Analog synth to go with Hive 2

[OneOfManyPauls]

This is just arguing for the sake of it. I'm done.

[BONES]

There is no straw man argument here. You tried to reinforce your point with a very poor set of facts that, in reality, helped bolster my side of the discussion, in that if you think Reverb is a microcosm for the whole market, you do live in a very small part of it.

[OneOfManyPauls]

I'll bite.

That's Reverb. It's something you only know exists if you go to Gear Slutz

Fwiw, and I'm sure you'll argue the toss on this too, but here is how reverb.com ranks for traffic as per Alexa compared to other big name music sites:

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reverb.com - ranks 1,127
thomann.de ranks 1,530
guitarcenter.com ranks 4,204
sweetwater.com ranks 4,863
musiciansfriend.com ranks 8,531

To be clear, my points were simply that non-preset synths provide an overview of the entire patch, that this is useful/desirable to some, and that they are popular. I cited popular non-preset synth examples - some that appeared in both my reverb and your thomann lists. I didn't say they outsold preset synths, or that they were better than preset synths, or that they were suited to everyone.

[BONES]

Still, you are missing the point, which is that most people buy their gear from bricks and mortar music shops, where they have a chance to try before they lay down their hard-earned cash. I've never seen less than a dozen customers in the shop where I buy my stuff, even when I've gone in on a day off and everyone else should have been at work. On the weekend you can hardly move in there. Note also that if you go to the home page of that Alexa site, Reverb's logo is included in the speil. Obviously they are a partner, which puts the reliability of the results into question.

[OneOfManyPauls]

You're citing conspiracy now? wow. Alexa is owned by amazon and has been around for decades. If you want to believe they're skewing the stats then let's just leave it at that as that's a rabbit hole I have no interest to go down.

I don't believe either of us knows if more synths are actually sold online or in stores, but I suspect that more are sold online given it's logical that more synths sell at the cheaper end of the market than the higher end where it would make more sense to visit a store. Online is cheap, fast and convenient and not everyone has easy access to a music store carrying the synths they have an interest in.

In that vein, here's amazon's top selling list - again note the peppering of non-preset synths:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Mus ... s/11970041

[digitalboytn]

I think that Bee 3 would work great with Hive

[kmonkey]

Still, you are missing the point, which is that most people buy their gear from bricks and mortar music shops, where they have a chance to try before they lay down their hard-earned cash.

Nope you are missing point as usual. You are mistaken - clearly. But we all know you will argue because your eyes sees different therefore it must be different and we all know that you are next Thanos of KVR.

Hey people. BONES saw someone buying something in mortar music shop. Therefore it must be that everyone else are doing it that way. Because he saw people. Come on.

Thomann.de is largest music store in Europe and most of their income is from online store. They said it numerous times. And they said that future is digital e-commerce (for them). Sure they have nice showroom etc. but the fact is that largest music store in europe is - online store.

pffff

[BONES]

Are you seriously going to try and make a case that more people buy hardware synths on line than in physical shops? Really? If so, you are completely clueless. You'd have to be out of your tiny mind. Just to be clear, here are some stats for you. "Global online retail sales are growing and is estimated to reach 8.8% of total retail spending in 2018 as compared to 7.4% in 2016." Obviously the percentage will be higher for higher tech products but not the 5 or 6 times higher it would need to be for you to be even close to right. Here's the article I quoted from - https://www.invespcro.com/blog/global-o ... nd-trends/

I didn't even know Thomann had physical stores, I assumed they were an on line business. Obviously they will have far greater reach on line but there are plenty of small, local stores that, together, add up to a huge chunk of the market. I don't know what it's like where you are but here in Australia it is the big chains of stores that have disappeared - Allan's, Palings, Brash's, Billy Hyde, Venue Music - the smaller local operations seem to be thriving. A new one opened up around the corner from work just a couple of weeks ago and the shop I go to recently moved to a new location that is five times bigger than their old shop.

On top of that is Amazon, who I bet sell more than all the other on line retailers combined, and their best selling products are going to be completely different again. It's huge market that exists well outside what either you or I look at and/or deal with. You'd have to be a blinkered idiot not to get that.

[JCJR]

Well ya'll are maybe talking about little cheep synths or maybe my local market is very unusual.

I live in a midsize Southeastern USA city and there are NO local stores that have showroom space for high end or even medium price synths, even from the major manufacturers. Forget about ever finding any less famous high end or mid price brands on showroom for try/buy. Studiologic etxc.

The local guitar center stocks a bunch of cheep plastic krap for teen impulse buys and sometimes might have a Roland fa or Yamaha modx or then again maybe not.

