Sam Mullins Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 I've been thinking for a couple months about getting a real (not VA) analog synth; I haven't had one since I sold my Micro Moog many years ago. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with the intro riff to "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" running on endless loop through my head. I figured this was a sign So I got up and did a quick scan of my tax situation to make sure I wouldn't regret this in a couple months and then pulled the trigger on a DSI Tetra. The "MF" store has a 15% discount running right now so I ended up paying only $680 for four true analog voices. $170 per voice is not bad! My plan is to create a template for my Novation X-Station to control most of the sound parameters. I did a search on the web and found one person that had done a rudimentary template (just CC, not NRPN) for the Mopho. If anyone has done a relatively complete template for the Tetra, I would love to get it from you. If this doesn't work out well, I may sell it and buy the Mopho keyboard (to polychain) at some point. Time to dig out that old Bruford album One of a Kind to check out the other Dave Stewart's cool Prophet work. For those that haven't heard, here is a sample: [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFoYsqVqDcU Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnchop Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 I love that tune! Dave Stewart is a madman. I waffle on diving into the real analog thing. VA (the ones I have) covers pads and basses really well, but I really feel the difference with lead sounds. Aliasing issues, lack of "punch", and the comparatively coarse resolution for filter and resonance control are turn-offs for that application. I make do, but I still eye the Moog LP for this reason. Anyway, enjoy the purchase... and post some noises! I make software noises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 3, 2012 Author Share Posted February 3, 2012 I waffle on diving into the real analog thing. VA (the ones I have) covers pads and basses really well, but I really feel the difference with lead sounds. Aliasing issues, lack of "punch", and the comparatively coarse resolution for filter and resonance control are turn-offs for that application. I make do, but I still eye the Moog LP for this reason. Yeah...I was considering a slim phatty also. It looks like the front panel editing is more straightforward and you get that moog sound. But in the end I opted for the polyphony and flexibility of the tetra. Maybe the moog will join it next year Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mogut Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with the intro riff to "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" running on endless loop through my head. I figured this was a sign Then you better get you a Roland SH-09 or Juno 6 -Greg Motif XS8, MOXF8, Hammond XK1c, Vent Rhodes Mark II 88 suitcase, Yamaha P255 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 3, 2012 Author Share Posted February 3, 2012 Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with the intro riff to "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" running on endless loop through my head. I figured this was a sign Then you better get you a Roland SH-09 or Juno 6 But how am I going to sneak those in without my wife noticing? Of course this will keep me off Animoog on her ipad...so she should be happy, right? Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthguy Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 "Hell's Bells"! Poop, now I'll have to dig up some UK and Eddie Jobson to keep Dave S's stuff from getting stuck in my head. Then ELP, then Jeff Beck, then... But seriously, I'm going to see how much real analog I can add to the pile of toys this year. Dave Smith's Curtis-based gear sounds a little sheenier and prettier than his classic Prophets, but since when is that a bad thing? Then again, the Evolvers get as nasty as they come when you start overdriving things to the brink of destruction. But since when is that a bad thing? By the way, you're not a real gear junky until you've gone someplace like here. Go on, you know you want to. Don't hate me afterwards. And don't forget to download Synthinvent. It even prices your synth as you build it. I built a system which is almost-not-quite-but-just-about perfect, and I only need a little over $12K for it. Anyone up for floating me about ten grand? This keyboard solo has obviously been tampered with! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonksDream Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Time to dig out that old Bruford album One of a Kind to check out the other Dave Stewart's cool Prophet work. For those that haven't heard, here is a sample: [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFoYsqVqDcU I wore out multiple copies of that album on vinyl working out the time and the guitar parts! I did a transcription in college that I got a great mark on and never got back from my prof. Instrumentation is meaningless - a song either stands on its own merit, or it requires bells and whistles to cover its lack of adequacy, much less quality. - kanker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marino Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Hey, hearing that song after several years inspired me to program that sound on the MEK. Lots of fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 By the way, you're not a real gear junky until you've gone someplace like here. Go on, you know you want to. Don't hate me afterwards. And don't forget to download Synthinvent. It even prices your synth as you build it. I built a system which is almost-not-quite-but-just-about perfect, and I only need a little over $12K for it. But it could double as a space heater and you could lower your energy bills. Cool sites! Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Isn't your return to analog a "Forward to the Past", not a "Back to the Future"? A bunch of loud, obnoxious music I USED to make with friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 I wore out multiple copies of that album on vinyl working out the time and the guitar parts! I did a transcription in college that I got a great mark on and never got back from my prof. I actually found a complete transcription today: CLONK HERE Haven't played through it but looks promising. The person who posted it didn't do the transcription so maybe it's yours Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Isn't your return to analog a "Forward to the Past", not a "Back to the Future"? I go back and forth...just like Billy Pilgrim. Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pulse Field Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 My plan is to create a template for my Novation X-Station to control most of the sound parameters. I did a search on the web and found one person that had done a rudimentary template (just CC, not NRPN) for the Mopho. If anyone has done a relatively complete template for the Tetra, I would love to get it from you. If this doesn't work out well, I may sell it and buy the Mopho keyboard (to polychain) at some point. hi Sam, last year I was thinking the exact same thing, that a Tetra would go nicely on the empty space on my XS61 panel, seemed a perfect fit! But I downloaded the Tetra manual and noticed that lots of crucial parameters (filter cutoff, BPM, LFO freqs, mod amounts, etc.) go way beyond the range of what the X-Station can send for any control, which is only 0-127. Apparently that's a hardwired part of the X-Station's OS, and that was a deal-breaker for me. So if you wanted to assign X-Station' ENV DEPTH knob to control Tetra's filter envelope amount, for instance, that knob could only send values Tetra would interpret as -127 to 0. But that control needs values from -128 to +128, and there's no way to do that on the X-Station, you'd only ever be able to send negative envelope amounts, never positive values. Iirc that's the same for literally every modulation amount on Tetra, and again iirc for all other modern DSI instruments too. You could do some sort of hybrid setup where you used your X-Station to control only those Tetra parameters that need 0-127, and then use the four assignable knobs on the Tetra panel for anything that goes beyond either 0-127 or -63 to +63. That may be good enough for what you need, but it would mean you'd only ever be able to change four of those settings at one time, and you'd have to do lots of front-panel twiddling on every patch to get the ones you need set up correctly on Tetra. For me that wasn't worth the trouble, but ymmv. hth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mullins Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 My plan is to create a template for my Novation X-Station to control most of the sound parameters. I did a search on the web and found one person that had done a rudimentary template (just CC, not NRPN) for the Mopho. If anyone has done a relatively complete template for the Tetra, I would love to get it from you. If this doesn't work out well, I may sell it and buy the Mopho keyboard (to polychain) at some point. hi Sam, last year I was thinking the exact same thing, that a Tetra would go nicely on the empty space on my XS61 panel, seemed a perfect fit! But I downloaded the Tetra manual and noticed that lots of crucial parameters (filter cutoff, BPM, LFO freqs, mod amounts, etc.) go way beyond the range of what the X-Station can send for any control, which is only 0-127. Apparently that's a hardwired part of the X-Station's OS, and that was a deal-breaker for me. So if you wanted to assign X-Station' ENV DEPTH knob to control Tetra's filter envelope amount, for instance, that knob could only send values Tetra would interpret as -127 to 0. But that control needs values from -128 to +128, and there's no way to do that on the X-Station, you'd only ever be able to send negative envelope amounts, never positive values. Iirc that's the same for literally every modulation amount on Tetra, and again iirc for all other modern DSI instruments too. You could do some sort of hybrid setup where you used your X-Station to control only those Tetra parameters that need 0-127, and then use the four assignable knobs on the Tetra panel for anything that goes beyond either 0-127 or -63 to +63. That may be good enough for what you need, but it would mean you'd only ever be able to change four of those settings at one time, and you'd have to do lots of front-panel twiddling on every patch to get the ones you need set up correctly on Tetra. For me that wasn't worth the trouble, but ymmv. hth Thanks, hth. I don't get my Tetra until Monday or Tuesday, but I sat down yesterday with the manual and the X-Station template editor and came to the same conclusion as you; there are several parameters that go beyond 127 and therefore use the upper byte of the NRPN, which the X-Station doesn't support. Some parameters (e.g. filter frequency) can also be controlled via CC. In those cases, I'm guessing the DSI maps the CC range to the full internal tetra control range, albeit at a lowered resolution. But it's looking like I will use the software editor for sound development and just focus the X-station template on the parameters that are more oriented towards real-time control. Minor bummer, but still psyched about the arrival. Thanks again for your detailed response. Yamaha CK88, Arturia Keylab 61 MkII, Moog Sub 37, Yamaha U1 Upright, Casio CT-S500, Mac Logic/Mainstage, iPad Camelot, Spacestation V.3, QSC K10.2, JBL EON One Compact www.stickmanor.com There's a thin white line between fear and fury - Stickman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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