-on with keeping them in working order. Stuff like this is really old, wasn't necessarily built to last forever, and is kind of fragile now. I remember the CS-80 listed above actually noted that it had been calibrated prior to purchase, but that once transported to its new home would almost definitely need to be fully recalibrated again.

It's the "transported" that seems like a nightmare with that one. Hope your tech makes house calls.

[battema]

It's the "transported" that seems like a nightmare with that one. Hope your tech makes house calls.

That particular listing always made me chuckle, because it was for pick-up only, no shipping option. And it was technically within driving distance from me...but there was no way I could justify buying a keyboard that would cost twice as much as the car I'd use for the pickup

And yeah, exactly...unless you happen to be crazy lucky enough to have a service tech in the area, you're basically looking at not just the cost of maintenance but the cost of someone traveling to do that maintenance.

[dropforge]

Baby Bot 3K don't need no other name

Not gonna lie, been watching for one of these for a long time. Thrilled to finally score one.

Is this your comment?

"Baby Bot arrived safely and is already settling in. Took a minute to figure out the controls, and now my baby can make a variety of awesome sounds. Just need to find a tiny carseat for road trips!"

[dropforge]

Yesterday I read an interview with producer Mike Dean, who prefered the real instruments over the clones. States he payed $ 15,000 for a ARP 2600, $ 50,000 for a Yamaha CS80 and $ 20,000 for a Roland Jupiter 8. Nice if you have that kind of money and the money to keep them in working order and equipe them with midi.

Are you sure his last name isn't Gates??!!

[Rarebird]

Are you sure his last name isn't Gates??!!

No, it seems to be a producer, who has worked with several famous people like Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Beyoncé , Christina Aquilera and many others. He has also done some solo-albums and bragged he had earned the ARP2600 back in a week.

[dropforge]

No, it seems to be a producer, who has worked with several famous people like Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Beyoncé , Christina Aquilera and many others. He has also done some solo-albums and bragged he had earned the ARP2600 back in a week.

The "Gates" was a joke. But if he says he earned it back in a week, he probably did, judging by the names he works with.

[hippypants]

I'd never heard of Ahmed Malek & Flako so I thought I'd share, it sounds pretty nice to me. You can purchase over at Bandcamp:

[battema]

Oh yeah! I have that too and it is pretty cool

[markwoll]

Saw this today and it looked kind of cute:
doodlestation is beautifully musical furniture/

[battema]

That's so fun! I love some of those custom builds.

[Rarebird]

There is also this one

[battema]

Yes!! I love stuff like that.

[Rarebird]

There is a new version of the Arturia V Collection out, which contains the full Augmented STRINGS and Augmented VOICES. It also has the Korg MS20 synthesizer, even with the pitch to voltage converter.
https://www.arturia.com/products/ana...ection/details
It's looking more and more attractive, but I think I wait till it has even more instruments I want.

[battema]

^^ Yep...for me the big deal was that a few of the existing instruments (and most of the new ones) now have added MPE capabilities including the CS-80. Since I've got the MPE enabled controllers, this made the upgrade essential for me personally. If it hadn't been for that feature being added, I would probably have held off as well.

[Top Cat]

^^ Yep...for me the big deal was that a few of the existing instruments (and most of the new ones) now have added MPE capabilities including the CS-80. Since I've got the MPE enabled controllers, this made the upgrade essential for me personally. If it hadn't been for that feature being added, I would probably have held off as well.

I only have the Prophet 5 V(full price), and their compressor bundle that I got on introductory sale for $99.
I've had my eye on the Ensoniq SQ80V which I think sounds wonderful and very close to the original, but at $199, still too much.

Arturia sent me a upgrade discount for the entire new Collection for $399, but it's way out of my bank account funds to make the leap.
Some great emulations in the collection and well worth the price...oh, plus the discount price has expired.

[battema]

As a full set, the V-Collection is pretty great value but it IS pricey. I'd wait for the next sale or upgrade deal. And then subsequent upgrades tend to be much more reasonable. I think I just upgraded to FX Collection 3 for $29.

