Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Jazzpunk wrote:Most of us will most likely not have the chance to try out a Sunsyn if we actually find one to purchase, would you mind expanding on some of the Sunsyn's 'quirks'?

Well... Sunsyn is really picky about the incoming MIDI signal. Some controllers and sequencers cause undesired behaviour like false triggering of notes, notes getting stuck, etc. For example, if I control the Sun with my Motif, every couple of minutes a note can suddenly shoot to the upper octaves, or get stuck. With my M-Audio controller, zero problems. If I do multi-sequencing with the Motif, Sunsyn freaks out totally. With Cubase, everything is fine.

Other quirks... The tuning can be a bit 'alive' but with a decent warm-up time, this evens out. If you haven't calibrated your filters and envelopes in a while, voices can sound different from each other (I actually liked this) and even after calibration there is a little variation, especially with envelope releases. There is no portamento for RCOs. Noise levels can get a bit high, depending on your patch (high resonance and/or low osc levels). Deep PWM can distort some recording preamps(!).

That's all I can come up with at the moment. For me, the positive sides of the Sunsyn far outweigh the negatives. It just sounds so bloody amazing.

- CM

Carey M wrote: Well... Sunsyn is really picky about the incoming MIDI signal.

basic question, did you tried filtering Active Sensing messages?

Carey M wrote:That's all I can come up with at the moment. For me, the positive sides of the Sunsyn far outweigh the negatives. It just sounds so bloody amazing.

- CM

Great info. Thanks for that.

Jazzpunk wrote: Hi Carey,
Most of us will most likely not have the chance to try out a Sunsyn if we actually find one to purchase, would you mind expanding on some of the Sunsyn's 'quirks'?

I'm not Carey, but here are some quirks:

http://syncretism.net/snd/misc/Sunsyn%20Lockup.mp3

Mine's going back for repair, and I can't wait to have a happily-functioning Sunsyn. When it behaves itself, the Sunsyn sounds incredible and is immediate in use. Most of the major functions have a corresponding knob, and modal operations are at most only a few menus deep. It's one of the few synths I've used that sound awesome without processing. The three Studio Electronics synths I have used also had that full, almost visceral, sound.

I have a Schrittmacher, though I haven't used it to sequence the Sunsyn. By the time I get it repaired/updated, I'll likely have gotten rid of the Schrittmacher and picked up a Nemo.