Synths that didn't impress you

[zoomtheline]

hmmm I don't think so, it's a simple machine. I was jamming with a friend and we had 3 other equally simple monosynths we were using and it just sounded the most uninspiring out of the lot. The others were SH09, Jen sx1000 and the Kawai 100f.
Maybe I should have a play with it in isolation?

[Solderman]

I had a 700s for about a year. I would only say it had a pleasant vintage tone, and that ability to move the lowpass and highpass cutoff sliders together. Ringmod options were kinda cool. But I can see why some would not be impressed with it. Not much in the way of modulation features, resonance is a switch and doesn't self-oscillate, and VCO2 only had an inverted sawtooth waveform.

[zoomtheline]

I just remembered, we had a Jen sx2000 too but didn't bother with it as that was the blandest of the lot. Was really surprised by the sound of the sx1000 though, nice and punchy if I remember rightly.

[8bit9bot]

ah a good chance to vent about annoying synths:

1) roland MKS-80 rev.5 - i had really high expectations for this... i sold my prophet 600 and juno 60 to afford buying it... and it sounded nothing like i expected... even after listening to tons of demos online - actually editing the parameters sucked so bad... i'd turn up some reso and then suddenly everything sounded anemic... the OPPOSITE of what would happen w/ the prophet 600 - huge disappointment

2) korg DW-8000... i got this one when i was still in high school... i was looking for PPG esque sounds and was totally disappointed - ironically... i think if i tried one now without any PPG expectations i would like it

3) voyetra 8 - i read some really crazy reviews about this synth... having it be compared to OB-8s and memorymoogs... people love SSM filters so much and it had them - it was a huge disappointment for me - it had a somewhat similar response as the MKS-80 w/ the resonance... turning it up thinned it out - worst thing about it was by far the interface - and the fear of it breaking down

4) xpander - i hate to say it but i was disappointed... but ONLY by the interface - the sound was fantastic... if there was a synth that sounded like this... had 1 knob per function... and was multi-timbral... it would be amazing - OB8 would be worth trying but i just cant get excited about buying another huge keyboard - i may go back to the xpander one day

ok so being super wow'd by a synth... here you go: prophet 600... it changed my expectations for synths forever... that thing sounded AMAZING... and its what lead me into getting a prophet 5 - whats interesting is the p600 did some sounds better than the p5... but i'm not disappointed w/ the p5 at all - i almost want to get another p600... but again... i dont want more keyboards

[Jabberwalky]

hmmm I don't think so, it's a simple machine. I was jamming with a friend and we had 3 other equally simple monosynths we were using and it just sounded the most uninspiring out of the lot. The others were SH09, Jen sx1000 and the Kawai 100f.
Maybe I should have a play with it in isolation?

Haha, yep. I guess this thread shows how differently we describe an "impressive" synth (and how little you can really weigh a decision on a single opinion here). The mini700 does have a ton of trimmers, and you can bring the filter into a screeching wail if you want to. I suppose mine could be set up differently.

[Infinity Curve]

Korg King Korg - sounded meh and the interface/feel of the unit was not at all what I would expect from a $1500 synth

DSI Prophet 08/Mopho - didn't dig the sound at all

Doepfer Dark Energy - Kind of liked the interface, boring sound

Korg DW-6000 - didn't like the interface at all, sound was uninspiring to me

Korg Monotribe - fun to mess around with, but the clicky envelopes were annoying

Yamaha SK10 - not bad, but I got an Elka Rhapsody 490 shortly thereafter and never touched it again

[vinyl_junkie]

Haha, yep. I guess this thread shows how differently we describe an "impressive" synth (and how little you can really weigh a decision on a single opinion here)

Ha yes, few of the things on peoples lists impressed me.. The 700s being one of them, such a weird little ball of 70's wood and metal I just had to have one.

I can see how the Alpha's fail to impress people. I don't think they are particularly anything exciting but they aren't too bad either.
I got mine very cheap and knew what it could do and couldn't so I guess I wasn't too disappointed by it not being as "good" as a say Juno 60 or what have you.

The Ensoniq ASQ-1 also failed to impress me to be quite honest but again it wasn't mine and didn't give it much time, my mate loved it but I failed to see the appeal.
I could see me probs getting into it if I would have it here though

[zoomtheline]

Damn, I'm going to have to have another go on the 700s, seems I'm in the minority. I must be missing something if people are describing it like "weird little ball", I love weird little balls, errrr.