[Rarebird]

^^ Yep...for me the big deal was that a few of the existing instruments (and most of the new ones) now have added MPE capabilities including the CS-80. Since I've got the MPE enabled controllers, this made the upgrade essential for me personally. If it hadn't been for that feature being added, I would probably have held off as well.

Aren't those MPE capabilities (b.t.w. what are they? Polyphonic Aftertouch?) also in the updates that come free?
You are a keyboardplayer, I'm not really. I can play a bit, but not enough to play and record my own music, so everything has to put in by hand in Cubase and using a lot of controllers also uses a lot of memory.
All new instruments are also in the update of Analog Lab, though of course not with the same editing posibilities. It's only the presets, which you can tweak a bit with the knobs of Analog Lab.

I would love to have some more instruments in it, like Pianet and some extra organs. Some Roland analog monophonic would be nice too.

[battema]

Aren't those MPE capabilities (b.t.w. what are they? Polyphonic Aftertouch?) also in the updates that come free?
You are a keyboardplayer, I'm not really. I can play a bit, but not enough to play and record my own music, so everything has to put in by hand in Cubase and using a lot of controllers also uses a lot of memory.
All new instruments are also in the update of Analog Lab, though of course not with the same editing posibilities. It's only the presets, which you can tweak a bit with the knobs of Analog Lab.

I would love to have some more instruments in it, like Pianet and some extra organs. Some Roland analog monophonic would be nice too.

I don't believe these updates are included for free...they are new versions of the plugins (for example, the CS-80 V in Collection 9 is officially CS-80 V4 I think). I could be wrong though!

MPE is definitely something designed for playing, although it isn't strictly for piano-based players like myself. With normal MIDI, you can select a MIDI channel and then these options are available in terms of expression:

- Note
- Initial strike velocity
- Channel aftertouch
- Release velocity (not sure how common this is, but MIDI could technically support it)

You also typically have a pitch wheel which can bend the notes, at a channel level (so if you hold down four notes and use the pitch bend, all four notes are bent). Ditto for channel aftertouch - dig into a single note and ALL notes currently played will be affected.

MPE adds multiple additional dimensions:
- Note
- X movements (pitch, or gliding left and right on the surface of the key)
- Y movements (gliding up and down the surface of the key)
- Z movements (aftertouch)
- Either initial strike velocity, or Z can be a curve to allow for slower attacks

Also, MPE uses a rotating channel approach which means for each note played, all of the above are individually controllable; hold down four notes and use your finger to glide one note down and only THAT note will be affected. This means that your playing can start controlling capabilities normally reserved for static structures like LFOs and envelopes. And the nature of the Z axis basically means polyphonic aftertouch where pressure on each key is applied to just that key rather than ALL keys.

The end result is a potentially very expressive way to control your synths: want some vibrato? Press a key and then wiggle your finger left and right just as you might on a violin or guitar. Connect the Y axis to something like CC0 (the mod wheel) or the cutoff frequency, and simply gliding your finger up and down the key can open up the filter. You can achieve both "plucked" strikes and slow attacks simply by changing how you touch the key.

Interestingly, the more you dig into MPE, the more it actually puts "classically trained piano" techniques at a disadvantage. You can't play a chord on a piano and trigger vibrato simply by moving your finger. So it took some effort to rewire my brain for MPE devices. And many of them aren't strictly designed to emulate a keyboard but rather are more like a giant dedicated touchscreen surface (or something like a WACOM drawing tablet) that you can glide across. I also find it does a fantastic job for hand drumming, where your fingers can strum, thwack, and even dig in and capture a performance not dissimilar to playing a tabla.

Anyway...I'm a big fan and it's pretty amazing technology. But it's not going to be everyone's cuppa for sure.

The end result

With MPE you have a wider range of

[battema]

This video is long but is a pretty good example of using MPE for a means other than a piano interface. If you want to just see how it gets setup, you can jump to around 6:30 or so.

[Rarebird]

I don't believe these updates are included for free...they are new versions of the plugins (for example, the CS-80 V in Collection 9 is officially CS-80 V4 I think). I could be wrong though!

