Thanks for your mini reviews. Ya only thing throwing me off the SP is the lack of knobs. Pity Moog don't produce a knobby version. The Dominion X and the Telemark look really good. The semi modular part of the Telemark is a nice bonus.Dogboy73 wrote:If you want hands on then the SP/LP might not be the best choice with the one knob per module approach. I love the DSI Tetra but without a decent MIDI controller hooked up it's as much use as a chocolate fireguard. If you're happy to use a synth in a similar way then that opens up your choices somewhat. But for pure hands on-ness goodness you really want everything on the front panel of the actual thing.
- Moog Minitaur: Very hands on, might be a bit limited in scope sound pallet wise, excellent MIDI control. I'm buying one of these for sure.
- Moog Slim Phatty: More scope than the Minitaur but only one knob per module makes it less hands on than it could be.
- Doepfer Dark Energy: Very hands on, maybe a bit small & fiddly for large hands. Semi-modular so should have some scope for some interesting sonic experiments.
- Vermona Mono Lancet: I know very little about this but it looks very hands on & people have a lot of good stuff to say about it. Very interesting little synth.
- MFB Kraftzwerg/Megazwerg: Very hands on, good sonic potential, dubious build quality (as with most of the MFB stuff). Check out the upcoming MFB Dominion X
The AS Telemark has also been mentioned. Bit beyond your budget but this one looks/sounds really good. Nice, alrge hands on interface, semi-modular. This one looks hot & I was close to buying one myself until Tom Oberheim re-launched the SEM (the AS Semblance/Telemark is based on the SEM).
I wouldn't rule out the Minibrute either. This looks like it is going to be hot, it's very, very well priced & is quite small. Although I agree that the keyboard is a bit of a distraction. Would have appealed to me more without it.
Just been searching round and there doesn't seem to be a shop in Ireland that sell things like MBF/Vermona/Analog Solutions which is a real shame. Next option is head to London but when I add that up it could be at least €200-€300 better spent on gear. Any online stores have a good system for letting you try stuff at home and send back what you don't what?