MojoGuyPan

Studiologic Numa 2x > Roland VR09 I really don't get the hate from Ragast and others on the 2x. 1st we get the vaporware bashing, now we get the it's likely to sound like crap chorus. Both are bogus claims. Pianos and EPs are what is in the 2. A knownn quantity. The 2x has a couple of demos from shows. The organ sounds decent in those videos. Hard to tell how.the organ and synth will sound in person but seems decent and the Numa 2 we know. Not shit. Since when has Studiologic been known for vaporware? It's not like they claim that the 2x can do cold fusion. This is a 2 that they threw some drawbars and a couple extra buttons on and a new processor inside. They make the Sledge and Organ 2 so it's not like they don't already have a synth and organ engine to slap in there. They'll need to modify them for the limited controls but it's not exactly like they are starting from square one. The price is $200 more than the 2 which should cover the more powerful processor and drawbars. Studiologic has been doing some great stuff. The Organ and Sledge are high end and the Stage and Numa are solid middle-weight stage pianos that punch above their class. I'm optimistic that this will be another good board for someone who wants this all in one package, you do lose a lot of control vs the Organ and Sledge but the sound quality should be there in the 2x.

I can't believe this is really happening! They said it couldn't be done. That Studiologic would go bankrupt trying to pack in so many sounds into a keyboard with this low a price. Looks like the experts were wrong. Now ask yourself about the price of the Nords and whether or not it is even close to being justifiable.

Well the Z-Stand came in and I removed the legs on the Seven and put it on the Z. The difference in rigidity is night and day. No more shimmying. With the legs just my warm up of playing scales would be enough to start rocking the boat. Now rock solid and finally a joy to play without being distracted by the flex. After playing this daily the last several weeks, I am working on my list of quibbles which I'll be sure to post here.

Just wanted let the forum know that my Seven has arrived and all is well with the world. I find the action really sweet. Better than the other TP100's I've played. It does feel significantly more substantial and smoother than the TP100 in my Numa Stage. The sounds are all really great with the modeled piano being the weak link. A little too twangy, almost like an electric grand model. I hate electric grands with a passion. I am really high on this board. The only real negatives are the piano sound, the legs and the sheer bulk of this thing. It's not just heavy but big and boxy like a refrigerator. It would be painful to have to routinely gig with it. As for me, I bought it more to play at the house, jam sessions, parties and maybe the occasional gig. I've got lighter boards to gig with, they don't sound as good but a Numa Stage is so much smaller, lighter and easier to move and load into the car. The Seven is like a Lane Bryant model, plus-sized and oh so sweet but best enjoyed at home. The legs, while looking cool and setting up the keys at a good height, don't have a lot of lateral rigidity. Playing just about anything gets it shimmying sideways like Katherine Hepburn after washing down a handful of Adderall with Mountain Dew and it is annoying. I will be getting a Z-stand for it. The legs on my Nord C1 were much better. The rear legs on the Nord were V-braced to the middle of the board and provided a solid playing experience. That is one thing Nord got right with the C1. The Crumar's legs stink by comparison. For an EP the Seven is really great. Awesome key to sound connection. Easy controls and lit up like a Christmas tree. I've played it through PA speakers and my Traynor K4. The Seven comes alive and is in full bloom when played through the K4. The powered PA speakers suck the life out of the board. It's a gorgeous board with unbelievable Rhodes and Wurly. This is truly a musical instrument great finger-key-sound connection. The legs aren't quite as well thought out but it is only a minor inconvenience (it played better on my X-stand).

Some tight synth work here. I think Taysty and Trademarx use of the DSI P12 and FM is excellent, almost sounds like a VST with warmth. [video:youtube]

Hey Elmer thanks for the heads up on Sequel. The description on the site sounds like it'd be perfect and it's just $80. I'm going to download the trial tonight. The Garagebandesque DAW is the hardest thing to figure out for the PC. Video editing has tons of options like Vegas Movie Studio, Adobe Elements, and Movavi. Hopefully Sequel is it for the music.

It's 2018. Is there something yet on the PC comparable in ease of use to Garageband on the Mac? This is for my 10 year old kid by the way who is a complete beginner. I had a Mac up until 2012 and loved Garageband and iMovie. Switched to PC and haven't looked back until now. My kid is 10 and wants to do some movie editing and compose some sound tracks for his movies. I've tracked down a good iMovie alternative. But the Garageband is trickier. He's going to want the loops and virtual instruments like Garageband playing them over a MIDI controller. He's not going to need external VST support or anything. Just some play some music over drum tracks, bring in audio files, record narrations. That sort of thing. I saw some threads from years back but there was no conclusion. Right now it seems like MixCraft 8 might do the trick. What are your thoughts? The other option is just to bite the bullet and get him an iMac (maybe a refurb 21.5 with Fusion Drive) since it looks like I'll be spending about $300 just for the PC software and my PC is due for replacement in the next year or so (3.4GHz i7-3770). Just looking for real easy stuff to get my kid started, something like Cubase LE would traumatize him for sure.

