marino

The keyboard version? Here in Europe it's almost 4000 Euro

More photos on Matrixsynth: https://www.matrixsynth.com/2024/04/new-oberheim-teo-5-incoming.html

Have you seen this? These images are circulating on several sites. Looks like the Oberheim version of the Take 5.

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This thread is a good excuse for some listening...

Oscillator sync is indeed one of the most misunderstood and underutilized resource for sound design. In my programming courses at school, I dedicate a whole lesson to it, starting with sine waves to hear how the leader builds harmonics on the follower one at at a time, then using richer waveforms, etc. Unfortunately, on several digital synthesizers and softsynths, they don't give you a choice of waveforms for the leader; in order not to "waste" an oscillator just for the sync function, they have a built-in, "hidden" oscillator, with a fixed waveform (often, the same thing is happening for fm). What's more, I see quite often a single "sync" knob or slider, controlling the pitch of the leader oscillator *and* the modulation amount at the same time! And this on sophisticated, complex instrument as well. A bright exception is the Alesis Ion. The author of the video makes a passing mention of soft sync... and righly so, since every analog synth seems to implement it in a different way! On some, the follower flips its polarity when the leader starts its cycle, on others it does totally different things. Finally, the role of the leader, assuming it's not heard in the audio mixer, seems to be to just restart the follower... but in my experience, changing the leader's waveform *always* affects the resulting harmonic content. So yes, there's some room for experimentation. 🙂

A few things coming to mind: - A modern Kurzweil in module format, with an improved screen. - A software version of the Crumar GDS. Possibly with programming help like user-defined macros, spectral display, etc. - The great Objekt physical modeling synth, made available as a regular VST. At the moment it's just a Reason rack. - Finally, some usable implementation of harmonic resynthesis, with separation and reconstruction of the noise component. An Acxel II, as announced many years ago, would be very welcome. Etc. etc.

200%

The polysynth that I would buy is the one I actually bought a while ago, the Waldorf Iridium Keyboard. I think it's one of the most complete instruments on the present market. The new, compact Core version is smaller and less expensive if you can do without the polyAT keyboard. I sold the Hydrasynth and the Q to get the keyboard version; the Core didn't exist at the time. I personally use the encoders 90% of the time, so I wouldn't miss all the pots that the keyboard version has. However, if you are after the analog sound, just get an analog synth. The new 12-voice Polybrute sounds tempting, but it's not out yet. Also, consider that the Polybrute is *very* heavy. And presumably, the new version is going to go over your budget. I would take a look at the Take 5. It sounds *very* good. It has a deep mod matrix, and the keyboard, though short, has a great feel. I have played the Trigon and loved it, but I don't think the price difference is worth it. There are a few VAs on the market, but frankly, I'm not crazy about any of them. I have heard the KingKorg Neo and I was underwhelmed. The Iridium can do better VA in my opinion, plus a million other things.

Well, one of the doctors told me that in my case, when I resolve to do a biologic cure for psoriasis, the tendon damage should get better as well. I didn't take the plunge so far, because I have a kind of complicated health situation, and I don't want to risk to lower my immune defenses too much. At the moment I'm doing periodic infiltrations that should help cartilage reconstruction, and physiotherapy.

This thread puts a finger on the wound... Since about 10 months I've been suffering from an arthritic disease linked, it seems, to my very serious psoriasis, and possibly a couple of other causes as well. By the time I resolved to have an MRI, it showed that the tendons in my right arm are damaged in two places. I am currently at my third cycle of expensive cures, since the first two showed no results. I made the mistake to postpone treatment, because I was committed to a concert and a couple of days in the studio to record an album; but I had to suspend the recording session and send everybody home, because I just couldn't play anymore. Not fun. So it's been a couple of months without touching the piano at all. And I did buy a keyboard with a very light touch, in order to at least stay close to music, and compose. I got a Casio CT-S500, and for such a light and cheap keyboard, it sounds quite decent. The action - I hate it, but I have adapted to it, and btw it's the only instrument that I can play at the moment. Playing synt-action keyboards don't seem to hurt too much, either. I have also tried to play the Roland Integra 7 from an unweighted synth, but somehow the two didn't seem to connect, no matter how I tweaked the velocity curves. The little Casio is a nice compromise for what it is.

Now that's funny.... here's where I had read it. In this very thread, one year ago.

