2023: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2023)

[cryophonik]

As promised…

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I am absolutely blown away by this synth. I can’t believe I waited so long to buy it!

[zerocrossing]

In a fit of madness, I got a Melbourne Instruments Nina. I absolutely love it. Oozes character and has a giant sweet spot. Expensive, but well worth it.

[ghettosynth]

In a fit of madness, I got a Melbourne Instruments Nina. I absolutely love it. Oozes character and has a giant sweet spot. Expensive, but well worth it.

So jelly right now.

[cryophonik]

In a fit of madness, I got a Melbourne Instruments Nina. I absolutely love it. Oozes character and has a giant sweet spot. Expensive, but well worth it.

Pics or it didn’t happen

[CoolColJ]

Nina on special here for $800AUD off, and StoreDJ will price match, getting closer to pulling the trigger.
As an Aussie, and Aussie synth makes sense

And Nina's 4 CV/audio inputs will interface nicely with the Matrixbrute and Hydrasynth Explorer - that's a whole lot of extra oscillators, LFOs, envelopes, modulators and sequencers/arps. As a desktop unit, one of these as a front end makes sense.

But thinking about the overlap between the Andromeda, Polybrute, Matrixbrute, Trigon-6 and Nina with their own versions of ladder filters.... but they all sound different.

[CoolColJ]

I am absolutely blown away by this synth. I can’t believe I waited so long to buy it!

Are you finding much overlap between the Pro3 and Matrixbrute?

[WatchTheGuitar]

As Black Friday got closer I didn’t think I’d be buying one of these, but at £120 still with its box etc I thought why not. The Alesis ION always intrigued me


oh and, finally saw (a used) one of these under £300 so…

[cryophonik]

I am absolutely blown away by this synth. I can’t believe I waited so long to buy it!

Are you finding much overlap between the Pro3 and Matrixbrute?

I actually haven't touched my Pro3 since the MB arrived (only because of limited time), but it seems that there's certainly some overlap, although they're different enough to justify keeping both. The Pro3 has a much more modern sound and vibe, plus the digital Osc3, not to mention the three different filter flavors. The MB has a more vintage-ish vibe and the Steiner Parker filter really sets it apart. The thing that has really surprised me is how different the MB is from my PolyBrute, and how perfectly they complement one another.

[Constructed Identity]

Congrats on the Matrixbrute. I was quite impressed with the used one I played at Guitar Center a month or so back, but was already committed to the 3rd Wave. I liked the clicky-ness of the buttons, and of course the sound!

[cryophonik]

Thanks CI! I’m very happy with it! 3rd Wave looks pretty awesome!

[McLilith]

Good news:

• After a 37-day journey, the vintage Ensoniq TS-12 finally arrived at my house!

• I don't have any floppy disks to test the disk drive, but all the features I've tested so far are working perfectly!

• I never was sure what accessories it might arrive with, but it came with a nice padded case, a couple footswitches, a patch cable, power cable, and even a very sturdy X-style stand!

• It sounds absolutely awesome, and it's loaded with lots of interesting patches. Sure, some of them are a bit dated, but then again, so am I!

• The programming options are pretty deep. I'll just replace the patches I don't like so much with my own creations.

I'll try to post a couple pics later, if anyone is interested?

.

[McLilith]

As Black Friday got closer I didn’t think I’d be buying one of these, but at £120 still with its box etc I thought why not. The Alesis ION always intrigued me

I always thought one of these would be fun to have, and that does sound like a good deal. After you've had it awhile, let us know what you think of it!

[stoopicus]

Despite my anti-hardware bias I came close to buying one of a Korg Modwave, Waldorf Blofeld, and Arturia Microfreak this year, and as I have suddenly come across 12U of rack space I have even been eyeing some modular stuff.

Sanity prevailed so far but we'll see. If the Hydrasynth Desktop was about half the price I might actually own one now.

[WatchTheGuitar]

As Black Friday got closer I didn’t think I’d be buying one of these, but at £120 still with its box etc I thought why not. The Alesis ION always intrigued me

I always thought one of these would be fun to have, and that does sound like a good deal. After you've had it awhile, let us know what you think of it!

Will do, probably spend the first day monkeying with the vocoder

I imagine there's a not-too-expensive floppy-to-USB conversion for your Ensoniq btw. People on eBay are always hawking such things.

[cryophonik]

After a 37-day journey, the vintage Ensoniq TS-12 finally arrived at my house!

I'll try to post a couple pics later, if anyone is interested?

Yes, post them!