portable battery-powered Synth ?

FaschingsPrinz

Hello friends,

since I switched from driving by car to work to taking the train, I have some spare-time left every day now to make some music (2h/day).
The idea is to find a battery-powered Synth to do this.
I have already a Korg monotron, but this is not enough.
The synth should of course be fitting into a rucksack, so maximum 25 keys, if any.
Roland Gaia and Novation UltraNova are 37keys and therefor too "big" and above 300-400€ which would be the financial limit for this.
The only thing I was able to find until now is the NOVATION XIOsynth (new; over budget) or a used NOVATION X-STATION, which I would prefer, because of it having lots of knobs and sliders to tweak.
Since I´m more into making noodles, it could also be a synth without keys at all but lots of knobs, potis and sliders.
Doesn´t need to have USB, and MIDI is not required either since I intend to use just my Tascam DP-008 for multi-track recording (if at all).

Do you have some ideas what (besides the x-station) could be a synth fitting to my specs ?

Thanx a lot in advance,
FaschingsPrinz
(Austria)

v-un-v · Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:19 am Post subject:

Hi FaschingsPrinz!

The answer is simple! You need an iPad! Cool

Bebot, the sing-ging robot, digs Floyd!!

Cheesey ambient nanostudio techno;

Dark Jasuto beauty;

iMS-20 does the most hilarious rendition of JMJ Oxygene ever....

FunkBox, the cutest little drumkomputer out there!

"in the court of the iPad king"?

IPad Oddity?

And then the most downright strange, weird and schizophrenic! Shocked

Who slipped coffee in my acid into R2D2? Shocked

So there you go. Going cheap on eBay right now! Wink

FaschingsPrinz · Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:57 am Post subject:

^^
..this was my other option.
Since the iPad2 is out now and the people were already camping out in front of the Apple-stores to get there hands on it, I was thinking of getting a used iPad(1) 64GB and doing the reactable-thing on it, since the hardware reactable would still require a lottery-bulls-eye for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE_M5tlrLME
(sorry, but I´m too stupid embedding a movie here)

not my type of music, but at least looks promising.
Have to find how many osc's, filters, amps and lfos can be running parallel (if at all) and how to get samples (sine, saw, triangle, square, wavetalbe?) into the thing.

... you think, that the iPad is the only option ?

FP

v-un-v · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 5:30 am Post subject:

v-un-v · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 5:34 am Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:45 pm Post subject:

How about an OP1 http://www.teenageengineering.com/

You might have to wait a while though!

v-un-v · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:28 pm Post subject:

Andy, are you getting an OP-1?

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:46 pm Post subject:

Nope, I wanted one when they first started the hype but not now.

I think the iPad has more for cheaper

Antimon · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:05 pm Post subject:

The OP-1 is cute. It seems they are consciously making it look like a toy, but I think it's able to do some cool stuff.

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:54 pm Post subject:

You Swedes stick together eh Smile

Antimon · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:14 pm Post subject:

Nothing must get in the way of our plan to take over the world! Wink

FaschingsPrinz · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:26 pm Post subject:

.. the question to me meanwhile is not, which way it will go; It´s definitely going to be the iPad route - not only for me, but I think in general.
Which is the same direction the Reactable leads.
The direction of a quantum-leap on the man-machine interfaces in everybodys life.
Like the glas-table of the Master Control Program already envisioned in TRON (1982).

But on the other hand,- when then everything is going to be glas-table and gesture and conducting around in the air in a few years - and I can´t wait until we are there, because I love neat interfaces -, we are all going to be much further away from the root of subtractiv-synthesis on a hardware-synth, step by step; Where you started the creation of a new sound from the white canvas of a 1kHz Pulse or a pink noise the 20th century-way.
And when I´m (personaly) going to be there, which synth would be able to satisfy a short appetite for a little bit of VCO-VCA-VCF-LFO fooling around with real knobs, sliders and buttons on a small synth ?
Easy to store, battery-driven, stand-alone, free of the need for a laptop (with then stoneage-old operating-systems).
That´s why I choose to go for the X-Station25, before I´m going to 'jump through the mirror' too.

FaschingsPrinz

GovernorSilver · Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:52 pm Post subject:

After reading this article and watching the simple demo video here, I'm interested in the OP-1:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/06/teenage-engineering-op-1-hands-on-video-thoughts-from-one-beta-user/

The lack of velocity sensitivity might be an issue for some, but I use Nanostudio on my iPhone - which has no velocity sensitivity - for entering song ideas, and it hasn't been an issue for me. I do understand though it could be irritating to have to edit dynamics and whatnot after the fact, if one wanted a drum part to be soft, then loud, then soft again as the song progresses.

Anyway, the OP-1 looks like an interesting mini-workstation for composing (albeit composing electronic music, not for 80-piece orchestra) while riding the subway. I understand the "looks like a toy" comments because it visually appears to be made of white plastic, but it is actually mostly metal that happens to be painted white. Nanostudio is a great app, but the hardware UI of the OP-1 looks appealing

The 6 min. limitation for recording audio may also be an issue for some, but I'd probably be using the sequencer and internal synth engine instead of samples for "on-commute" writing.

I do wonder if the OP-1 can send MIDI clock from its internal sequencer, since it is advertised as being able to function as a MIDI controller. It would be nice to be able to sync external MIDI sequences running in Ableton Live, a Nord G2, etc. to it.

modulator_esp · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:22 am Post subject:

Fun battery powered analog synths you might find interesting if you can find them

yamaha cs-01
chimera bc-16

also, given that you like noodles, maybe a netbook and the nord G2 demo, adding usb controllers as required

v-un-v · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:37 am Post subject:

modulator_esp · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:46 am Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:17 am Post subject:

An OP-1 arrived today, they are very small!

Antimon · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:41 pm Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:56 pm Post subject:

Initial impressions:

Very small, easy to slip into a small bag for travelling.

Solid and sturdy, metal not plastic.

Deeper synthesis than I thought it would have.

Hissy with EMI type noise, sounds like you can hear the processor. Has a singlecoil pickup type noise about it!

Bad manual!

Strange saving and tape system.

So far I think it is an interesting thing, definately different!

You can get some good sounds out of it as well, I think the tape system is going to take a bit of getting used to, I had forgotten how unforgiving portastudios where!

GovernorSilver · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:21 pm Post subject:

Congrats, Andy! Let us know when you get around to evaluating the MIDI functionality (can the sequencer sync to external sequencers, etc.).

Also, it seems like the accelerometer is intended to compensate for lack of velocity sensitivity. I'd be curious as to how playable the OP-1 actually is, when the accelerometer must be used to introduce dynamics instead of key velocity - does it feel awkward, intuitive, or somewhere in between?

Antimon · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:24 pm Post subject:

GovernorSilver · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:37 pm Post subject:

I hope you two are joking!

v-un-v · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:43 am Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:05 am Post subject:

$4.99, what a rip off!