Hardware synths that blew away your expectations

[revvy]

I hadn't come across that VCMG collab before. Not necessarily all to my taste, but some of it definitely. I'd like a little more in the way of melody/hooks in it, but the feel of it is great. Have to say - it's beautifully mixed (pleased I put my headphones on to listen properly on YT). Stunning, in fact. A real shame those two didn't do more down that route - I lost interest in Depeche Mode when they went all American electronic goth metal or WTF it was they did, and VC went all fluffypop. That VCMG stuff was more of what I'd expect synthheads like them to do. No vocals - yay!

Still can't get over the mixing of that - wow! Big analogue sounds but all clear and separate (sorry Bones but your plugin shite can't even come close to that sort of thing. You always come up with nonsense about telling the difference in a mix - it's night and day between that and a laptop full of VSTs that all need 16 voice unison to even sound close, specifically because they're all so weak). I suspect that music might make it onto my car playlist - perfect for driving home early in the morning after a night shift in summer at full blast with the top down. No way I can nod off behind the wheel with that playing.

One of my closest friends mixed that record (that’s how I heard the raw tracks). He’s going to love your comments.

You can pass on my kind words too, I thought it sounded great.

And at a composition level I really liked it too. Great that they know how to apply a little judicious swing to their grooves and didn’t feel the need to add growl ‘vocals’.

[revvy]

As for my own entry, the OP-Z blew me away as a tiny groove box that can sequence 16 channels including external gear, includes solid sound engines and of course, is open to user samples.

Watching Cuckoo’s one-hour tutorial jam really helped to show its potential, happy i stumbled across it.

[cryophonik]

I've been holding off on this post to make sure it was really as great as my initial impressions of it were, but I picked up a Roland SE-02 last week and have been using it every day since then and, wow, what a cool little synth this thing is! I was worried that my big stupid hands would be too clumsy to use these tiny knobs, but that hasn't been an issue at all. I love the sound of this thing - it's totally up there with my Moogs and SE-1X (I may do a video comparison with it at some point) and is just fat and juicy sounding. I do wish it had an arpeggiator and a 1/4-inch output, but those are minor omissions.

[BONES]

I had forgotten how good Uno Pro sounds. I hadn't switched on for the best part of a year until last week and it's way better than I remember. I think the effects help a lot to give it that final bit of polish you get from most VSTi these days. Best of all, with proper TRS to XLR cables, there is pretty much zero noise now, which is a huge bonus. Of course, it's also a giant PITA that I've had to go to that kind of effort to get it to do what a softsymth does all on its own.

[styphonthal]

I think the Udo Super 6. I got a used desktop version from a certain guitar chain, with a price that if I hated it I could resell at little loss.

And it is amazing. Sure,it has no LED/LCD screen, and a bunch of "2nd/combo" key functions but I really like the sound.

[zaphod betamax]

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

Arturia Microbrute has exactly one VCO.

It goes through its Low Pass Steiner Parker Low Pass which is fed into
a Vermona Retroverb configured as a High Pass filter.

The GATE OUT of the Microbrute is routed to TRIG IN on the Retroverb.

The Envelope Out of the Microbrute was ported to the VCF CV IN on the Retroverb.

The output of the Retroverb feeds a Boss EH-2 Enhancer.

The perFOURmer is controlled by the blue keybed controller.
In Mono M1 mode:
It is configured as Sound 1=noise with ADSR for filter/amp
Sound 2 =sawtooth with ADSR for filter/amp
Sound 3 (muted) sine wave as Filter FM to Osc4 with ADSR for filter/amp
Sound 4 sine wave Filter FM from muted Sound 3 with ADSR for filter/amp

100% analog
100% live to H1 recorder and FZ-1000 DSLR 720p

[ghettosynth]

The UDO Super 6 is great too but I expected it to be, on the other hand it has some quirks I don't like that I did not expect.

Do you mind elaborating on those quirks? It's currently a frontrunner for my new poly GAS.

[ghettosynth]

I've been holding off on this post to make sure it was really as great as my initial impressions of it were, but I picked up a Roland SE-02 last week and have been using it every day since then and, wow, what a cool little synth this thing is! I was worried that my big stupid hands would be too clumsy to use these tiny knobs, but that hasn't been an issue at all. I love the sound of this thing - it's totally up there with my Moogs and SE-1X (I may do a video comparison with it at some point) and is just fat and juicy sounding. I do wish it had an arpeggiator and a 1/4-inch output, but those are minor omissions.

I recall also thinking that it sounded great, but, that the knobs were sooooooo tiny, like even smaller than eurorack tiny. But I have more eurorack these days, so, are they really that tiny?

[cryophonik]

They’re definitely tiny and in fairly close proximity to one another. I don’t own any Eurocrack units for comparison, but probably in the same ballpark. It hasn’t been a problem for me and my big hands when I control them directly, but I have all of the controls mapped to my Novation Remote, so I usually control the SE-02 from that, except when I’m just messing around with it on my couch. The worst knobs on the SE-02 are actually the selector switches (e.g., oscillator selectors) because they’re tiny, hard to grip, and fairly stiff, so they require a little torque to switch them. The first few times I used it, I was afraid I would break them, but they’re ok once you get used to them.

TLDR, I don’t think the small knobs are an issue and they’re easy enough to map to a controller anyway.

[Uncle E]

That sounds excellent. Great work.

[DrGonzo]

The Minifreak really blew me away when started to make sounds from scratch. Lots of sweet spots and easy to get there. Deep deep bottom end. If they would add user wavetables - I think I would reach some kind of nerd-synth-nirvana.

[cryophonik]

The Minifreak really blew me away…

That one has had me interested for a while. I owned a MicroFreak for a while and didn’t really gel with it, but the MiniFreak seems like a more complete instrument.

[rod_zero]

From all the HW i have owned the Minitaur was the most unexpected (i got it in a pawn shop for 100) and the one I like the most, I should get one again down the road, it was a terrible idea to sell it.

I also liked the jp8 boutique and the sh02.

And it also makes me think that enjoy small, simple desktop synths to the big ones I have used as the Analogkeys, System8, Summit, nord lead 3, microwave xt.

[Scotty]

I missed out on a used SE-02 locally. The form factor is a perfect fit for me and from what I can hear from the youtube videos it sounds a lot like the Model D but under digital control. I like that sound and would like those features.

I've been holding off on this post to make sure it was really as great as my initial impressions of it were, but I picked up a Roland SE-02 last week and have been using it every day since then and, wow, what a cool little synth this thing is! I was worried that my big stupid hands would be too clumsy to use these tiny knobs, but that hasn't been an issue at all. I love the sound of this thing - it's totally up there with my Moogs and SE-1X (I may do a video comparison with it at some point) and is just fat and juicy sounding. I do wish it had an arpeggiator and a 1/4-inch output, but those are minor omissions.

[Uncle E]

Minitaur is excellent. Good thing for you is that the Version 2 is a massive improvement over the original. The only good sounds in the Sirin are its Minitaur sounds, IMO.