Hardware synths that blew away your expectations

[imrae]

There are things that can do Goa/acid/trance type sounds, but the 303 and 101 (with other Roland synths) have that squelchy rubbery acid sound that other synths still struggle to achieve.

I'm sorry but I have never in my life gears a sound out of any Roland synth I'd describe as "Squelchy".

Then perhaps Acid House isn't for you, there was a whole scene of musicians who managed it.

[whyterabbyt]

Nothing to be sorry about, when they would still find a reason to be angry/contrary if a duffel bag, stuffed with $100k in non-sequential bills, landed in their lap

Money shouldnt be in a dufflebag. I always put my money in a suitcase. Only an idiot would use a bag for money. Ive used money since the 80s, and never kept it in a dufflebag. Nobody I know has a dufflebag, and I wouldnt admit to knowing them if they did. Suicases are better because Ive always used a suitcase, and I use a suitcase because I know they're better than dufflebags; my opinion is the only correct opinion. If dufflebags were better than suitcases, I'd use one, but my opinion is a fact, dufflebags are worse, and I use a suitcase.

[BONES]

Then perhaps Acid House isn't for you, there was a whole scene of musicians who managed it.

Yeah, and people managed without electricity for thousands of years. Doesn't mean they made any good electronic music. In fact, it occurs to me that it's likely the reason I don't like most of that shite is because they used such shithouse synths on it.

But what gets me is that anyone thinks that because someone made a song they like with a certain instrument, that means it was the instrument that made it good. Imagine what they might have been able to achieve if they'd used better equipment? It's like Metallica - they are awesome despite how bad the production was on their early albums, not because of it.

Did those artists who released those early tracks with shit gear keep using shit gear or did they spend up big on decent equipment once they'd made a bit of money?

[biomechanoid]

Nothing to be sorry about, when they would still find a reason to be angry/contrary if a duffel bag, stuffed with $100k in non-sequential bills, landed in their lap

Money shouldnt be in a dufflebag. I always put my money in a suitcase. Only an idiot would use a bag for money. Ive used money since the 80s, and never kept it in a dufflebag. Nobody I know has a dufflebag, and I wouldnt admit to knowing them if they did. Suicases are better because Ive always used a suitcase, and I use a suitcase because I know they're better than dufflebags; my opinion is the only correct opinion. If dufflebags were better than suitcases, I'd use one, but my opinion is a fact, dufflebags are worse, and I use a suitcase.

[imrae]

There are things that can do Goa/acid/trance type sounds, but the 303 and 101 (with other Roland synths) have that squelchy rubbery acid sound that other synths still struggle to achieve.

I'm sorry but I have never in my life gears a sound out of any Roland synth I'd describe as "Squelchy".

Then perhaps Acid House isn't for you, there was a whole scene of musicians who managed it.

Yeah, and people managed without electricity for thousands of years. Doesn't mean they made any good electronic music.

If you never had an interest in making these sounds with Roland synths, why should we care that you did not do so?

[vurt]

well without electricity, electronic music would be sorcery. get you burnt as a witch.
no wonder they kept it to themselves.

[tha_man]

Imagine using some phat Moog for those goa arpeggios

I used to totally agree with this but I have heard some really great acid lines out of the Moog Subsequent 37, so now I just agree, but with that one exception!

Oh I'm sure it can do it, Subsequent 37 is actually my dream mono synth. It's just hard to justify buying it, when I already have TD-3, which does acid perfectly for less than a tenth of the price.

I used to think that one good poly synth can do everything. And it "kind of" can, but not really. In the last few years that I got more involved in hardware and got a few dedicated synths I come to believe, that it's best to take the right tool for the job. It's just so much easier and *especially* enjoyable to get results I want. So I take SH01a for 101 style arpeggios, TD-3 for acid, Deepmind 12d for lush junoesque strings and pads, Neutron for analog VCA modular effects and Opsix for FM crazyness and bass (no electric pianos, although it's very good at this too ). MC-707 takes care for all other synth and rompler duties and TR-8s takes care for the drums.

This setup makes me feel just like I felt 21 years ago, when I first got Reason 1.0.1 (coming from Cakewalk, which I used to sequence my Yamaha PSR keyboard and trying to do hip hop beats with it ).

[Uncle E]

Money should be kept in a wallet that says “Bad Motherf*cker”.

[Uncle E]

So I take SH01a for 101 style arpeggios, TD-3 for acid, Deepmind 12d for lush junoesque strings and pads, Neutron for analog VCA modular effects and Opsix for FM crazyness and bass (no electric pianos, although it's very good at this too ). MC-707 takes care for all other synth and rompler duties and TR-8s takes care for the drums.

Nice setup! Any overlap between the MC-707 and TR-8S?

[tha_man]

Well, honestly I would be quite satisfied with MC-707 alone for most of my drum needs, if I could just map external controller to individual drums in the 707's drum track, so I could do volume fades and one handed drum mutes. Sadly MC-707 midi implementation is a bit poor.

But TR-8s does do a lot more than that of course - it's a drum synth for classic Roland and FM drums (MC-707 only has drum samples), can do side chain on audio inputs (also missing on 707), has 6 separate drum outputs that can also be used as CV trigger outputs and a dedicated trigger track+output (although I've managed to simulate two trigger outputs using 707 send outputs and my own trigger sample, which I made in Renoise). If it also had probability and microtiming it would be near perfect drum machine, but that's something that 707 has, so they complement each other quite nicely.

[Uncle E]

Thanks! I found the descriptions of mute probability and start timing in the MC-707 manual. Sounds cool! Can those be set for the whole part or do they need to be set per step?

[Lbdunequest]

Uno Synth Pro, such a fat monster in such a small package. Love it.

[tha_man]

Thanks! I found the descriptions of mute probability and start timing in the MC-707 manual. Sounds cool! Can those be set for the whole part or do they need to be set per step?

They are per step on drum tracks. Per clip you can set shuffle, time signature, length (for polyrhythms), playback mode (fwd, rev, random...) etc.

[kritikon]

It's like Metallica - they are awesome despite how bad the production was on their early albums, not because of it.

Did those artists who released those early tracks with shit gear keep using shit gear or did they spend up big on decent equipment once they'd made a bit of money?

Sorry, have to correct you there. It's like Metallica - they are awful no matter how good they can get their production to be. They are awful despite it.

If we're talking about how instruments can make a genre than guitars must be the worst instrument ever created. Any kind of metal just sounds like a Tasmanian devil being put through a cheese grater. Not entirely sure, but I think I'd prefer to be forced to listen to hippityhop than metal, maybe even Cuntry&Western.

[Uncle E]

Ed Rush and Optical were metal change my mind. Ram Records was metal AF.