MPE is definitely something designed for playing, although it isn't strictly for piano-based players like myself. With normal MIDI, you can select a MIDI channel and then these options are available in terms of expression:

- Note
- Initial strike velocity
- Channel aftertouch
- Release velocity (not sure how common this is, but MIDI could technically support it)

You also typically have a pitch wheel which can bend the notes, at a channel level (so if you hold down four notes and use the pitch bend, all four notes are bent). Ditto for channel aftertouch - dig into a single note and ALL notes currently played will be affected.

MPE adds multiple additional dimensions:
- Note
- X movements (pitch, or gliding left and right on the surface of the key)
- Y movements (gliding up and down the surface of the key)
- Z movements (aftertouch)
- Either initial strike velocity, or Z can be a curve to allow for slower attacks

Also, MPE uses a rotating channel approach which means for each note played, all of the above are individually controllable; hold down four notes and use your finger to glide one note down and only THAT note will be affected. This means that your playing can start controlling capabilities normally reserved for static structures like LFOs and envelopes. And the nature of the Z axis basically means polyphonic aftertouch where pressure on each key is applied to just that key rather than ALL keys.

The end result is a potentially very expressive way to control your synths: want some vibrato? Press a key and then wiggle your finger left and right just as you might on a violin or guitar. Connect the Y axis to something like CC0 (the mod wheel) or the cutoff frequency, and simply gliding your finger up and down the key can open up the filter. You can achieve both "plucked" strikes and slow attacks simply by changing how you touch the key.

Interestingly, the more you dig into MPE, the more it actually puts "classically trained piano" techniques at a disadvantage. You can't play a chord on a piano and trigger vibrato simply by moving your finger. So it took some effort to rewire my brain for MPE devices. And many of them aren't strictly designed to emulate a keyboard but rather are more like a giant dedicated touchscreen surface (or something like a WACOM drawing tablet) that you can glide across. I also find it does a fantastic job for hand drumming, where your fingers can strum, thwack, and even dig in and capture a performance not dissimilar to playing a tabla.

Anyway...I'm a big fan and it's pretty amazing technology. But it's not going to be everyone's cuppa for sure.

The end result

With MPE you have a wider range of

Looks interesting for those who are capable of playing a controller which can add these options. I'm not really an instrumentalist. In Cubase I can add polyphonic aftertouch.
I can understand you are a big fan of MPE. I would be as well, if I had the possibilities to put them to use and be really capable of playing such a keyboard.

[Top Cat]

John, your strong understanding of a lot of the controller capabilities, software and hardware synths, etc is a wonderful source of information for all of us.
Thanks for sharing it. It also helps when considering making a purchase or not.
The bitcoin check is in the mail....oops, sorry lost it all. lol

[battema]

Yeah...for me personally it eliminates a fair bit of "pre-planning" when I want to play. For example if I wanted a sound that had a low-end growl with cutoff, but also wanted the mod wheel to bring in the LFO on pitch and gradually ramp up/down the LFO frequency, and also have a mix of staccato and slow attack notes for the melody...I could probably do it but it would take a while to map out.

With MPE I can simply play. Dig in a bit with my left hand to bring in some growl thanks to the Z axis on cutoff, and simply by playing how I want the notes to sound, I can achieve both slow attacks and staccato as well as a constantly-changing vibrato with my fingers never leaving the keys. And yeah, the end result is a fairly expressive performance that can even approach the nuances of an acoustic instrument (even with my chunky-ass playing these days ).

There are numerous hardware and soft synths that can respond to MPE. There's even a really amazing soft synth called Surge XT that is fully open source and therefore free (even if you don't do MPE, I highly encourage you to check out Surge as it's just an incredible synth given zero cost).

The big trick is finding a controller that will send MPE in all possible ways. Hydrasynth can send + receive MPE, but the keyboard can't really send X or Y axis info (and even in MPE mode the ribbon affects pitch globally, not per note). The Sensel Morph was an amazing input device and the cheapest MPE option on the market, but it is discontinued. Most of the others are up in the $1k range minimum.