My friend, there's nothing philosophical or ideological about it. I don't know about "so many people", I know that *I* dislike pots in a synth *with patch memory*. "Most analog synths back in the 70s" did NOT have it, so they didn't need encoders. And when patch memory became standard in the 80s, knobs started a trend of disappearing altogether from synth panels... (I know, there are exceptions) The reason is, obviously, that when you recall a patch, be it even the initialized sound, the physical position of each knob has nothing to do with the stored value of the corresponding parameter. So you turn a knob, and either the value jumps (and the initial value is lost), or the knob reaches the end of its travel, so you can't push the value beyond that point. A decent compromise is the so-called "pass thru" mode, where the knob has no effect until it reaches the stored value. With encoders, you tun a knob and the value starts immediately incrementing or decrementing from the stored value. You then read the numerical value or a graphic representation on a display. Phew. I had 'started' this thread with the plea of not turning it into a pots vs. encoders debate...........................................................................................................................

Well, I don't have one at my place so I have not become a Summit expert yet - but having used it at school for a few months, I can give an opinion. (I have also owned the Hydrasynth for a while, before selling it to get the Iridium Keyboard). - I'd give the Summit a ten for appearance, solidity and feel. It looks gorgeous, even moreso than in pictures. The knobs, though a bit small, feel solid and smooth, and there's a lot of them. Internal power supply. Rubber frame on the bottom. Looks luscious and elegant. - The keyboard I find decently responsive for a synth keybed, once you find the right response curve for your playing. IIRC there are two separate settings for velocity, so it can be tailored to your preferences. Aftertouch works a little differently from most actions that I have played; you push the key to the bottom, and no aftertouch is triggered; then there's a kind of extra step to activate it. It's unusual to me, but it can be learned and used with some satifying graduality. I prefer this keybed to the Hydrasynth's, both for velocity and aftertouch response. (Yeah, I know the Hydra has poly AT) - The features are impressive for a subtractive synth with analog filters. 16 Voices with Single, Dual and Split modes. Wavefolding oscillators plus wavetables. Supersaws and Unison functions. FM, RM, Sync are there. Dual filters with serial/parallel configurations and several modes. Several Drive/saturation stages. A chain of four effects (distortion, chorus/flanger, delay, reverb) of which you can recombine the order in any way. A 16-slot mod matrix, plus a 'separate' 4-slot one dedicated to effects parameters! There are some things that I would like to see added: One is "real" oscillator sync, in which you have separate control on the waveform of the synchronized wave, its pitch and the modulation index. Another is the possibility to address individual oscillators to individual filters, perhaps even in variable amounts; currently, the output of the mixer is routed to the filter section as a whole. And the most important one: on the Summit, you can only use a bandpass filter in Single mode. One of my favorite tricks is to use a lowpass and a bandpass in parallel, and it can't be done. I can't help noticing that the Alesis Ion from 2002 had all those features! - The sound... I'll just say that to my ears, the Summit has a clean, smooth sound. Fantastic for large pads, swirling textures, ethereal leads, ambient atmospheres, abstract constructions, complex motions, evolving flow..... I think you got the idea. For biting, sincere, aggressive, creamy, old-style ANALOG textures, however... well, you can get close, but you'll have to work with unisons, supersaws, dual mode, detuning, random modulations, distortion, etc. A while ago, I have read online the impressions by one owner; he described the overall sound of the Summit as "a bit generic". I tend to agree; despite the analog filters, it doesn't sound in-your-face as a classic analog. Of course, that type of sound is not everything, and one could love the Summit character to death... I'm only saying that to build 'interesting' sounds of any kind, you have to resort to the rich set of features that the instrument offers. It's not an instant gratification machine. Incidentally, I think the same is even more true about the Hydrasynth. - The user interface. Of course I love the rich dotation of knobs. But some of the choices that Novation has done in this UI look a bit weird to me. I'll try to describe a few. *Some* choices for modulation are included in the panel, without the need of using a slot in the mod matrix. But despite the generous supply of hardware controls, you are going to use the screen menus most of the time (trust me on that). The display, hovever, is rather small, with just four lines, of which the first is for the name of the page, and the other three for parameter names and values. So you have to scroll pages over and over. What's worse, on such a large panel, they decided to put the display on the far left side. Assuming that one tends to use mainly his right hand to perform edits, you have to cross your arms all the time. And what's *even* worse, the selectors for the three parameter lines are on the left side of the display - so you're going to cover the screen with your hand when you use them. Ok, so let's say that you're using your *left* hand to edit; in this case, after selecting a line, you go to the encoder to adjust the value. And that's on the *right* side of the display, so you're covering it again! Guys, I can hardly think of a worse layout. In my opinion, the editing system of the Hydrasynth, with just eight main encoders and the mod buttons, it's a breeze in comparison. Speaking of encoders... yes, there are encoders on the Summit: exactly one, beside the display. All other are pots. I don't think I have to repeat how much I dislike this arrangement. At least, when you touch a knob the display shows both the memorized value and the current one... but for me, it's a pain anyway. This is particularly true for the envelope sliders, as Envelope 2 and 3 share the same controls. Urgh. Plus I have found several little quirks and bugs, not fatal but annoying. I'm not going to describe them because I don't have the instrument in front of me, and I don't want to give inaccurate accounts. And also because I'm exhausted by typing all this stuff... As always - "in my opinion". Hope this helps.

