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 Forum index » Instruments and Equipment » General Discussion
Synth for ambient electro, nowave, free jazz
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nsfx



Joined: Aug 10, 2006
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:05 pm    Post subject: Synth for ambient electro, nowave, free jazz Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hey guys it's my birthday and I received some money so it's time to dodge the savings account and blow it all on music equipment.

So I'm in the market for a more modern synth. I used to have an SH-101 but sold it off because it lacked polyphony and MIDI support. I did like the "knobbiness" of the SH-101 however. Going into a menu on an LCD to model a sound is not what I'm looking for.

I'm not an expert at synthesis by any means but I did manage to figure out most of the controls and routing on the SH-101, and I'd welcome a synth with even more modeling capability. I'm mainly interested in synthesizing ambient sounds, noise, feedback... not so much leads or pads. I do a lot of field recordings and if possible I'd like to process, slice, cut, mash, distort, decimate, & play them on a synth... not sure if that's possible. I'd also like to model some minimal drum hits, simple bleeps, blips. Mostly I'd do this live, but maybe sometimes some simple sequencing & programming from my laptop via a MIDI card. All in all, a synth to: a) give me lots of stuff to play around with in a live experimental setting (if you've ever heard the synthist in Upsilon Acrux, this is what I'm talking about), and b) maybe churn out some minimal electro beats backed by soft ambient background textures.

Something tells me this isn't achieveable with 1 unit, but if you have any suggestions or comments I'd appreciate it. My budget is ~$500, maybe 7 or $800 if I sell some other equipment. I've been looking at Korg MS2000 / MS2000B, Alesis Ion, Waldorf XTk. Thanks!
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blue hell
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Joined: Apr 03, 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

party! happy birthday and welcome

Very Happy

I'm not seeing clavia on your list Very Happy

A used Nord Modular would be within your price range. It would you give you audio ins and all the tools you need to chop things up.

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also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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Mohoyoho



Joined: Dec 03, 2003
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Location: Tennessee
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The MS2000 would be good. A used Waldorf Q or Virus would be better. The Ion would work as well.
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kvnvk



Joined: Aug 27, 2006
Posts: 105
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:09 am    Post subject: Re: Synth for ambient electro, nowave, free jazz Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

nsfx wrote:
Hey guys it's my birthday and I received some money so it's time to dodge the savings account and blow it all on music equipment.

So I'm in the market for a more modern synth. I used to have an SH-101 but sold it off because it lacked polyphony and MIDI support. I did like the "knobbiness" of the SH-101 however. Going into a menu on an LCD to model a sound is not what I'm looking for.

I'm not an expert at synthesis by any means but I did manage to figure out most of the controls and routing on the SH-101, and I'd welcome a synth with even more modeling capability. I'm mainly interested in synthesizing ambient sounds, noise, feedback... not so much leads or pads. I do a lot of field recordings and if possible I'd like to process, slice, cut, mash, distort, decimate, & play them on a synth... not sure if that's possible. I'd also like to model some minimal drum hits, simple bleeps, blips. Mostly I'd do this live, but maybe sometimes some simple sequencing & programming from my laptop via a MIDI card. All in all, a synth to: a) give me lots of stuff to play around with in a live experimental setting (if you've ever heard the synthist in Upsilon Acrux, this is what I'm talking about), and b) maybe churn out some minimal electro beats backed by soft ambient background textures.

Something tells me this isn't achieveable with 1 unit, but if you have any suggestions or comments I'd appreciate it. My budget is ~$500, maybe 7 or $800 if I sell some other equipment. I've been looking at Korg MS2000 / MS2000B, Alesis Ion, Waldorf XTk. Thanks!


Doing the noise/ambient/experimental thing myself for the last several years and I've gone through lots of different equipment, some of which has already been mentioned (original Nord Modular, Waldorf XT, Korg MS2000, Alesis Micron [little brother to the Ion]). You'd probably be lucky to get a Waldorf XTk for less than $900 unless you just found someone locally who didn't know what it was worth.
Personally I'd suggest a synth, multieffects processor and sampler. Nord Modular is good for a wide variety of sounds... glitchy, grainy, harsh & noisy, deep infinite drones... I also like the Korg MS2000, which can easily get a harsh, noisy tone and also does some decent drones, only it tends to have a mid-rangey sound. You could also go with a Micro Korg as it's basically the same sound engine as the MS2000 just scaled back on the contol surface. Then also, if you aren't concerened with actually playing the synth you could opt for the MS2000R (rack version) which will allow you to trigger patch sounds from the 16 buttons along the bottom of the unit, even has a couple of extra buttons which will let you play the sounds over a range of a few octaves. Both the Korg and Nord imo benefit from external effects processing. Plenty of options available in this area, I used to use an Alesis Midiverb 4, decent effects at an affordable price (recently sold mine to a friend for $60), only thing is depending on effects settings I found it would easily clip even with moderate signal levels. Currently using two Sony processors, one of which is a DPS V55 and I've noticed those are selling pretty cheap on Ebay these days, usually around $150. As for samplers people are practically giving away their old hardware units these days as most are going the software route. Not certain what to suggest here, I mostly use a variety of phrase samplers myself (Roland SP-404, Digitech JamMan, Korg KP-3) in order to play back loops of various field recordings. I recently got a copy of the Audiomulch software for my laptop (and a free version of Cool Edit to edit the sample loop start/end points) and it does a pretty good job of multiple, unsynced loop playback similar to what I've been doing with the hardware units, and at a fraction of the cost.
Another synth option you might consider is a Micro Korg and Dave Smith Instruments Evolver, you could probably pick up both used for between $600-700, the Evolver is definitely capable of creating some serious noise with all the distortion and feedback options it has available.
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Flounder



Joined: May 13, 2007
Posts: 2
Location: Virginia, USA

PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 9:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

you could definitely get your "noise, sound, ambience" etc with a Kurzweil K2500/2600/2661

But they also cost a ridiculous amount of money Sad


FIRST POST 0mg h4x
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robles



Joined: May 20, 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Takoma Park, MD

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:42 pm    Post subject: Waldorf Blofeld Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Coming out very soon, brand new, 16 channels (1 instrument per channel) 25 note polyphony, audio input, software editor for your computer, 2 filter per instrument, effects. Basically, the Waldorf Blofeld is your all in one synth package for about, yes, $500.
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