I don't know guys. I can't get excited about this. Moog just half-heartedly commits to this modular thing and besides the modular renaissance is just about over. It's not going mainstream anytime soon. Would really have liked to see them release a polyphonic synth. That seems to be what the people have wanted for ages. Moogs other synths are dynamite but this one and the other oddball stuff like the Mother and a bunch of the Foogers do nothing for me. Even Dave Smith seems to have aborted his modular run after putting out that filter. Modular is best left to the independents and small boutique guys. Moog needs to stick with mainstream giggable synths and should really be focusing all effort into a poly synth. That's something that would be actually exciting and really would sell.

Mitch is sponsored but I don't like the talk in this thread calling him out as a shill. The Mojo is a better emulation than what Hammond has put out so far. His statement was blunt and left me wanting to know "why" but if you read his reviews and what he has written in other threads here about the Legend, the Mojo and Hammond, it's clear that he is not simply a shill. Mitch is a great player and comes across as a real person with legitimate opinions. He does not come across as a mouthpiece for Crumar. Obviously there is a bias and conflict of interest there but the reality of the XK5 being ridiculously expensive with a sub par simulation is a fact. The Legend and Mojo house the XK5 for much cheaper.

We are definitely nearing peak analog. The synth bubble will burst and these modules and keyboards will end up buried in an Albuquerque landfill alongside the E.T. cartridges. Get 'em while you can. I sure am planning to, you know Behringer is going to be selling them for half of what Korg is. It's a great time to be alive.

I'm sure at the Behringer product development meetings they just pull up that other synth related forum on the projector and see which synth threads are the longest. "Jupiter 8, 102 pages, that one's next. Ralf, go buy a working one one ebay and let's reverse engineer that puppy, Roland won't give us the schematics anymore."

I agree that the next iteration will have more synth controls but I don't expect that to even be on the radar for three years or so. Congrats on the Dexibell, I really wish that I could try one out, the demos sound solid and they look sweet. The S-3 would be my Dexibell of choice. Don't really need one but they are indeed tempting.

True. I had an XW-P1 for several years mainly used as a back-up for a Kurzweil that had issues. The Casio just doesn't sound good compared to the Kurzweil or the Numa. The XW-P1 is feature rich but GM sounds and the B3 is very week. I won't even get into the Leslie sim because it will drive you to stab coat hangers into your eardrums. It's okay but it sounds every penny of its $400. The Numa 2 is about the same price but the pianos and EPs are well above Generalissimo MIDI quality. And the keyboard action is superior to the XW-P1 in every way. The Numa 2x still looks like a stage piano with extra sounds and not a synth so there are no controls. I'm guessing an app will be needed to really edit the synth parameters at all but if the synth if close to the Sledge it'll smoke the P1. The organ demo sounds better than the P1. The P1 sounds better on youtube than in person and the key action is cheap. Not bad for a 13 year old in a cover band for the junior high talent show playing The Final Countdown but nowhere near gigworthy sound quality. The Privia pianos are but the P1 does not have those samples.

I do really like the King Korg. And I fully realize the benefits of real-time controls and full analog also I know that the X can do a lot of stuff with the samples that the Kronos can't do. But in reality who is actually going to be using this functionality musically? No one. And the synth side still has DCO's we're only talking analog filters here (admittedly the most critical part to have analog but still DCOs and ROMples). Look, I'm underwhelmed by the X it is clearly step backwards and an insult to us DSI fans who were hoping for the X to be something groundbreaking or at least a call back to vector synthesis.

Quite frankly the XW-P1 blows. Nowhere near the same league as the Mojo 61 and likely nowhere near the Numa 2x if it has the Numa Organ engine. The pianos and the EPs in the normal 2 killed the Casio. Plus the action is better. Why give this guy a bum steer? Do we know if the 2x has the Numa Organ 2 engine? The demos don't really show enough yet. But in any case if I was just looking for a stage piano the 2x would be high on my list if I wanted something cheap and light. The Mojo 61 is flat out awesome but I've played the Numa Organ 2 a lot and for B3 they are fairly close. With each being slightly better at certain things. If the 2x has that, watch out.

I just love what Behringer is doing. They are killing it. The D, the DeepMind, now the Odyssey, the string machine vocoder and Pro One plus the drum machines. Uli is really listening to the people and giving the them what they want. The DeepMind and D sound amazing. If they can do that with the Odyssey and the Pro One mannah will rain down from the heavens. And with the UB-X in the works...

If you are bored why are you in this thread? it's what trolls do. So Carlo, Theo and I are trolls now because we aren't impressed with the spec or demos of the Prophet X? Fat chance. Anyone with a negative opinion about a synth is a troll? Every new synth that comes out isn't the second coming of the Model D. Some are turkeys like the X, like the RD64. I'm sure the X is decent but the reality is that it is less of a synth than the P12. It is a ROMpler. A ROMpler?! Dave said people have been asking him for a ROMpler for years so he decided to give the people what they want. I'd like to see who these people really are. They are not synthesists, I'll tell you that. And as far as it's capabilities, the Kronos runs circles around the X at a much lower price and much more polyphony. Not a troll but a bringer of truth. Not every synth can be unicorns and rainbows.