Haha, that's a good analogy. Btw, I almost forgot the usual [disclaimer]: Like for the Uno Synth Pro, there's no sponsorship or any other commercial agreement involved in these videos; it's an informal collaboration, about instruments that I'm interested to try out. And of course, assuming that they have a unity available to lend me, they're happy to have additional exposure for the instruments that they have in stock. So it's a win-win thing. [/disclaimer/]

It's been four years since I started the original Osmose thread (now buried in the most remote pages), but only in recent times I have had the chance to play one, after an aborted attempt that I'm going to describe later. Thanks to my friends at Your Music, one of the oldest (and surviving) Musical Instrument stores in Rome, I had the thing at home for a couple of days, so I could spend an afternoon acquiring some familiarity with it. They are the same guys who lent me the Uno Synth Pro last year; in that occasion, I made a bank of patches for it, but this time, no particular programming was involved. The Osmose that I played was a demo unit, with editing 'locked' at the company, except for some minor tweaking. I guess that it could be unlocked through some software registration. ...which was a good thing after all; trying to learn the Egan Matrix in a few hours would have gained me free membership to the kamikaze club. So this is not a review, not even a "non-review" like my previous ones; just my impressions of the performance techniques and general feel of the Osmose. This is the reason I'm not posting it in the GearLab section. Keyboard feel: Let's try to forget for a moment all the wonderful features like the two levels of aftertouch etc.; how does this action feel as a pure keybed, under the fingers of a piano/keyboard player? To my fingers, it feels fantastic. After a few moments of adjustment, I could fly on it, playing with great speed and precision, and with accurate dynamic control. I would love to have this action in all my electronic instruments, except of course for piano-style playing. Left hand controllers: I absolutely dislike those two slider-like things. They don't feel even remotely as ergonomic or comfortable as the traditional wheels. If you want to re-invent the... wheel, be sure to bring something innovative to the table. To me, left-hand sliders on a keyboard are somewhat archaic. Thumbs down. The two levels of aftertouch: Of course, it takes some practice. But I don't think it's too difficult to master, once you understand what it does on each particular patch. On the sounds that I have played (and I've played them all), it was assigned to the most diverse parameters, from simple 'animation' to triggering totally different sounds - and I had a whole lot of fun with it. You have to play by the rules: You can only trigger the bottom level once the first is at its maximum, and not before. But you can program your patches to take advantage of it; after all, most keboards have just one aftertouch level. And this one is polyphonic! The pitch wiggle: In my opinion, this is at the same time the strongest *and* weakest point of the instrument. For the past 40 years or so, I've been hoping that someone would bring back this wonderful way to achieve vibrato and small pitch inflections in a keyboard. The Ondes Martenot and the Ondioline had it. Problem is, they were monophonic instruments, so the mechanism could be much simpler: just place the entire keybed on some kind of rail, to allow for lateral movement. To implement it in a polyphonic way was a very generous concept, and I can imagine the technical difficulties in designing it... but I find it really too easy to trigger in certain situations. In monophonic patches, I had a lot of fun, and not many problems with unintentional triggering; but when playing fast-moving chords with polyphonic sounds, it was too easy to have one note awfully out of tune. It's in the nature of keyboard playing, really: When playing lots of simultaneous notes fast, you can't have a perfect vertical motion for every one of them. At least I can't. I'm afraid that the solution could only be a slightly different mechanism... for the time being, I would engage this function only for monophonic sounds, or when you expect to play only a couple of notes at a time. The sounds: What can I say, some of them I found gorgeous, some (especially the analog emulations) a bit unconvincing, but they were just the presets... and I'd say that for being the initial presets of a new synthesizer, they are damn good - and of course, the real-time features is what is bringing them to life. A different problem can reside in the complexity of the Egan Matrix. I can be wrong, but so far I have only heard of one or two third-party banks for the Osmose. I haven't looked at the programming software, but the descriptions of its structure sound a bit scary... In a nutshell: Given the limits of my experience, here's my little list of pros and cons: Pros: Keybed feels fantastic. Great, innovative expressive controls. Powerful synth engine. Cons: Mediocre left-hand controls, when compared with the other features. Key-triggered pitch bending too easy to activate. And on such a class instrument, EXTERNAL POWER SUPPLY?!? Urghhh. Of course, I think that the positive traits overwhelm the negatives. I strongly hope that the Osmose will be remember as the turning point of a new renaissance in keyboard instruments. The video. As I said, in the video I only play slightly tweaked presets this time. But before getting there, let me vent a little bit with some back story, as I mentioned in the beginning: several months ago, I had scheduled a video/recording session at that same store, about the Sequential Trigon. Once I got there, I saw the Osmose in display, and asked to do a video on that instead. We ended up making two separate videos - almost a whole day of work. But when the next day they tried to send the audio files to me, they realized that there was no audio file. Something went wrong, and five hours of work were gone! So, this video represents a sort of partial payoff for that debacle. Enjoy.

