Pro5 wrote:the ORIGINAL V-Synth is 'more fun' than the GT if anything (IMO).
to each his own, my friend.
i know the OP has cast his/her lot with the original vsynth (great choice! check out jp-80.com for thousands of free sounds!) but i can't let pro-5's opinions of the gt go unanswered.
imho a used original v is way undervalued, making a used gt appear overpriced. the original is good enough, but for a couple hundred more than an xt, i think the gt is a must-have for sound designers (if space allows).
the "awful" tone/patch structure makes the gt a direct descendent of the D50. similarly to that classic, the gt treats a tone as a 2-osc synth, and a patch is merely 2 tones (i.e., synths) layered, split or crossfaded, each with its own multieffects. what's so hard to understand? lol. surely that kind of sonic flexibility is worth the effort?
as for programming speed, after a couple of weeks, you get quick at programming the gt (as with any synth). soon your fingers know which soft knob to grab without looking at the screen.
pro-5 dismisses the gt's "overpriced" extras:
— better effects routing
— AP synthesis, which when used as an oscillator and not the main feature, gives your sounds a human, "alive" feeling. definitely not "unloved by anyone who's tried it." lol
— vocal harmonizer/vocoder: ditto, especially on backing vocals and vocoding different passages to provide texture
— audio/midi interface for playing/sampling logic/reason/live, merging hardware and software if that's your thing
— an arp that sends midi, for transforming your hardware and software synths
depending on what else is in your studio, those extras might be worth the extra dough.
on the other hand, no matter what vsynth model you get, you could cover similar ground with a novation sl61, an ipad, and some well-chosen apps (crystal xt, voice synth, genome sequencer, and sunrizer will get you most of the way there).
to each his own. that goes for nick rhodes too. lol!