2021: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2021)

[justin3am]

^^^ The design of those stands is really clever.

I was worried that the the synths would come out easily when un-patching but the stand holds them very snugly.

Are these the Impossible Shape ones?

Yep!

[elxsound]

Anyone try Erica Synths Black Double Bass Suboscillator or use something different? I see that it works as an effect, and I’m guessing it works better than feeding into a low pass filter?

[pekbro]

Anyone try Erica Synths Black Double Bass Suboscillator or use something different? I see that it works as an effect, and I’m guessing it works better than feeding into a low pass filter?

 

Hmm, neat. I tend to use rarewaves stuff for bass, the formant synth mostly which has a sub osc, but I plan to get the hydronium sooner or later. Sometimes I use the NE Lip or the MN STO as well. If it were me I would probably get a dedicated bass module and then get the Eric Synths Module as well and run it through it.

[elxsound]

Anyone try Erica Synths Black Double Bass Suboscillator or use something different? I see that it works as an effect, and I’m guessing it works better than feeding into a low pass filter?

 

Hmm, neat. I tend to use rarewaves stuff for bass, the formant synth mostly which has a sub osc, but I plan to get the hydronium sooner or later. Sometimes I use the NE Lip or the MN STO as well. If it were me I would probably get a dedicated bass module and then get the Eric Synths Module as well and run it through it.

Running a dedicated bass source was what I was thinking but I just read on MW that it doesn’t work well with signals below 300 Hz

[pekbro]

Anyone try Erica Synths Black Double Bass Suboscillator or use something different? I see that it works as an effect, and I’m guessing it works better than feeding into a low pass filter?

 

Hmm, neat. I tend to use rarewaves stuff for bass, the formant synth mostly which has a sub osc, but I plan to get the hydronium sooner or later. Sometimes I use the NE Lip or the MN STO as well. If it were me I would probably get a dedicated bass module and then get the Eric Synths Module as well and run it through it.

Running a dedicated bass source was what I was thinking but I just read on MW that it doesn’t work well with signals below 300 Hz

You should check out the Hydronium, it excels at 303 type bass, but is not limited to it I believe.
I am a big fan of his stuff and can say it's worth a look. You can even get the desktop unit and
save rack space if you want.

[elxsound]

Anyone try Erica Synths Black Double Bass Suboscillator or use something different? I see that it works as an effect, and I’m guessing it works better than feeding into a low pass filter?

 

Hmm, neat. I tend to use rarewaves stuff for bass, the formant synth mostly which has a sub osc, but I plan to get the hydronium sooner or later. Sometimes I use the NE Lip or the MN STO as well. If it were me I would probably get a dedicated bass module and then get the Eric Synths Module as well and run it through it.

Running a dedicated bass source was what I was thinking but I just read on MW that it doesn’t work well with signals below 300 Hz

You should check out the Hydronium, it excels at 303 type bass, but is not limited to it I believe.
I am a big fan of his stuff and can say it's worth a look. You can even get the desktop unit and
save rack space if you want.

I’ve been checking their stuff since you mentioned it! Very interesting sound makers.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

1480 Euro, but me waaaant!!!

[AdvancedFollower]

Forgive me lord for I have synthed (again...)

[WatchTheGuitar]

The Minilogue XD? Got mine recently and I love it. Didn’t even think about the sequencer before I bought it, but that’s probably my favourite thing about it.

[bmanic]

Just bought yet another Kurzweil synth.. sigh. Lord have mercy on my soul! (<- basically what my wife said when she saw the monster).

I just couldn't pass on this opportunity as it was a mint condition K2500XS with the rather rare KDFX board already installed.. and for a price that I could basically immediately cash in simply by selling the KDFX board itself. The full 88 weighted keys monster is unfortunately ridiculously heavy and bulky so it's definitely staying at home and will never be moved again.

Going to have some fun with this and the K25xx/K26xx live mode thing, where you can basically "play" whatever you put through the inputs in the sampling mode.. in real time (sort of buffered tho). It's going to be fun!

