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Synth chat


FatHand

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I am possibly going to have a decent amount to spend on a new synth to go along with a macbook pro that I'm gettin. I quite like the sound of the following:

Clavia Nord G2

Access Virus Ti Polar

Little Phatty (Moog)

Clavia Nord Lead 3

Anyone used any of these? Any prefereces?

I want something that I can really sink my teeth into. From the blurb G2 sounds quite up my street and always wanted a Nord...

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Did you win the lottery??!!

Why not get a PC laptop with a decent MIDI controller and "aqquire" a vast array of soft synths...

That will be my second option if I don't have as much "spare" cash as I hope. I would really just prefer to have the physical machine. I like the response you get from a good synth. I also want my keyboard area on stage to look like the one in the Last Waltz.:love:

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I have heard great sounds from Nord Lead but have never produced them myself on the two ocasions I tried it out. The keyboard also doesn't have a nice feel so I would get rack version if I was you.

What about the new Nord Wave?

I would concider selling your RD170 and JD-8000 and get a Nord Stage, it sort of does both in the same box, to some extent. I can understand why you would want to keep existing keyboards though.

Moog Little Phatty - would love to own one of these but would rather own an original 1970s mini moog for sentimental value and sound. YouTube - Minimoog Shootout--Gearwire Crosstalk #016

Access Virus Ti Polar - apparently has lots of bugs in software and suchlike but is super cool.

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Did you win the lottery??!!

Why not get a PC laptop with a decent MIDI controller and "aqquire" a vast array of soft synths...

In another thread we discussed this and came to the conclusion that it could be good but potentially embaressing when norton anti virus starts a scan in the middle of a song. Windows goes into a blue screen of death, you forget to plug the power in and your battery runs out. This is closely followed by gay midget porn being played through a huge PA system to everyone.

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Guest nature_1

i fancy taking the soft-synth route, surely it would be easy enough provided the laptop in use was dedicated soley to usage for music; like have nothing on it except a VST handler and audio software?

that said, i got a USB-MIDI cable from bruce millers and i can't get the bastard thing to work!

anyone had any experience with these?

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In another thread we discussed this and came to the conclusion that it could be good but potentially embaressing when norton anti virus starts a scan in the middle of a song. Windows goes into a blue screen of death, you forget to plug the power in and your battery runs out. This is closely followed by gay midget porn being played through a huge PA system to everyone.

Yeah I mean it's not as if guitar strings break, drumsticks snap, people trip over leads, pints get spilled on amps etc at gigs which don't involve computers isit? Plenty of people play out live regularly with laptops and have zero problems...

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Yeah I mean it's not as if guitar strings break, drumsticks snap, people trip over leads, pints get spilled on amps etc at gigs which don't involve computers isit? Plenty of people play out live regularly with laptops and have zero problems...

Yes but people have been spilling pints over amplifiers since the 1940's whereas laptops going onto blue screens is a bit more recent.

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There isn't really all that much difference, in some ways

All of above synths use dedicated hardware and software, D/A conversion and a midi interface with as low a latency as possible (except little phatty which has analog singnal path).

Muse Receptor is example of a PC using dedicated hardware and software to make it operate as a synth module.

I'd go for Little Phatty or Nord Lead out of above, edging towards Little Phatty for coolness but Nord Lead for general use.

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Pro-53, ugh, one of my least favourite plugins. I don't have a high opinion of NI's stuff. It's easy to get carried away with soft synths and effects, after a few years I've whittled my selection down to just 3 or 4 synths and perhaps half a dozen effects...

As for the hardware above, I'd go for the virus myself, it's going to have far more scope for diverse sound creation than the moog.

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Im using an Access Virus TI POLAR, and a Nord Lead 1 among other things - the Nord sound is very different to the Access. Chalk and Cheese but both dead good.

Both respond to severe programming really well and are good for warping on the hoof, live. Neither ever fail or glitch. Multitimbral set up on the POLAR is uber flexible. Its got tthe TI software but using the hardware panel is about a millions time more useful.

The best thing about the POLAR id its lovely Moog Sounds so I wouldnt get that AND a Moog. Wheras the Nord sound is very un Moog, so would ideally require a Moog to complement it.

As a broad comparison only, Id say the POLAR is better for fat basses and pads and the Nords are better for cutting Leads and clunky digital things.

I still will be getting a Moog Little Phatty for the fab looks at some point tho.

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I think I got Virus TI confused with something else which is software based on computer. I looked on youtube and found demo videos. Super cool sounds.

I own Pro-53, t'is well good. I am meant to own Massive but Native Instruments didn't send the serial number with their free upgrade to Komplete 4. This meant I never registered Komplete 4 in time and didn't get the free download of Massive.

Jupiter 8 looks like a potential next synth buy for me (probably not for a while though).

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Pro-53, ugh, one of my least favourite plugins. I don't have a high opinion of NI's stuff. It's easy to get carried away with soft synths and effects, after a few years I've whittled my selection down to just 3 or 4 synths and perhaps half a dozen effects...

Just really started getting into the pro53...the sound isn't amazing (although I always beef these things up through a valve compressor out of the box) but it's the first synth I've been able to really understand whats going on when I'm tweaking things and it's helped me get the concept of it all...I come from a strictly guitar based background so adopting this technology (no matter how old it is!) is all a bit new. I've no idea where to start with the Jupiter, i've just been going through all the presets and tweaking from there (same with Massive) but I would be really lost if I hadn't learnt some stuff on the pro53. Native Instruments is all good stuff to my ears... (B4, Battery, Elektrik Piano etc. as well as Guitar Rig) The Arturia stuff is great also. That's about all I play with. Another cool one is Rob Papen's Albino, they have a new one out called Predator that looks good aswell.

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Just really started getting into the pro53...the sound isn't amazing (although I always beef these things up through a valve compressor out of the box) but it's the first synth I've been able to really understand whats going on when I'm tweaking things and it's helped me get the concept of it all...I come from a strictly guitar based background so adopting this technology (no matter how old it is!) is all a bit new. I've no idea where to start with the Jupiter, i've just been going through all the presets and tweaking from there (same with Massive) but I would be really lost if I hadn't learnt some stuff on the pro53. Native instruments is all good stuff to my ears... (B4, Battery, Elektrik Piano etc. as well as Guitar Rig) The Arturia stuff is great also. That's about all I play with. Another cool one is Rob Papen's Albino, they have a new one out called Predator that looks good aswell.

Yeah I actually use Albino3 as the main instrument in 90% of my tracks, it's been my favourite synth for a long time now, version 3 has layers now so you can have up to 4 different patches running as one, effectively giving you 16 seperate oscillators to play with. The new effects bank is really useful aswell.

I think it's a good idea to find 1 or 2 synths that you really like and spend the time to learn them inside out, so you know you can sit down and create the sound which you want from scratch in very short time - it's a much more deliberate way of writing than aimlessly going thru the factory patches of 4 or 5 synths until you find a sound that seems to fit...

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I've just discovered I get some amazing effects by connecting my JP 8000 through Boss DR-880 drum machine. At first it sounded pretty grainy but after sorting out arpeggiators, rhythms, and upper and lower parts, there were some amazing sounds. I also attached an expression pedal and assigned to cut off frequency to get that dance feel to it the pedal is great as it keeps hands free for other little tweeks and playing.

Ive also found it is good when you add a distortion pedal into the mix. Next experiment will be with Whammy pedal.

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