|
this thing rocks!!!!!! i payed 100$(ish) for this thing 6 years ago and its worth every penny many times over. i play everything from world and trance techno to goth industrial to ambient to hardcore metal and im always dusting off this baby. you can get some AMAZING lead sounds out of this thing(jan hammer likescreaming lead guitars anddark gothy ebow sounds, especialy with judicious use of outboard effex) gritty industrial like basses too.it has great tinkly bellsand chimes and other tuned percussion with loads of timbral movement( fm does this better than ANY other kind of synth ive played with.!). never mind the clasic dx style digital piano(listen to any newage recording or sythpop ballad) also you can get realy good digital pads too.ones where the harmonic structure is always changing with time(modulators changing volume ,thus harmonic content with the egall set to slightly diferent times and/or being modulated by the lfo) try geting timbral motion with a sample playback synth,i dare you! this is what makes them seem "lifeless"as real sounds dont behave like sample loops,there is constant timbral variation unfortunately ,to me as i am a gear minimalist(eventually i will be living in an intentional community and all my gear will all have to run off of solar,which limmits how much electricity i can be using to power loads of outboard gear!) loads of effects are necesary for them to seem thick ,although with the cheap electronics on board it sounds way warmer and thicker than any other 4 op synth ive used. its more like a real live"acoustic "instrument than a hyper sterile cold elctronic whizbang noisemaker toy.even when compared to the better synths! that is why i love it so much .it has the sonic charichter of a "real"instrument so lacking in many1000's of $ toys just think... nearly every sound you hear on an eighties music recording(such as the "legend" soundtrack by tangerine dream. im showing my age, i cut my synthesists teeth on another 4 op fm board) or comming fom an oldschool video game/sound card,or toy yamaha keyboard(some very funky sounds there)is from a fm(usually four op) synth!! its all in the production tricks.just think of the old time studio folx and what they had to work with ,to make the music we all know and love. you too CAN sound good for less ,despite what the advertisers tell you. its all in the creative ways you use the tools , not in thetools themselves (we ,as electronic musicians often forget this! its easy to say oh, i NEED this or that new toy so i can realy sound good (after all the advertizers say so!),instead of working what you got to the max! enough of that part of my rant! as a controller this thing rocks too.you can wear it like a guitar, which real helps you "feel into "leads and feel like you are part of your instrument(and visa versa) this thing is tiny tiny TINY(i fit it in my backpack to bring it to gigs, along with my multi-fex pedal) the tiny keys might be a problem for the formally trained pianist types,as would be the lack of the velocity senseing. but i dont care as i learned keyboard on a toy casio that was this size ,so im used to it! (besides picture doing runs on a keyboard where you have easily an octave and a half reach!) your whole way of looking at playing changes when you play this thing strapped to you, and youre in "begginners mind" as a controler also , there is a breath controller jack and apedal jack that send midi out. also the data slider and the volume slider seem to send some kind of signal out too , as they cause my tx81 z to respond( hmmm ,i wonder if you could use those as realtime controllers for,say another synth....?) al in all if this thing were velocity sensitve id marry it(it is from external control,which is good for controller data sequences and stuff but defeats the perpose of wailing with it around your neck!) as i said it "needs" effects especially to sound conteporary,but all and all its a vastly under appreciated wondersynth that does a few things VERY well! id never sell mine in a million years, and im looking for someone to hotwire it for me to se what other mayhem we can do! have fun with your toys!!! agape
|
listings
