Can the Mopho do tight punchy basslines?

[justin3am]

Yea, I guess having a Mac Pro helps, but the individual synths aren't really bad on CPU at all. Especially Strobe.

I just wish my MacPro would run synths without having to turn it on.

[living sounds]

MKS-50 for "tight punchy bass", are you kidding? It's an OK polysnth, but it lacks the beefy oscillators, the filter and the fast envelopes for that.

The Mopho is more on the midrangy side from what I've heard, and not my cup of tea really, nothing to write home about...

I can't listen to the example right now, but when I think of "tight punchy bass" there are relatively few options, and even fewer in the price range. Most of the recent synths aren't among these, and that includes Moog.

You want really fast envelopes, and in the price range by far the best options are Rolands SH-101 (more on the midrangy side, but great envelopes and generally perfect for psytrance) and Roland SH-2 /SH-09. The latter ones are bass monsters, can go very deep and have a raw and alive sound. Moog Rouge, Realistic Concertmate MG-1 and Sequential Pro One would be good, too. No presets, and you need a midi-to-CV converter, but the reason for getting a hardware synth here is the sound, so that's what I'd do.

Less expensive and a lot more versatile and fully midi-fied is the Waldorf Microwave 1. It doesn't have analog oscillators, but the filters and envelopes are analog and can be fast and punchy. It can also do all sorts of sick sounds perfectly suited for psytrance.

[cryophonik]

Can the Mopho do tight punchy basslines?

Yes.




And, yes, I've owned one.

[pandashake]

There goes your viral marketing bonus.

[MadPsyance]

Gotcha. But there still something to say about those MKS50. They are built like tanks. If you shop around, you can probably pick up 3 for the price of a Morpho.

Hmm..I've been eyeballing these actually, it says it uses a DCO, which is a term I'm not too familiar with. Is it a digital oscillator, or an analog oscillator manipulated digitally or something?

[ouroboros]

The latter

[Resonant- Serpent]

Yes, it will do the tight and punchy bass. Especially when you start messing about with the sub-oscillators.

I look forward to replacing the one I had someday, and I'm glad that they finally put it in keyboard form:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2010/01 ... mopho.html

[pandashake]

Gotcha. But there still something to say about those MKS50. They are built like tanks. If you shop around, you can probably pick up 3 for the price of a Morpho.

Hmm..I've been eyeballing these actually, it says it uses a DCO, which is a term I'm not too familiar with. Is it a digital oscillator, or an analog oscillator manipulated digitally or something?

DCO means that it's "digitally controlled", which means it won't drift and you won't have to retune it over time. It's a good thing.

[MadPsyance]

Gotcha. But there still something to say about those MKS50. They are built like tanks. If you shop around, you can probably pick up 3 for the price of a Morpho.

Hmm..I've been eyeballing these actually, it says it uses a DCO, which is a term I'm not too familiar with. Is it a digital oscillator, or an analog oscillator manipulated digitally or something?

DCO means that it's "digitally controlled", which means it won't drift and you won't have to retune it over time. It's a good thing.

Ok, I'm pretty dumb with these rackmount type units..but how do you tweak the parameters...damn thing looks like my old VCR, lol. Are you supposed to map the parameters to a midi keyboard...won't I get stair stepping? That would defeat the purpose for me getting an analog synth.

[pandashake]

how do you tweak the parameters...damn thing looks like my old VCR.

Actually, there is a VST plug-in that supposedly can control the synth parameters, but I haven't tried it yet (reminds me that I need to though). I have a panel in Cubase that I use to tweak the sounds, and there are a few standalone editors out there. If you want "real" hands on control, Roland made a hardware programmer for it that costs about two or three times as much as the synth on the used market.

[stonestreet]

I have never played a CV keyboard so I do not know what an analogue synth 'really' sounds like. However when I play with the pitch wheel with the Mopho I get a sound that seems stepped. Is this because of the resolution of the pitch wheel or is it because the Mopho is playing discreet tones rather than a smooth sweep through the frequency range, or is it a comination of both?

Have fun, Mark

[Vectorman]

The Mopho sounds decent in the bass demos I've heard, but I don't know that the demos really hit me as sounding markedly better than bass sounds I've gotten out of u-he ACE and Zebra. The ones that have really impressed me in demos have been the Studio Electronics ATC-1/Xi and the Roland SH-2 and 09 (which living sounds mentioned already). If I was looking for something expressly for analog bass sounds, those would be the ones I'd gravitate towards.

Mind you, I'm mostly just laying down bass lines with real bass guitars these days, which is why I never bothered picking up any of the above.

It would be interesting if someone did a really detailed and varied sample library of nothing but bass sounds derived from, for example, the Roland SH synths. Good, punchy analog basses seem to be one of the main categories of sounds that computer-based electronic music makers chase after, and it would be awfully convenient to have an extensive menu of genuinely good ones to just pull up in Kontakt.

[living sounds]

The Mopho sounds decent in the bass demos I've heard, but I don't know that the demos really hit me as sounding markedly better than bass sounds I've gotten out of u-he ACE and Zebra. The ones that have really impressed me in demos have been the Studio Electronics ATC-1/Xi and the Roland SH-2 and 09 (which living sounds mentioned already). If I was looking for something expressly for analog bass sounds, those would be the ones I'd gravitate towards.

Mind you, I'm mostly just laying down bass lines with real bass guitars these days, which is why I never bothered picking up any of the above.

It would be interesting if someone did a really detailed and varied sample library of nothing but bass sounds derived from, for example, the Roland SH synths. Good, punchy analog basses seem to be one of the main categories of sounds that computer-based electronic music makers chase after, and it would be awfully convenient to have an extensive menu of genuinely good ones to just pull up in Kontakt.

Samples don't do the synths justice. The fun happens because every note sounds different and you can tweak it to fit the application.

As for the ATC-1, I've got an SE-1 here, it's great for anything funky, it can do the 90s hip hop bass very well, and all kinds of lead sounds, but the cutting, fast bass lines from the example it won't do (even with envelope modification).

An SH-101 would be perfect for that, or, of course, a Minimoog, but that one's clearly out of the price range (wouldn't we all love to own one?). Again, I think the SH-09/SH-2 is the best affordable alternative.


BTW, if someone can, please recreate the sound from the example with either the Mopho or a softsynth.

[gab01]

I bought a Mopho and noticed it has a very bright sound. To beef up the bass I have been running it through a hardware distortion unit and then compressing with a hardware compressor, then adding some low end with EQ and cutting out some high frequencies too.

I never found a bass preset on the Mopho that sounded phat until I started adding distortion and rolling off some high frequencies after the distortion. All those extra harmonics distort with the bass wonderfully which is why I roll off the tops after the distortion rather than before it.

My two cents.

[T71]

If you want to/ have to produce i wouldn't recommend going into hardware anymore...

LOL.