To try anything high end I would have to drive over 100 miles to Atlanta or nearer 200 miles to nashvegas, and even then better call ahead because they may not have what is of interest.

It started that way in my locality before the internet, in the age of discount catalog stores and long distance phone calls reading off yer credit card number to the salesman.

There were a couple of local stores that would put higher end keyboards out on display. But they either wouldn't or couldn't afford to slash prices to the bone. So people would go to the local store, play the stuff and find what they wanted to buy, then buy the item steeply discounted no sales tax from an out of state mail order dealer.

So my burg has plenty of music stores especially little specialty guitar stores or bluegrass instrument stores. You could probably find a wide variety of both high end and low end guitars basses drums mandolins fiddles banjos etc. To try and buy.

But not mid or high end keyboards. None of the local dealers are dumb enough to essentially act as free keyboard demo facilities so that folks can decide what to mail-order. The dealers learned their lesson long ago.

So if there are many localities like mine, which I believe to be so from talking to Mom and Pop dealers at namm over the years, maybe small stores sell a lot of drums and guitars but the only way most people will get ahold of a high end keyboard is either mail-order or inconvenient annoying long road trips to shop in a big metropolis.

[OneOfManyPauls]

You'd have to be a blinkered idiot not to get that.

I'm sure the fine folk reading this thread will draw their own conclusions on that.

[kvotchin]

One of the two remaining physical musical gear shops in this town has had a sign up in the window for years now, basically saying, “Please don’t shop online before coming here first, we can cut you a deal. Please!” More or less.

The other is more recent, and who knows how long they will last.

I feel for them, but that’s the way it is, has been for a while now, and will increasingly be, no doubt about it,

[BONES]

I'm sure the fine folk reading this thread will draw their own conclusions on that.

People's conclusions are meaningless unless they can prove their case.

[jacqueslacouth]

go to Thomann and you'd get an entirely different list.

I did...

Number 1 selling synth: Behringer Model D
Number 2: Behringer Neutron

[BONES]

Sure, if you ignore the Nord 3, the Yamaha stage pianos and the DSI Prophet REV2-8. You are so desperate to prove a point that it makes you literally blind to reality. Here's the list, look at it again -https://www.thomann.de/intl/au/topseller_GF_keys.html

[zerocrossing]

Well, I don’t care where people buy synths (I mostly go on line, because even though I seem to live in the most heavily populated and tech savvy parts of the US, most of what I want isn’t stocked locally).

I’d ignore the analog vs. digital argument. Who cares? If you want hands on, get something hands on. I’ve got plenty of software and hardware synths. I only buy analog hardware synths because I feel like they are sonically harder to replicate in software, and when they are done well, they are pretty resource heavy. So, for instance, while I think RePro sounds fantastic and holds its own against any hardware analogs that I own, I still have a Prophet 6 because it’s got a great interface, extra features like a high pass filter, and it does sound different. Of course, RePro isn’t an emulation of the Prophet 6 and the Prophet 6 isn’t a Prophet 5 clone. Basically, what I’m saying is buy something that you love the character of and don’t think too much about the underlying tech.

I’d suggest that any of the Dreadbox synths would be great additions to any studio. Great sound. Not really the most versatile instruments on the market, but lots of character. I’ve passed on them because they are a little light on features and I do use aftertouch a lot, and I believe they don’t support it.

Another good option would be any of the Studio Electronics synths, especially the Boomstars, as they’re basically 1:1 feature/control style synths. I have the ATC-X, but it’s a membrane button-single knob setup that might not be fun if you’re looking for hands on control. The SE-02 would be on my list as well, but I’m not sure if the size would bother me. Probably not, but if you go for one, make sure you can demo it or the on-line retailer has a good return/exchange policy.

The Bass Station 2 is also great. I sold mine to make room for a Peak... and I’m not sure how well I’m bonding with the Peak. I kind of feel like I liked the sound of that filter for a mono but I’m not over-the-moon for it in a poly. Peak’s oscillators sound a bit sterile to me and I find myself really relying on the gain/drive settings to get some character out of it. I’m not sure if I would recommend the Bass Station 2 as a single analog synth to complement Hive, because the DCOs on it are a bit more static sounding than a VCO based analog, and IMO, some of the other VCO based synths that you’re looking for have a bit more mojo. However, if you really like the tone, go for it. It’s got lots of features, sounds very good and when you take the headphone out and put it into the line input you can get some of the best sounding feedback that I’ve ever heard in any hardware synth.

I’m not sure what the top end of your budget/space is, but I also have a Dominion 1 that I think is da bomb, as the kids say. Analog character galore and the most features of anything that’s not a custom eurorack setup. It’s big though and over $1000.