Which synths to get? (Thinking about 3x Behringer) [setup help]

[isuckatproducing]

With the K2 MKII, to generate noise, do you have to patch it somehow?
I don't see a dedicated noise generator section/knob.

[isuckatproducing]

I'm also wondering about powering on all 3 synths.
Instead of running 3 cables, can I use some kind of power cable that splits into for example 3?

Or is it not the best idea?

[Uncle E]

Probably a bad idea. They use external power supplies. Depending on their voltages and amperages, it might be possible to chain them, but I doubt it.

[vitocorleone123]

Don’t understand buying quantity of synths over quality. Why not buy one synth you love instead of the best 3 for a total dollar amount.

These are instruments for art.

Anyways good luck on your acquisitions.

[isuckatproducing]

Don’t understand buying quantity of synths over quality. Why not buy one synth you love instead of the best 3 for a total dollar amount.

These are instruments for art.

Anyways good luck on your acquisitions.

To for instance be able to play multiple tracks using different synths, and have different flavours of sound, filters etc.

[D-Fusion]

I'm also wondering about powering on all 3 synths.
Instead of running 3 cables, can I use some kind of power cable that splits into for example 3?

Or is it not the best idea?

I use a Power strip with Surge Protection for my synths so i only have to use 1 On/Off switch to power them on or Off.

[kritikon]

Don’t understand buying quantity of synths over quality. Why not buy one synth you love instead of the best 3 for a total dollar amount.

These are instruments for art.

Anyways good luck on your acquisitions.

1. I can't think of any artists who paint with only one colour. There are the occasional good paintings in black and white but actually use a shitload of shades of grey inbetween. I can't actually think of any famous guitarists who stick to only one guitar, same reasons apply.

2. The beauty of Behringer synths is that they are so cheap and often of such good quality that you can easily afford several synths which are screaming classics, so why limit yourself to only one classic - the others are classics for good reason and beg to be used. I similarly can think of very few famous or infamous synthesists who use only one.

3. Why not buy 3 synths that you love instead of being a miserable git who only uses one that you love? Synths are most definitely NOT monogamous in nature

4. Synths don't all sound the same and never have. A 303 next to a VCS3 are on completely different planets so why should anyone have to choose only one?

I can tell you for absolute sure that isuckatproducing is going to have an absolute shitload of fun and joy (and probably initial angst and head-scratching) with his multiple new synths. With 1 synth he will get approx 1/3 of the fun and joy. He deserves more joy so good on him for going for it. TBH I never understand why anyone thinks they have to limit themselves - it sounds spiritually mean like a methodist, buddhist monk or some other miserable f**ker

[Stokely]

re: power cable length: If they are short, if they are standard iec power cables you can always get longer ones (I have for my live rig).

As far as how it'll all work, it's been decades since I worked with hardware at home but I imagine the options are still pretty much the same (though some hardware can act as vsts, that would be new).

An old-time "midi studio" would be lots of synths, modules and effects typically hooked up to a mixer and driven midi-wise by a sequencer (before DAWs). You could do a "live" mix with everything playing at once driven by the sequencer's midi tracks, or you could record a track at a time if you had a multi-track synced to the computer. Your situation is obviously a bit simpler.

What I'd probably do is to record each take as midi a track at a time, then render each one as I went as audio, keeping the midi track in case I wanted to make some changes. (You'll want to at least notate which patch you used, or write a program change message into the midi track.) The advantages of this over doing it all as one big live mix are obvious--you can do as many tracks as you want, and if polyphony becomes an issue on any of them you just split it into two or more midi tracks and record them one at a time. You may not even need a mixer if you do things this way. That said, it's more work and more of a "plodding" workflow so ymmv. Doing everything all at once in a more live way may be more fun, or faster to get up and running, and you may not need the advantages of doing things the track-by-track way. Either way, I'd recommend rendering all tracks as audio before moving on to the next project as it will make any future mixing/remixing simpler.

Caveat--as I mentioned, I've been in the box for a long time now so if I'm missing some better/easier way to work, apologies!

[vitocorleone123]

Don’t understand buying quantity of synths over quality. Why not buy one synth you love instead of the best 3 for a total dollar amount.

These are instruments for art.

Anyways good luck on your acquisitions.

To for instance be able to play multiple tracks using different synths, and have different flavours of sound, filters etc.

That doesn’t require buying in bulk. Anyway, this isn’t about me, so I’m out.

[kritikon]

With the K2 MKII, to generate noise, do you have to patch it somehow?
I don't see a dedicated noise generator section/knob.

I'm going purely on memory here, not at the studio currently, and possibly my memory is a bit patchy and I tend not to use noise on most synths, but...the main noise is on the wave selector knob on osc 1. There are patch points for either white or pink noise on the patchbay IIRC so you have to select the noise osc and then do a bit of patching. The MS20 is a bit arcane but it doesn't take long to figure out the patching. And you won't harm it if you patch it wrong - experimenting is safe. I've done all kinds of stupid things in the past and never managed to blow it up. In fact, abusing it is one of its strengths - most MS20 users will attest to overdriving the filters more than they already do by patching the headphones out (which is hotter than the main out IIRC) and feeding that back into the input - which overdrives the whole thing and screams like an even bigger bastard if you want really screeching sounds. Works especially well with high sounds on a cranked up HPF, and can actually be a bit painful to listen to. TBH I can't even remember if the K2 has that headphone out...?

[isuckatproducing]

Don’t understand buying quantity of synths over quality. Why not buy one synth you love instead of the best 3 for a total dollar amount.

These are instruments for art.

Anyways good luck on your acquisitions.

To for instance be able to play multiple tracks using different synths, and have different flavours of sound, filters etc.

That doesn’t require buying in bulk. Anyway, this isn’t about me, so I’m out.

Which other analog synth allows you to do that?

[Uncle E]

Alesis Andromeda

[kritikon]

There aren't any...at least that don't cost you literally thousands. He just wants you to be miserable. You need as many synths as possible, we all know that is the gospel truth. Buy more synths.

[isuckatproducing]

Alesis Andromeda

It's discontinued synth though, It has only 2 OSC and won't give me other flavours of sound, like buying 3 different clones.

And its probably expensive.

Can't really compare.

[isuckatproducing]

There aren't any...at least that don't cost you literally thousands. He just wants you to be miserable. You need as many synths as possible, we all know that is the gospel truth. Buy more synths.

More synths = more party, right?