Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Interesting release from Dave Smith Instruments, a four voice Mopho keyboard. Interesting as they claimed they would not be releasing a Tetra keyboard, which this sounds very similar to. Seen at the following URL:

http://www.gearjunkies.com/news_info.php?news_id=7498

Too expensive, not enough voices, DCO not VCO, rehashing the same stuff, too black

Not really. I'm just complaining preemptively because someone is bound to bring those up.

Dave Smith has been very clear that he has no plans to release a VCO synth. He prefers the stability of DCO's with the ability to add in oscillator drift (i.e., 'slop') as a user option.

I really love DSI's product line, particularly the Evolver. I prefer their digital / analogue hybrids and was really hoping this release would involve a combination of capabilities. I am a fan of the Evo digital oscillators and 3X delay line and would have liked to have seen these capabilities further explored, perhaps with elements of wavetable and vector synthesis along with Curtis filters.

That said, I'm 99.9% likely to pick one of these up.

mikewelch7 wrote:Dave Smith has been very clear that he has no plans to release a VCO synth. He prefers the stability of DCO's with the ability to add in oscillator drift (i.e., 'slop') as a user option.

You might not have heard this because my tongue was in my cheek.

GuyaGuy wrote: Not really. I'm just complaining preemptively because someone is bound to bring those up.

Think it'll have Unison x3?

Zamise wrote:Think it'll have Unison x3?

Oscillatorpalooza!!!

so I was actually right. that's a first....

$1299, eh? Less than I would have guessed. Looks pretty sweet.

Demo video on their FaceBook page.

According to the video, it is shipping now.

i bought it...love dsi gear! will review it soon.

tHE x4 LOgo sucks, the colour - sucks(why not yelow or white), DCOs- sucks,it is mono-timbral and does not have combo mode, multi-mode, keyboard splits, and stacks. but actually is a pretty good synth.

i have a tetra and mopho keyboard... and this just makes it look bad

Want.

just some initial impressions

X4 logo - terrible. DSI really just needs to hire a good graphic design studio to take care of branding. there are so many out there who would do a great job for cheap. the logo looks like a bad sports brand from the 90's, or like a motorcycle company. frankly it reminds me of douchebags. not the coolest association. I mean who wants to look like that up on stage? anyway, at the end of the day you can always just tape over it. no big deal. (though I would love to see a more cutting edge design studio like Non-Format to take a stab at a synth brand)

44 keys - awesome. absolute perfect size like the MS2000, MiniMoog.

Mopho interface and knobs - awesome. great interface if it's the same as the Mopho kb. better feeling encoders or pots than the old problematic ones. with the exception of heavy duty faceplate/screw mounted pots like the ones used in modular, these aren't so bad.

color - freakin awesome. black/dark grey rules. very bad a*s, like the traditional black 80's synths. thank God no more yellow/red/blue toy colors for $1299 gear. bad enough that the build of modern synths are so cheap. no need to emphasize the cheapness with primary colors.

4-voice - not bad. a duphonic would have been interesting enough, but 4 is just GREAT.

DCO? - not a problem. this is actually a good move since you want a modern workhorse like this to be dependable. as an owner of eurorack analog and digital, 5u analog modular, Supernova, Virus, MS-20, I think this is a good decision by DSI and it fits well for anyone who already has VCO synths as well as for a beginner.

price - $1299 is slightly high, but considering that a small company like DSI needs to make money and that the $1000-1100 mark is around what people should pay for a quality instrument, this isn't too far off. an $800-900 duophonic might be an alternative since there will now be a gap between modern monophonic (Mopho, Minibrute) and this 4-voice.

thumbs up overall. go DSI.

Meeh, getting a bit bored of all these 2 oscillator synths lately..and why couldn't they just increase to 5 voices and have a great Prophet-5 pretender?

5 voices just about covers the basic playing, two for octave bass , three for chords.