#yawn

The Grandstage is a dynamite board. The APs are excellent. EPs are very very good. I feel that it is hands down better than the Kawai MP7 and SE. Here's the thing, I like the SV-1 better even though the EPs are a little better on the Grandstage and APs a lot better. The SV-1 just has a certain je nais se quoi that the Grandstage lacks. It might be the immediacy of the controls, the sexiness of the design. It just does it for me. The 73 I am just enamored with. The Grandstage though is a great sounding board. My only gripe with both is the RH3 action which feels a bit cheap at first. Once you get acclimated to it, it is expressive and fun to play. The Kawais feel better in a side by side but once you get used to the RH3 it will feel good. Grandstage is a nice improvement over the SV-1 but somehow the SV-1 feels more like a legitimate instrument to me and is the one to have stolen my heart. The Grandstage feels like a Kurzweil but with better sounds.

Dave Smith commented: The Prophet X is a powerful evolution of the Prophet series. Musicians have been asking for samples through real analog flters for a long time. Weve given them not only that, but also all of the synthesis capabilites and awesome sound youd expect from a Prophet. "Dave Smith summed up the new instrument: Composers will love the Prophet X for soundtracks and synth geeks will love it for its sound mangling potential." I'm not here to say I told you so but... Please PM me your kudos. Also I want to see how many of you guys actually drop coin for one. I doubt very many will pony up for it. Honestly it's not up to par ROMplerwise with the Kronos or Montage and not even in the same league synthwise as the incredible Waldorf Quantum. It's really in a no man's land, hence my dire predictions. It is the iPhone X of the keyboard world.

+1 Thank you Marino, you've nailed it. Especially the part about the 150GB of deep samples but only 16 note polyphony. I get that they have to run it through the analog filters but a ROMpler with severely limited polyphony hurts. Aside from the abundance of knobs and analog filters I really don't see how this is substantially different from a Kurzweil or Kronos. I'll take the digital filters with no chance of note cut-off for a 1000 Alex.

Finally now that it's out, I'd like a little love thrown my way. Right on the money. So many naysayers here. Romantic Stack demo says it all. Who doesn't love a synth pad over a piano. As nifty as the detuning was it isn't enough to bring back Whitney Houston. Maybe when Dave Smith starts cranking out the demos we'll hear more of the synth side. This ROMpler mangling is not moving the needle for me dog. Not bad sounding but not practical unless you're producing atmospheres for the local Massage Envy or low budget film scoring. Zero way this works in a musical context. The only way it does is to straight ROMple it and if you're gonna do that there are Kronos, Forte and Montage with articulations etc. This is not what I was expecting from DSI, maybe the demos from 8DIO are biased to the sample playback side but between the limited use musically and the stiff asking price I don't see this one being a success. And don't kid yourselves, in time it won't have the cult following of the PEK. And I am also right about this marking the beginning of the end. Dave jumped the shark with this one. My condolences Mr. Smith.

I'm confident in my prediction that the X will be a 12/ROMpler hybrid. From the demo it sounds like Dave has some Waveshaping/Transwave action going on like the Fizmo or his Evolver. That's it. I'm not saying that the X is going to be a bad synth, the Fizmo and the Evolver were great back in the day. With the analog and wave manipulation the X will be neat. But this is hardly the innovative, game-changing synth we were expecting. So yeah, if I come to you with meh, that is why. This isn't going to have the same impact as when the Poly Evolver Keyboard hit. It's just not that type of synth. If my informed opinion of what the X is going to be is wrong, I will gladly eat crow but I am confident in what I've been hearing and what I've heard in the demos and all signs point to what I've been saying.

You keep saying this but how do you know? Do you know something we don't? It's going to be a Prophet 12 with an 8DIO packed ROMpler and you can take that to the bank.

I'd be too but unfortunately there is no joystick, there are no vectors, it's just a ROMpler/DSI analog. It's great if you want to layer an analog pad over a piano, or crazy modulated sound over a piano, or an LFO UFO patch ala Edgar Winter over a piano, ad nauseam. But you know what? We could already do that type of stuff with any Korg. I wish Bowen would get his act together with the Solaris and show Dave Smith how its done when you have a moral compass and an uncompromising will and passion to create something new, something alive and something awe-inspiring. Dave's got the business acumen to run an efficient company. John has the passion to create unique synths. My personal favorite of the DSI catalog is the Mono Evolver Keyboard. I used that thing so much. It was unique. Then things went south with the Mopho, Tetra and 08. Decent sounds but warmed over #rehash and milked to death, mono keyboard, x4, desktop, 08 desktop, module, Tetra. Like 8 or 9 releases off the same synth design.