Mopho keys & Tetra combo?

[clementshawes]

Anybody have any experience of using this setup?

If all I've read is understood correctly - it is, essentially, a 5-voice analog poly with multi-timbrel ability and full-control over shaping of each voice...

All controllable from the MoPho keyboard itself?

I'd love to hear from anyone using either the MoPho keys with or without the Tetra.

I'm, seriously, considering this as a setup but don't have the means (or geographic location) to test any of them out so I'd rather ask real people than chime in on any old forum or Youtube vids

[alanzo]

Your assumption is correct. I think the tetra can even feed its audio into the Mopho keys and thus you would only need to process the Mopho keys' output.

But you can control the Tetra completely and easily with the Mopho keys. I think it even has a dedicated output or something like that. They designed the mopho keys to work very well with the tetra and vice-versa.

[clementshawes]

Thanks for your response alanzo;

I've been putting a lot of thought into this setup and think this will suit me more than my Virus TI Desktop does now - so its eBay for the TI I think!

[Keysandslots]

I was seriously considering a Mopho Keys for a long time but decided to wait and see what the Ambika turns out like after buying and building two Shruthis. Check out Mutable Instruments for info.

One thing the Mopho Keys has 'though, is the envelope follower, which makes processing external sounds much easier.

Randy

[clementshawes]

@Keysandslots: the Shruthis sure look good though I don't trust myself with building electronics as I'm pretty accident prone!

I just wished I lived somewhere I could test these things out more - I genuinely doubt I'd have bought the Virus TI if I could've played with one first and I'm just so bored of it's sound (this is personal feeling, not a criticism of Access).

Lastly, I think that the DSI sound will go better with my Blofeld than the Virus. I prefer programming the Blo' as the limited control scope makes me think more - the sheer number of knobs on the Virus tends to overwhelm me. This is something I'm hoping that the DSI offering will bring too (I know that the Mopho keys has a lot of things on the front).

[Keysandslots]

Me too, on all counts. For building the Shruthi, I screwed up both of them, mostly because I was in a hurry. The Mutable Instruments forum is full of really smart, really helpful people, lucky for me. If you take your time, it's not a difficult build. I figured they were inexpensive enough that it was worth a try.

I considered the Blofeld too, with the sampling option. I've heard they've had some problems with buggy software 'though.

The knobs on the Mopho Keys was what really got me thinking about it, and I still may get one. My son is starting to get into playing synths a bit (he's a guitar player), and having something with a traditional layout would help him with the basics of VCO, VCA, LFO, envelopes, etc. I also considered the Roland GAIA. Not sure it sounds as good but it's polyphonic.

Randy

[clementshawes]

The GAIA does look really interesting - if not just for it's synthesis but also its filters?

[Keysandslots]

I only really "discovered" the GAIA a few days ago and it seems to have some nice stuff going for it. I thought the audio in was kinda silly at first (it's not a sound source, it really is just a way to run audio into the synth for accompaniment) but, you can also use the synth as a USB interface for your computer, in which case the audio in makes some sense.

And, there's a GM soundset buried inside that can be access via MIDI. Again, kinda odd, but potentially useful for gigs.

Randy

[clementshawes]

I'm covered for interfaces at the moment and I am very happy with my Blofeld keyboard but I might be leaning towards a GAIA if I had to do this all over over again (and didn't have the financial opportunity I previously did).
Iirc, the interface on the GAIA was prone to some noise/hum but that might be addressed now or even an issue with the hardware/setup of that particular reviewer.

I'm more of an experimenter than performer and I wanted to get away from using VST's while having a device to get used to; gigging conditions are of little consequence to me personally but space, use and sound are.

Saying that, the 'beam' aspect of the GAIA looks seriously cool and I am sucker for novelties
I'd still rather have the control-matrix like the Blofeld and Virus have but being able to adjust an LFO by waving my hand does seem 'effing' cool IMO!

[Keysandslots]

If you're an experimenter, you really should wander around the Mutable Instruments site, and the forum in particular. I think you would really enjoy yourself there. I'm also thinking about getting a PreenFM, another small synth module.

Randy

[clementshawes]

Ahh, I purely mean 'experimenter' as in I am not a musician in that I don't 'play' or 'gig' so much as sit down, pull audio apart and feed it through various things before gluing it all back together again.

I wish I had more of a mind for picking up the soldering iron but it just scares the hell out of me

I am looking at their site a lot now though - I could well be tempted to go for a Shruthi-1. Re-reading the blurb, it ticks a lot of boxes that I might not get from the likes of the Mopho...

[clementshawes]

So here I am now deciding on configurations of the Shruthi-1

[renevanderwouden]

I had this combination some years ago. I sold the Tetra because somehow for me the 5 voice mix did not work. It seemed if the Mopho was a bit louder than the Tetra.