Hardware synths that blew away your expectations

[vitocorleone123]

Deepmind 12, use it constantly and on basically every track. It's like a modern weird Juno.

Only problem I have is that 90% of patches I try and make turn into big experimental pads that I end up just playing around on for hours.. I say problem but I think that's why I love it so much

I'd love to see what behringer could come up with if they went down the direction of making another poly synth of their own/inspired by rather than straight clone synth. The neutron seems really great too but i'm more a poly guy.

Or even if they’d take an existing or vintage synth or synth concept as a starting point and then innovate (outside of manufacturing processes) and make their own interpretation. Like other companies do, rather than cloning. Building on the ideas of others to create new instruments.

But I don’t think they have that skill set in house. And that’s skill you can’t clone, but have to earn - or buy.

[D-Fusion]

Deepmind 12, use it constantly and on basically every track. It's like a modern weird Juno.

Only problem I have is that 90% of patches I try and make turn into big experimental pads that I end up just playing around on for hours.. I say problem but I think that's why I love it so much

I'd love to see what behringer could come up with if they went down the direction of making another poly synth of their own/inspired by rather than straight clone synth. The neutron seems really great too but i'm more a poly guy.

Or even if they’d take an existing or vintage synth or synth concept as a starting point and then innovate (outside of manufacturing processes) and make their own interpretation. Like other companies do, rather than cloning. Building on the ideas of others to create new instruments.

But I don’t think they have that skill set in house. And that’s skill you can’t clone, but have to earn - or buy.

The DeepMind 12 is Cool with it's own set of features and it would have been awesome to see a DeepMind 12 XL With 3 of the Normal Deepmind 12 Oscillators + The Neutron Filter in 12 and 24 Pole Version.

Or if they Managed to Get the Neutron Oscillators Stable and add 3 of them instead + Real Osc Sync and not the Warped one in the Neutron

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

M Audio Venom

Suspension of disbelief not triggered

Also, every single day

SH 101

EVERY SINGLE DAY!

This works better, but only because I recall you and Bones bitching about this somewhere….well, maybe it was just Bones that did the bitching, now I think about it,…and you really seemed to like it. “Every single day” seems still over the top, tho

[AnX]

Not really, it's my favourite synth of all time

The venom didn't blow my mind as such, but it did exceed my expectations, and still is a very good synth

[cryophonik]

That's just it, it's usually the ones that you don't have high expectations for that end up surprising you. When I spend over $1K on a synth, I expect it to be awesome and it usually is, so no surprises there. It's usually the cheaper ones, or the more obscure ones that end up blowing you away.

[Xenox.AFL]

After a few years only working with Software, i decided to pick up the Sequential Take5 and i was really blowed away about the modmatrix and the sound... So i picked up another synth, the Pro3 from Sequential and yes, this one is amazing, the best modmatrix i have seen so far, you can really modulate a lot, not all, but a lot and because i'm setting up a small eurorack case, it was a good choice to pick up the Pro3...

I own the Pro3 one week and made this little multitrack demo to learn more about the synth, have fun...

https://soundcloud.com/xenox-afl/sequen ... al_sharing

Frank

[_leras]

sheep 3 alchemists 1

alchemists. otherwise know as people with very small hands?

and sheep have none, your point?

Just that the Strega is really small. A bit too small if you ask me.

[thecontrolcentre]

Doepfer Dark Energy blew me away.

[vurt]

sheep 3 alchemists 1

alchemists. otherwise know as people with very small hands?

and sheep have none, your point?

Just that the Strega is really small. A bit too small if you ask me.

it ain't how big that matters, it's what you can do with it + having awesome finger skills helps!

[BONES]

Yeah the Pulse 2 is pretty sick. Very thick sound.

Meh, it never really did it for me. I was hoping for a Rocket on steroids but it was nowhere near that. The main issue I had with it was how many other features you lose when you want to use the unison osc type. I never got into it at all and ended up selling it on after 18 months or so.

Also, every single day
SH 101
EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Not my least favourite synth but certainly one of the less useful I have owned.

IK Multimedia UNO Synth Pro. I honestly did not expect much. My desktop version looks like a toy, but it is an extremely versatile synth.

How could you not have known this going in? There were several demos up before it was released and dozens within days of people getting their hands on it. I pre-ordered mine and it was exactly as awesome as I expected it to be.

I think the only synth I've bought that was actually a lot better than i expected was a Korg microX. I bought it the day it arrived in the music shop in Hong Kong, then went straight to the airport and flew home. I'd seen the specs so I had a vague idea what it might be like but the depth and breadth of its ROM really surprised me. It had even more content than a Triton in a tiny little synth you could take as carry-on luggage. The VSTi Editor made it a doddle ot integrate into my PC set-up.



I also love my Rocket way more than I thought I would. It's deceptively simple and has so many sweet spots that it's just ridiculous. I sold my first one but after about 6 months bought another one because I missed it so much. I did something similar with Yamaha's CS1x - I sold my first one to buy a CS2x but realised pretty quickly that I preferred the CS1x, so I sold the CS2x and bought another CS1x.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I recall DSI Mopho when it came out. Thought I was going to have myself a simple little analog monosynth in a time where analog was not that accessible yet. Firing up the PC editor, it turned out to be nothing less than a semi-modular monster under the hood. That was cool. Tho, I sold it after a couple of years. Later I bought Mopho x 4. Well, four times as cool + one time more for being a little multitimbral synth orchestra.

[Benutzername]

I picked up a white Arturia Microfreak recently just because I was curios about the keyboard and it was a really good deal. I didn't expect much from a synth of this size and price but it is extremely versatile and it can do some really nice sounds. I've paired it with a NTS-1 from Korg as effect processor and now this is a killer combination for very little money.

[cryophonik]

I recall DSI Mopho when it came out. Thought I was going to have myself a simple little analog monosynth in a time where analog was not that accessible yet. Firing up the PC editor, it turned out to be nothing less than a semi-modular monster under the hood. That was cool. Tho, I sold it after a couple of years. Later I bought Mopho x 4. Well, four times as cool + one time more for being a little multitimbral synth orchestra.

Similar story here. I really didn't expect much from the Mopho, either, and was pretty shocked to see how much capability was packed into that little yellow box. It certainly wasn't much fun to program from the front panel, but that editor totally unleashed it! I also bought an x4 afterward and loved that synth, too!

[AdvancedFollower]

I think in the age of detailed Youtube demos/reviews, it's hard to be genuinely surprised by any gear. If you've watched Loopop, GEOSynths, Starsky Carr and Nick Batt dissect a synth it almost feels like you've already owned it for 2 weeks by the time you get it.

Of course with synths like the DM12 and Rev2, it feels like I'm still discovering new tricks just due to the sheer depth of the mod matrix. Also user oscillators and effects on the Minilogue XD keep on giving. Someone's literally built an entire VA synth into a user oscillator - you can even control the virtual analogue filter using the Cutoff and Resonance knobs on the panel.

[cryophonik]

I think in the age of detailed Youtube demos/reviews, it's hard to be genuinely surprised by any gear. If you've watched Loopop, GEOSynths, Starsky Carr and Nick Batt dissect a synth it almost feels like you've already owned it for 2 weeks by the time you get it.

Yeah, it really does, and that's a great thing IMO. It certainly makes buying/passing decisions must easier and has alleviated my GAS for several synths (and gave me more GAS for many other synths).