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Colossus mega synth - new production run


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I'd love to know a few of the people who actually bought one and WHY. It makes perfect sense that it has no MIDI or USB, but its also like a 70s nerd dream scrawled in a notebook. Its a Wagnerian, more focused version of T.O.N.T.O. Its the Synth Behind the Curtain. Hans Zimmer has been selling things off, so I doubt this will suddenly appear on one wall. Its all too easy to claim that a synthesizer is "good for soundtracks," when that's defined by the film, not the gear. So this thing looks scary. Bryce, make it go away! :eek:

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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How come no one has asked how the realistic the piano patch is? ;)

 

'Cuz it ain't got no real keyboard like a p-nanner does!

 

Grey

 

(The music in the background of the video didn't strike me as all that remarkable sounding--sounded like sounds I could create here for a bunch less money...and with keys that are actually playable.)

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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sounded like sounds I could create here for a bunch less money...and with keys that are actually playable.)

 

 

Funny you wrote that. I was thinking the same thing. I load my Receptor with Alchemy, Massive, Reaktor and Absynth and get crazy deep textures and other-worldly sounds. Any single one of those soft synths can generate awesome sounds and textures on their own, but start layering them....watch out!

Kurzweil Forte, Yamaha Motif ES7, Muse Receptor 2 Pro Max, Neo Ventilator
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Some may recall my theory of "deep oscillators*." I see that this thing has twelve. In the abstract I approve of twelve oscillators on a synth, but I just started counting and I've got at least 17 oscillators...and for a heap less money. I'll have to go downstairs and do a more complete count.

 

For what they want for one of those things, I could go hog-wild on oscillators. (...and VCFs, and VCAs, and...)

 

Grey

 

* For those who missed the foo-for-aw, I have this crazy notion that Mother Nature doesn't limit herself to one, two, or three oscillators. She has an infinite number of oscillators at her disposal. I feel that, well...the more oscillators, the better, assuming that you want to create rich tones that even begin to approximate the complexity of sounds that you hear in the real world. Some here feel that three oscillators are enough--perhaps more than enough to do anything a mere mortal might want to do.

 

My response: Mother Nature ain't no 'mere mortal.'

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Well, this is a super niche thing. It is from a company that makes Eurorack stuff. Not only that, it comes from the other heritage of electronic music - the intentionally keyboard-less side. The Buchla side. The place where sound just exists and doesn't even necessarily have to correspond to standard ideas of pitch and scale. This part of electronic music celebrates randomness as a starting point and then filtering that into structure. So this instrument comes from a completely different galaxy than a piano-based keyboard.

 

The second thing is that it is meant to be a modern version of a very old way of working. It isn't a recreation of anything. But it is a new version of the kind of thing someone would have wished to build or have built for them 50 years ago. I think I saw when this first came out that just the pin matrices are $2k apiece to purchase. That's an expensive mod matrix. Arturia clearly chose a cheaper way to get there, even through they preserved the grid.

 

I suspect that there are film composers who bought, and EDM producers. All of whom would tie this in with a massive Eurorack modular rig. This is for people like Richard Devine, or Alessandro Cortini, not people trying to play jazz and popular music. It's a sonic laboratory - and looks the part. Just like a Steinway D is not most people's first piano purchase, I suspect that the few purchasing this will see it as something they've grown into, and they have the supporting infrastructure to make up for its real limitations. They will appreciate it for what it is. Not for what it lacks or the inconvenience it embodies. It will make a certain "sound" just by its limitation and arrangement, and that will be valued by those who have it. I also suspect they will mangle its output through many other boxes and processors... The modular world is a giant playground.

 

As to many oscillators, Hans Zimmer is known to have ordered modulars with as many as 24 oscillators. This makes sense to me at some level. If you treated each as a "player", one could make a 16 violin "section" and have subtle tuning and envelope differences. Kind of the synthesizer version of what the Vienna Player does with VSL samples.... Humanizing the samples by altering attacks and tuning on a per voice basis...

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Another thought... This is the Schmidt 8-voice for the Euro-rack crowd. It's the deluxe packaging option of a dream setup. It isn't that any of the individual pieces aren't available. But not together. Not with a lot of thought into workflow and ergonomics. Both are products of someone who wanted to build the "dream awesome synth" and didn't let market or practical realities get in the way. These are better understood as art and passion. They aren't mainstream and were never intended to be. Someone made what they wanted, put a price on it that covered manufacturing costs, and sure enough a handful of other people wanted one and would pay. But Korg and Yamaha are not having product management meetings to decide on their response. Dave Smith isn't losing sleep over it. The world of players will laugh and move on. But it has meaning in the world it was intended for.
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... Both are products of someone who wanted to build the "dream awesome synth" and didn't let market or practical realities get in the way. These are better understood as art and passion. They aren't mainstream and were never intended to be. Someone made what they wanted, put a price on it that covered manufacturing costs, and sure enough a handful of other people wanted one and would pay.

 

Much like the Moog KE-1. Compared to it, though, the Colossus is a bargain.

9 Moog things, 3 Roland things, 2 Hammond things and a computer with stuff on it

 

 

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... Both are products of someone who wanted to build the "dream awesome synth" and didn't let market or practical realities get in the way. These are better understood as art and passion. They aren't mainstream and were never intended to be. Someone made what they wanted, put a price on it that covered manufacturing costs, and sure enough a handful of other people wanted one and would pay.

 

Much like the Moog KE-1. Compared to it, though, the Colossus is a bargain.

 

Moog KE-1?

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... Both are products of someone who wanted to build the "dream awesome synth" and didn't let market or practical realities get in the way. These are better understood as art and passion. They aren't mainstream and were never intended to be. Someone made what they wanted, put a price on it that covered manufacturing costs, and sure enough a handful of other people wanted one and would pay.

 

Much like the Moog KE-1. Compared to it, though, the Colossus is a bargain.

 

Moog KE-1?

 

The Emerson modular clones. The KE-1 designation turns up here and there, though I don't know that Moog called it that.

 

 

Moog Keith Emerson Modular

9 Moog things, 3 Roland things, 2 Hammond things and a computer with stuff on it

 

 

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Much like the Moog KE-1. Compared to it, though, the Colossus is a bargain.

 

Moog KE-1?

 

The Emerson modular clones. The KE-1 designation turns up here and there, though I don't know that Moog called it that.

 

 

Moog Keith Emerson Modular

A mere $150,000 each. Hell, I'll take TWO.

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

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