Welcome to our synth sanctuary, where we turn knobs and make music, one 'note'-orious post at a time!
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Last week I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade from my mixer/zoom interface setup to an Apollo x6. Also ordered the JU-06a so it will be an exciting week.
Over the weekend, the husband and I traded synths (he now has the Prophet Rev2 and I have the Behringer Deepmind 6). Makes me realize how much I hate the workflow of the Deepmind even though it sounds good and also made my husband want a prophet lol.
Deepmind was the first synth I returned to the store for a refund - did not care for that workflow at all. At the time it was a compelling feature set for the price, but there are so many more options now.
Just got an Elektron Model:Cycles and it’s as fun as I was hoping for! Excited to actually complete a track with it.
That looks quite fun! Much more affordable than some of their other stuff too.
Arturia is doing a sale on their software synths. I'm resisting the temptation to add to my collection, but I figure someone here might be interested.
I’ve been eying pigments. They might just win me over now. I’m a huge fan of their V Collection.
After using analog lab and being disappointed in it, I find it hard to be interested in their stand-alone synths. I find the analog lab sounds flat and fake. I have heard good things from others online about the stand-alones, though.
I hear a lot of good things about Pigments, but it's a tough sell when Vital does most of the same things for free.
Pigments is pretty nice even alongside vital. Haven't used it much but the additive stuff and granular was fun. Filter and effect section is nice too.
I started building a new eurorack module, and I'm finding my SMD soldering skills are pretty rusty. Between work and spending time with my family, I don't get much time to practice, and when I do I'm either sleepy or a bit jittery from caffeine. Still, I think I enjoy building and playing my rack enough to keep going with it, even if I mostly just plonk out a scale or twist a couple knobs when I get the chance.
Oh that’s cool! Are there any particular modules you are building currently? I’m building an entire rack of my own with a Thomas Henry 555 vco, soviet waveshaper, kassutronics ladder filter, meebilt ADSR and a VCA.
Last year I basically dove straight in and built two nonlinearcircuits modules, an oscillator and a PLL/divider thing, and I've got kits for a filter and a phaser. Right now I'm building an MMI Attenumults. It's not very complicated, but I wanted to get the hang of sourcing my own parts. Are yours all thru-hole kits? That seems like the way to go. I got drawn in by NLC's designs and ended up having to buy an oscilloscope to troubleshoot my wonky SMD oscillator build.
My boards (I’m not buying kits, just ordering PCB’s from JLCPCB) are a mix of smd and through hole. I do not mind SMD that much, but I like it since storing spare parts is way easier as they take up less space. And for tools I just go to my local hackerspace, since there are some other eurorack diy enthusiasts over there.
I got a Roland JP8000 off of Reverb this week. It's been 15 years since I lost my first one, so I have a bit of refamiliarising to do.
That sounds like loads of fun. Roland makes such great synths. I have thought about buying one of the synths I used to have (Alesis Micron) but then keep stopping myself because I remember how much menu diving it had.
I worked on my dnb ep. All made from scratch including live instruments band ana synths no loops or patches etc.
First two seem worthwile listening. Have to think a little about arrangements as I find the buildups a bit annoying these days. Heard a dj set recently where they just put one buildup and drop right to the one of the next song. So its a constant break and drop :D This is shit.
I’ve been working on some live visualisations to make my time in the studio even more fun.
Are you looking for something like the eyesy?
I was, but it's really not available anywhere. I also tried building my own using RaspberryPi but gave up because the software is pretty outdated, so getting it to run was more of a challenge than I was ready for at that point.
Right now I am learning to use Resolume. I am working with Resolume Avenue right now but considering switching to Resolume Wire to get a bit more flexibility.
I am curious what you come up with. Keep us posted!