The only negative is the keyboard action, which I've never been a fan of. It's pretty weird.

[ghettosynth]

Just bought yet another Kurzweil synth.. sigh. Lord have mercy on my soul! (<- basically what my wife said when she saw the monster).

I just couldn't pass on this opportunity as it was a mint condition K2500XS with the rather rare KDFX board already installed.. and for a price that I could basically immediately cash in simply by selling the KDFX board itself. The full 88 weighted keys monster is unfortunately ridiculously heavy and bulky so it's definitely staying at home and will never be moved again.

Going to have some fun with this and the K25xx/K26xx live mode thing, where you can basically "play" whatever you put through the inputs in the sampling mode.. in real time (sort of buffered tho). It's going to be fun!

The only negative is the keyboard action, which I've never been a fan of. It's pretty weird.

For the best use of the 2500, don't sell the KDFX board. I would argue that the only reason to do that is to turn a small profit and end up with a 2600.

[vurt]

Eek looks like gear prices have gone up a hell of a lot in the UK. Brexit?

yup, pita.

[Vectorman]

Less this year so far than last year. Picked up a Spector Bantam bass (thought I'd try short scale) which I resold. Also picked up an Orange Rocker Terror 15 head and Suhr Reactive Load, which I'm probably going to sell also, as I didn't end up feeling like they improved my guitar sounds vs. just using S-Gear in any meaningful way.

The Korg Nautilus 61 I bought a few weeks ago will probably stay, though. I've been back and forth on it, feeling at times like all my sample libraries and software synths might make it somewhat redundant, but I do like a lot of the sounds.

But really, the most valuable thing I put into service this summer (even though I technically bought it back in November) is that 8-core i9 PC with SSD's. Wish I'd taken the time to actually set it up months ago. Everything is so much more snappy. I can have two NI piano libraries layered up and play a ton of notes with the sustain pedal down, plus having Steven Slate Drums and Superior Drummer kicking out drum tracks and be using less than 20% CPU at 64 samples latency. I had no idea performance was going to be THAT much better than the i7 4770k system it replaced.

[bmanic]

Just bought yet another Kurzweil synth.. sigh. Lord have mercy on my soul! (<- basically what my wife said when she saw the monster).

I just couldn't pass on this opportunity as it was a mint condition K2500XS with the rather rare KDFX board already installed.. and for a price that I could basically immediately cash in simply by selling the KDFX board itself. The full 88 weighted keys monster is unfortunately ridiculously heavy and bulky so it's definitely staying at home and will never be moved again.

Going to have some fun with this and the K25xx/K26xx live mode thing, where you can basically "play" whatever you put through the inputs in the sampling mode.. in real time (sort of buffered tho). It's going to be fun!

The only negative is the keyboard action, which I've never been a fan of. It's pretty weird.

For the best use of the 2500, don't sell the KDFX board. I would argue that the only reason to do that is to turn a small profit and end up with a 2600.

Indeed. I'm not gutting this 2500. The KDFX should definitely always be paired with it. Finally got my head around the routing which was a bit confusing due to being so used to my K2000.

But yeah, I might actually sell this whole thing after a year or so and upgrade to a K2600, mainly to save some space. Either a rackmount 2600 or the 61 key version.. btw, happen to know why the K2661 is so disliked by many? Does it have some compromises/quality issues or something I'm not aware of?

[foosnark]

Sold my Phonogene, ordered a Just Friends from Schneidersladen (new + shipping = less than many people are asking for used JFs).

I have my Verbos Harmonic Oscillator and Mystic Circuits Portal both up for sale. Will probably get a Morph 4, Frames or Plancks if I can decide which. Morph 4 has certain advantages (analog, knob-per-function, more flexible routing/patching, stereo crossfading, potentially killer for AM and waveshaping). Frames is familiar and looks cooler, and has more flexible CV shaping possibilities. Plancks is a tiny Frames that'd give me space for one more toy (Zadar or Warps maybe).