I just love the brass sound in the video with the Japanese guy.
I guess one EG is routed to the pitch or is it some glide function?
How many EG's does the AN1X have anyway?

AN1x has four EGs total - two standard ADSR, one simple decay envelope for pitch, and one freehand envelope (which can be completely free-time or tempo synced).

I have owned an AN1x for years, and I simply adore it. I will admit that in my opinion most modern VST synths can sound better; for all practical purposes my VSTs Z3ta+ and Rhino 2 between them can do pretty anything the AN1x can soundwise. However, my blue baby has a special place in my heart - certainly for the money there is absolutely nothing else in hardware that can touch it. It's fifteen years old this year, and it just keeps going while my computer is crashing, overheating, suffering from data corruption or software incompatibility, just making the most wonderful sounds. It is a very expressive controller, with its grainy but functional aftertouch sensitivity, five-octave keyboard, splendid ribbon controller and chunky, no-nonsense expression wheels. Its synth control matrix would be the envy of even some of my newer VSTs and if you go exploring, you will find some sounds buried in the nooks and crannies of its FM and sync sub-oscillator routing that you'd be very unlikely to find anywhere else. This is a very thoughtfully designed musical instrument and it also boasts one of the best-written manuals I have ever seen for a piece of music technology - or indeed any piece of technology.

There is a downside.. don't let its plastic case fool you, this thing weighs almost 8kg without case or accessories... no fun to lug to a gig! Also, sadly, on my instrument the velocity sensitivity is rather mediocre which can make it frustrating to use as an all-round control keyboard.

Whatever its flaws, the AN1x has a unique charm and I love it.

Over here ribbon is much more grainy than aftertouch, really... :/ Can't say I find the ribbon usable at all. Doesn't snap back to the parameter value it's supposed to.

Still, absolutely love the sound. It kills.

the an1x was not modelled on a prophet 5?

Nope. That was Nord Lead.

I used to have a few EX5's which have the AN modelling in them and they were great..

In fact - I still have one,but I don't use it anymore...

I have been able to emulate some of my favourite AN sounds in Rapture and I'm sure that I could get the same results in Zebra...

EvilDragon, at a risk of getting off-topic, the ribbon controller might be grainy but I find it extremely useful all the same. This is because it allows you to 'jump' from one parameter value to another very quickly in a way that you can't with a knob or a wheel. Try setting it to control the filter cutoff on a lead or brass sound. Place one finger towards the left of the ribbon and tap another finger hard towards the top of the ribbon. I find I can make punchy, bouncy, expressively rhythmic sounds that way that are almost impossible to achieve otherwise, at least not on-the-fly.

If you want the ribbon to reset to the centre when you remove your finger, use the control matrix to set it to control pitch and it will do so. If you want that behaviour without controlling pitch, use a matrix slot to set it to control pitch but with a depth of 0 (there are a few rather unintuitive oddities to the synth and this is one of them).

The benefit of using the ribbon to control pitch is that, again, you can jump up and down quickly with a tap of the finger. I find this useful to emulate the expressive techniques used by folk flautists and pipers playing dance music.

That ribbon is one of the major reasons I would have difficulty replacing the AN1x as a control keyboard.. I love my dancy rhythms!

Well, I'm referring to factory patches. For example, 004, that great brass sound. Try sweeping the ribbon upwards, and then release it. Initially very bright brass sound becomes very muffled after you release it, because filter cutoff seems to go way down. That's unacceptable ribbon behavior to me. I would have expected that the sound would sound THE SAME as it sounded when the patch was initially loaded.

YA, I know, I'm REALLY of topic now, but you can get the ribbon elsewhere... along with a joystick, sliders, knobs, etc etc etc. Perfect for a DAW and about $200-$300 used on Ebay.



Devon