[antilles]

Actually the first time I tried the MiniMoog D i wasn't impressed at all. This was in the late eighties and i found one at a local music store. I could only make it say 'beeb' and I could only play one key at the time. WTF was that? Off course this was before I knew anything about subtractive synthesis and at the time I was much more interested in the new synths that had many presets and build-in effects.

Recently I've generally been unimpressed with late-eighties analogs, like Roland Alpha Junos, Oberheim Matrix 6, SCI Six-Trak and the likes. They've got dull filters and slow envelopes.

[HideawayStudio]

And dare I say it? the MS20 didn't seem musical to me but I only had a few minutes.

The MS-20 you really do have to take a little time to get used to - once you get down into the filters and start cranking up the resonance, it really doesn't sound like more common monosynths. But it's exactly that weirdness that's its biggest strength.

Yeah I got that from it. It certainly made me go "wow" with squinted eyes when I cranked it but apart from that neat trick it did nothing special. Like I say though, I had a few minutes and nothing inspiring coming from my fingers at the time so another day it might be slightly different.

I must admit I felt the same when I first encountered the MS-20 but it definitely has some tricks up its sleeves...

Being able to modulate both the HF and LF filters in near resonance with different CV sources/scalings is awesome and can have almost vocal qualities at times.

That old pitch tracking trick is such a haunting effect!

[chimney chop]

That old pitch tracking trick is such a haunting effect!

can anyone point me in the direction of an example of this?...YouTube, soundcloud, song title, whatever

[HideawayStudio]

That old pitch tracking trick is such a haunting effect!

can anyone point me in the direction of an example of this?...YouTube, soundcloud, song title, whatever

The opening few bars of Pilots from the Album, Felt Mountain is a very good example.

[plikestechno]

I'll just keep it to things that I was very excited to try, there's a lot of hype for, but underwhlemed me. Some of them that I didn't do enough reading on before buying.

Prophet T8. Especially once I had an Andromeda and Jupiter 6 Europa in the studio. Those two are keepers.

Trident/MonoPoly/PolySix. Over the years I havent bought any but I've tried them all out. Tried a Trident out first that was for sale locally and was disappointed. Later tried the other two and simply don't like the Korg sound from that period. Just sounds cheap.

Studio Electronics ATC-1 with cartridges and cartridge rack. Weird envelopes, action and modulation. Arp filter was the only one I liked.

TR-808. Times two. Got one cheap ($1200) then got one super cheap ($250). Sold both for other things. I just can never justify paying more than a few hundred dollars for a drum machine. Got my CR-8000 and CR-78 for cheap and like those better and will keep them. Just bought a TR-8 and for me, it gets the sound for my dance tracks close enough and is more fun to use than an actual 808.

I love drum synths but have been especially disappointed by the Pearl DRX-1 (but love the Syncussion and SC-40), MAM ADX1 (cheap, noisy, drives too easily), Tama DS200 and Tama TS305.

TX802. Too clean. Prefer my loaded TX816.

Cheetah MS6. Just typical 80s CEM sound. Nothing to write home about. Multitimbral with single mono output LOL.

SH-101. Have had and sold 3. Too simple to keep me excited. Sound is decent but other Roland's can sound similar. Have also sold two 202s as well. Have only kept the third because it is modularized.

Elektron Machinedrum and Monomachine. Nice ideas, didn't like their sound.

Lots of E-Mu Proteii and Korg M1REX. I just don't like ROMplers probably. JD-990 is the only one I've kept.

Poly 800 MKII and EX800. Poly 800 MKII was my first synth and sounded fine until I bought other synths. Got a great deal on a EX800 with Moog Slayer mods. Better? Nope.

Things I didn't like that I had briefly that I should have kept were...

Waldorf Q rack
Unique DBE/Bit01 rack
Yamaha FS1R

Everything else has been sold without regret.

[8bit9bot]

TX802. Too clean. Prefer my loaded TX816.

i compared these two TX's head to head and to me they sound nearly identical... tx816 has louder outputs and theres a difference in velocity range... the tx802 interface wins for me... alpha numeric display and cartridges etc... for me the tx816 was the disappointment - just sayin

[plikestechno]

Perhaps you would have enjoyed your TX816 more if like me you had your own line mixer with effect sends for it and this... Mine's got the rack ears as well...



Truth be told all I do with my TX816 is make scary, clangy noises or use a computer to bring presets in and out and just tweak them.