the watmm GAS thread

In general, I never equate analog with poly.

I got my Virus for poly and Its exceptional!

Yeah, analogue poly is kinda a weird concept anyway. They are almost mythical beasts that you'll never own and if you do, the sound never equates to the cost and hype. I use polysynths for pads obviously but rarely, I tend to use them for sounds that need note individuality rather than being cut off by the next note like on a monosynth.

I use my Microwave for poly stuff more than My JP4 to be honest. Digi/analogue, does not matter.

Just to be clear, I have felt the same with every DSI synth I have had, not just the P6. Every synth I own/kept sounds great from a raw osc or init patch. If I can jam around and make up melody's/lines etc before tweaking then we're cooking. Then I can mould sound to taste.

DSI synths (the ones I have had) have just had something about them that makes me need to tweak for a while to make it sound nice enough to start work. It's totally a personal taste thing not the problem of the gear though.

If id have the ob6 id make scriabin-like quazisymphonic stuff or combinations of mika vainio, valentin silvestrov and croatian folk music :)

I have never tried the OB6, in fact I have never tried an OB poly (only the 8 voice for a few seconds before I shit myself)

The demo's do show the oscs/filter on the OB6 to have that distinctive OB fizz. I'd def prefer the dual filter setup of the P6 over the multimode of the OB6 but with the SEM sound.

Oh, forgot to say, I bought a new console at the weekend :O

The analog polys I use aren't on the mythical level (Juno 6 and Matrix 1000, and an RS-09 if a string machine counts as a polysynth) but I actually mostly use them for more bell type sounds and plucks and things, stuff with no sustain but long release times where the notes are likely to overlap.  The Juno is great for bass lines, too.

You can get into some interesting microtonal textures pretty quickly by playing just the self oscillating filter and messing with the keyboard scaling, and letting notes beat against each other, and the Juno in particular has a filter that really excels at this.

But yeah, analog poly excels at synthetic bell sounds for me.

EDIT: Enya arpeggios too, obviously.

isn't the main idea behind a poly synth to play chords?

  On 9/5/2017 at 2:42 PM, xox said:

isn't the main idea behind a poly synth to play chords?

you r like a litle babby

watch this

plays light measured melody in 5/4 time BPM: LENTO with ~74 second decay and release time on each plucked resonant analogically synthesized touch of the full sized MIDI DINSYNC keyboard controller, modded for 432 hz microtonality

Polysynths are more interesting when each note can be a bit different. Usually accomplished with velocity sensitivity (Yamaha FM, and many others) but at least the RY30 forgets the CCs sent to it after making good on the next note on message which offers additional possibilities. This can also be accomplished in the Nord Modular by injecting an S&H between the modulating control and destination, whose sample trigger is the gate signal.

Another option would be to spread notes across channels, which also lets you pitch bend notes separately, like a guitar.

yes, of course but that's why i've said ''the main idea...''

first reactions to minimoog was: ''waat?! i can't play chords on this thing?!'' ...and more than a few of ppl sent it back thinking they were broken

...and since then: "waat? this doesn't sound like a mini moog?!" ...and more than a few of ppl sent it back thinking they were shit

  On 8/18/2017 at 8:17 PM, RSP said:

I'm going to dive in myself, but with a strict "DIY only" policy, since that will keep it from getting too out of hand too fast.

I also think I'll be protected by the fact that I really prefer an Arp 2600-style semimodular approach to full modular.

So, TTSH, then?

YESS, that you

  On 9/7/2017 at 4:56 PM, ZoeB said:

 

  On 8/18/2017 at 8:17 PM, RSP said:

I'm going to dive in myself, but with a strict "DIY only" policy, since that will keep it from getting too out of hand too fast.

I also think I'll be protected by the fact that I really prefer an Arp 2600-style semimodular approach to full modular.

 

So, TTSH, then?

Wow, thanks for pointing that out!  I figured the TTSH was gone for good, and I'd always regretted not finding out about it until a couple months after it was sold out.  The timing is good, too, that's right around when I get paid for my next recording job so I can probably actually get one.  I'll have a CrowBX board set by then but that might get bumped down the list (finishing up the Midibox Seq and making an enclosure for the Jasper are first in line) because honestly, the TTSH looks like a simpler, less expensive build.

You guys I'm having a gay old time sending 1bpm and 1000bpm clock pulses to my volca beats. I'm feeling a minimalist EP coming on with that stutter at 12bpm.

Octatrack wasn't such a good sport, it only likes the 30-300 available from the front panel.

that's pretty nuts that the OT doesn't like extreme tempos. That said though, you can set the the tempo multiplier to 1/8 at 30bpm, which will give you what, 3.75bpm? And then 2x for 600bpm..

I'll have to try it on the volca though, the kick makes some really nice burbling sounds when using the repeat/retrig/stutter feature.. exploiting that by sending it an audio rate pulse wave would be interesting :D

I've heard the OT is very picky about external clocking in general, I know mine shows variance by roughly +/- 0.8bpm when using Live as the master clock source. Not sure if the OT or Lives clock via MIDI is the culprit.