There are so many. If forced to chose a few, I would pick "Cityscape" with Claus Ogerman, "Modern Times" and "Magnetic" with Steps Ahead, "Three Quartets" with Chick Corea, and any one of his solo albums - they're all excellent. Although the last one, "Pilgrimage" is particularly touching.

Did the actual synth engine in this work? No idea. I didn't dare touch it!

Ha ha... I can't be of help, as a sample is obviously the right tool for this job - but it was amusing to read that, because just today, I was discussing with my students how to program that shakuachi sound with synthesis, using Surge. We came to good results with a couple of slightly asymmetrical pulse waves placed an octave apart, some noise thru a keytracked bandpass for the breathing part, and *lots* of subtle modulations - like, about 25 modulations in all. It was good fun! I'll try to post an audio sample when I can.

No, it's more the interface that I dislike. And yes, I upgraded to Vecoven 4.0 with PWM cards.

Ha. The very first thing that I did when I got the Chroma was to reprogram the levers to behave like wheels, reversing their response. I did that on each and every patch.

For a mono synth - assuming hybrids are allowed and modular systems aren't: I would probably buy the one that I actually bought, the Sequential Pro 3. To me, it has by far the best *combination* of elements (sound, versatility, depth, interface, action, lh controllers, feel). For a poly, I confess that there isn't one that really captures my GAS. I already own some very good ones: Matrix-12, Poly Evolver, Take 5, and a JX-10 that I'm about to sell. Probably, among the current polys, the most desirable one would be...

My favorites list for LH controllers: 1) Wheels 2) Wheels 3) Wheels 4) Ribbons & touchpads 5) Nord stick 6) Roland paddle 7) Oberheim levers My least favorite is the Korg joystick - or joysticks in general, unless it's strictly for mixing different sources, like on the Wavestation/Wavestate. Best system: Sequential Pro 3. Two great-feeling wheels (one spring-loaded) and a touch slider which you can set to return to zero *or* to hold the current value. You can change this setting on the fly, with a dedicated button. All controllers freely assignable. Worst system: Studiologic SL73. Three assignable joysticks, of which the first is spring-loaded on both axis, the second on the horizontal axis only, and the third on neither. Could be an interesting approach on paper, but in practice the joysticks are so small and short that any degree of accuracy is impossible; basically, they are unusable. Really? Have you tried to use aftertouch with any precise control on the amount of modulation? Of course some instruments have better AT than others, but generally speaking, aftertouch is the least accurate of all real time controllers. Also, AT always returns to zero the moment that you lift a key, which may not be what you want every time.

Wow! Like Dave, I'm not a fan of the two piano format - perhaps the most notable exception being the Corea/Hancock thing. It's just too easy to overplay, or create harmonic clashes, or go out of rhythmic sync. But these are two of my absolute favorite pianists, so I did listen. And... wow, wow, wow. I was captured from the first notes. What a fantastic interplay! I'll set apart an hour tonight to listen to the whole thing. Thank you!! Edit - To the organizers: You *don't* interrupt a concert after the first two songs to discuss things. Especially a concert like this!

Sorry to hear this. I saw him with the new Mahavishnu Orchestra at some point in the mid-80s.