Jim Alfredson

The Trigon is great. The PolyBrute is the best analog poly of the last 20 years, imo.

Meh. Where’s my PolyBrute 12?

Mike D is a good drummer. One of my favorite cuts back in the day (high school) was this jam.

It's an amazing production all around. Lots of cheese factor yet sneaky changes (a David Foster hallmark), era-defining DX7 goodness, and great arrangement. It helps that Peter Cetera has one of those voices that is incredible, almost otherworldly. One thing to note: This was his first number 1 hit as a solo artist, from his debut album after he left Chicago. He was 42 years old when this hit. I think that in and of itself is stunning. Say what you want about the guy but it took a lot of courage to leave Chicago at the height of their popularity and go solo at his age. And then to have a string of number 1's afterwards is simply remarkable. It also speaks to how drastically the business has changed since then. The charts are so youth orientated and dominated that you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore, with the exception of Beyoncé, who is 42 as well and just reached #1 with Texas Hold 'Em. The 80s were special in that regard. You had the new acts alongside bands and artists that started in the late 60s and 70s, all mashed up on the charts together. Look at the Billboard Top 100 for 1986, when Glory of Love was released, and you see Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Genesis, Michael McDonald, and Lionel Richie next to Madonna, Simple Minds, Pet Shop Boys, Human League, Simply Red, Prince, INXS, Howard Jones, OMD, and other quintessential 80s artists. I think about this stuff often. My favorite band, Genesis, gets a lot of flack for going pop, but to me it's another example of taking a huge risk. Those guys were all in their late 30s when Invisible Touch hit. They'd been at it for over half their lives already. And far from selling out, they made really interesting pop that sounds like nobody else. I'm not sure how anybody can fault that. You don't have to like it, but it's still remarkable. It's hard to see someone making it today like that. The business is just so different.

The Medeli action of the PC4 is a nice compromise for the weight but the Fatar in the K2700 is far superior and more enjoyable to play. But that comes at the cost of increased weight. The PC4 is under 28lbs. The K2700 is almost double at 52lbs.

PolyBrute 2!

The quality control still wasn't up to par in the 80s, though. While the Mk2 models generally played better, they were not always set up for the correct escapement and strike line. I just finished a Mk2 Stage 73 and the strike line was WAY off in the bass end and the escapement was off by 1/16". I had to tap new holes in the metal end piece and add some shims. It plays fine as far as the action (though I did re-felt the balance and front rail bushings) but now it sounds like it should in the bass end. The earlier VV models were not quite there. Chick Corea told them as much when they sent one to him. The new models, with the action improvements, are more than 'there', they completely surpass the old ones.

A truly underrated synth. Dave Smith was always visibly excited about it at NAMM and GearFest. You could tell he was really proud of the synth. Unforunately the sample management is not intuitive and hampers an otherwise great instrument. Add to that the lack of support early on from 8Dio in regards to sample libraries and it's a shame that it's discontinued, though not really a surprise. I adore mine. I think it's more organic and inspiring than the Waldorf Quantum.

The original sample is in the Emulator II factory library, which is easily downloadable in wav format on the internets.

It won't play as good as the VV, I guarantee it. The improvements they made to the action are long overdue and fix the historically glaring problems with the original Rhodes action in a very smart and more importantly consistent and adjustable way. Kudos to them. It looks amazing and I'm sure it sounds incredible.

That's a tough one. I would have to say the PolyBrute. It's like a modern Matrix-12. If rumors of the new one are true, that's the one to get. 12 voice, polyaftertouch. Yep yep yep. It can do pretty much everything you want an analog to do.

Nice fix. The first batch of Kurzweil PC4 boards suffer from a wonky pitch wheel, too. Not fun on the gig.

The Arturia sounds nice but it's pretty obvious which is which. That said, it could be a simple matter of patch programming. For example, the French Horn patch on the Arturia sounded radically different than the OB-X8 and the OB-X8 does indeed sound the same as the original OB-Xa patch.

A very nice write-up by Jexus on the PolyBrute and his sound pack is pretty incredible. Interesting to note that the keys are slightly smaller than standard keys. We're talking a few millimeters. Weird. https://sounds-for-synths.com/arturia-polybrute/

Those contacts look like Fatar to me, but I don't know which model.