  On 9/8/2017 at 6:23 PM, hautlle said:

I've heard the OT is very picky about external clocking in general, I know mine shows variance by roughly +/- 0.8bpm when using Live as the master clock source. Not sure if the OT or Lives clock via MIDI is the culprit.

My Rytm does the same. I think I've read that a lot of Elektron gear just does that when slaved to external sources of any sort (I could be wrong).

  On 9/8/2017 at 7:01 PM, auxien said:

 

  On 9/8/2017 at 6:23 PM, hautlle said:

I've heard the OT is very picky about external clocking in general, I know mine shows variance by roughly +/- 0.8bpm when using Live as the master clock source. Not sure if the OT or Lives clock via MIDI is the culprit.

My Rytm does the same. I think I've read that a lot of Elektron gear just does that when slaved to external sources of any sort (I could be wrong).

 

I've had the same thing, computers just generally have a lot of MIDI jitter compared to hardware, but the Elektron stuff is a bit unique in that it actually adjusts its internal tempo value to match the external clock, so you actually see the jitter reflected in the tempo value.  Mine seems to vary more or less +/- .2 bpm if I slave it to Reaper, which I rarely do.

This would help a lot.

There's a used Korg MS2000R available on my local craigslist: it's got audio in and a vocoder, lots of knobs and it's only like 200€, all of which matches my basic conditions for getting GAS. I've been looking at it a couple of days now and trying to tell myself that I don't need it.

  On 9/8/2017 at 8:15 AM, modey said:

that's pretty nuts that the OT doesn't like extreme tempos. That said though, you can set the the tempo multiplier to 1/8 at 30bpm, which will give you what, 3.75bpm? And then 2x for 600bpm..

 

I'll have to try it on the volca though, the kick makes some really nice burbling sounds when using the repeat/retrig/stutter feature.. exploiting that by sending it an audio rate pulse wave would be interesting :D

Yeah I feel like one of the beautiful things about the volcas is that while they're simple and limited, they're so promiscuous about stuff like that. Mod friendly and like on the sample the parameter rangers really get into the wacky range. 

Yeah that's a good point about the OT, lol. I think the OT was designed to really optimize the internal timing, it's rock-solid and buttery smooth with the changes when you let it be the mater clock, so I always do. When I fling MIDI at it, it's always parameter just CCs or notes... notes less often though because they never land quite where I want them - that's a better job for the Monomachine or MPC.

  On 9/11/2017 at 4:47 AM, thawkins said:

There's a used Korg MS2000R available on my local craigslist: it's got audio in and a vocoder, lots of knobs and it's only like 200€, all of which matches my basic conditions for getting GAS. I've been looking at it a couple of days now and trying to tell myself that I don't need it.

It's a knobby microkorg in a bigger form. I'll be honest, while the microkorg (presets mainly ha) has been raped by every young band over a good 10 year stretch, it's a really banging sounding synth engine. I loved my microkorg. Few modern digi synths feel organicbut I feel this engine has some rad raw power to it.

You may not need it but you will have fun with it and really like it.

  On 9/11/2017 at 11:20 AM, Chesney said:

 

  On 9/11/2017 at 4:47 AM, thawkins said:

There's a used Korg MS2000R available on my local craigslist: it's got audio in and a vocoder, lots of knobs and it's only like 200€, all of which matches my basic conditions for getting GAS. I've been looking at it a couple of days now and trying to tell myself that I don't need it.

It's a knobby microkorg in a bigger form. I'll be honest, while the microkorg (presets mainly ha) has been raped by every young band over a good 10 year stretch, it's a really banging sounding synth engine. I loved my microkorg. Few modern digi synths feel organicbut I feel this engine has some rad raw power to it.

You may not need it but you will have fun with it and really like it.

 

I already have a Korg Micro-X, which is nicely portable and I guess it's got kind of the same sound engine. However it's mainly useful for me as a preset and a multitimbral box, because I will probably never bother with micromanaging and menu-diving to build my own sounds. To that end, a knobby thing like the MS2000R sounds exactly right, because then I can just turn the damn things instead. Vocoder and audio in sounds pretty sweet too because I can send whatever noise from the laptop through it. And it's also got a sequencer, which seems kind of nice to have in a live improv setting (and I've never owned a hardware seq). And I guess I can always sell it later...

Edit: holy shit it can do this

^damn that video sounds crazy. I've loved the look of that thing when I've seen it before but never heard anything that caught my attention like that does. The interface alone is great, of course, but if it can get that crazy then I don't see any drawbacks :)

damn, that's some nord lead 1 kinda shit, but with its own signature, really cool. I've managed to maintain some restraint when I see MS2000s going for cheap, but I do still want a Radias just because they look so damn pretty.

I haven't played one in a long time, but I remember it sounding good being really fun but also having a lot of stairstepping on all of the controls, which put me off at the time but is just part of the personality now.