Dsi evolver + ot

The Lounge Other Gear
#23

I finally picked up an Evolver recently and love it. It had been on my wish list for nearly 10 years. I initially wanted it for its analog VCOs, but what brought it back to the top of my list was its digital ones. That and the fact that after a long run, it’s going out of production as DSI is focusing more on the Prophet line these days.

The final things that pushed me into “alright, I should really buy it now” are its effects (the harsh noise side of me loves its distortion) and a broad bank of modulation options (24 sources, 75 destinations; only the Pro 2 and Prophet-12 have more). It’s a really unique little beast and I don’t know anything in its price range like it.

I was able to do a lot, from some simple synth sounds to pulsating harsh noise chaos, pretty immediately. But what’s really helping me to appreciate it is an in-depth PDF guide available from here (under “Definitive Guide”): http://www.carbon111.com/evolver.html

1 Like
#24

I’d like to get my hands on one for many of the same reasons jshell has mentioned.

They’re also rather inexpensive at the moment if you know where to shop.
I’m a big fan of synths with two filters, synths that have OSCs as mod sources and have more than one LFO, synths that have their own sequencers, and synths with sequencers that respond to MIDI transport commands, and can produce polyrhythms. Evolver ticks all those boxes.

#26

This synth is the essence of everything I care about Dave Smith and his very clever designs. So unique. It’s worth the money as an external FX processor alone. Gawd damn it, now I want one again.[/quote]
Yes, this is pretty awesome but I’ll be damned if I can use the matrix setup the way this dude does without breaking half my wife’s fine china (joking) … but you know what I mean. The few months I had this synth were fun, but there were a lot more disastrous chaotic sounds coming out of it than in this video.

#27

Same here, I regret selling mine and now with the OT I would be in 7th heaven.
I have a Shruthi-1 as a poor replacement…

#28

It’s definitely one where practice makes perfect - it’s easy to have fun after a long gap in playing one, but boy does that tiny font matrix UI with cryptic code take some time getting back up to full speed again - worth it for the sound (and the incredible spec)

#29

How does the Tempest engine compare to the Evolver engine?

#31

I was simply wondering how close they were soundwise and if the Tempest had the same modulation capabilities

#32

The Tempest is, approximately, 6 Evolver voices. However, there are some differences that may or may not be important to you:

[ul]
[li]Tempest’s modulation facilities are slightly more percussion oriented (more envelopes (6-stage), fewer LFOs than Evolver, if I remember correctly)[/li]
[li]Tempest includes additional percussion waveforms but cannot load custom waveforms like Evolver[/li]
[li]Tempest adds sub oscillator but loses the Evolver’s second filter path[/li]
[li]some people claim that the Tempest’s digital waveform playback is glitchy[/li]
[/ul]

#33

The Tempest is, approximately, 6 Evolver voices. [/quote]
Oooh, I might truly love that then…

#34

Tempest also gives you 5th OSC via 1 sub OSC an octave below OSC 1.

#35

Very old thread but would really love a proper Evolver editor. Did you get to finish that?

#36

Erm, awkward … still at that work in progress stage

#37

I have this synth from a friend a few months ago and played with it a few times! It isn’t that great for jamming live with other hardware in my opinion/setup! I’m still need to try it with Digitone sequencing the evolver. I always wanted the MEK or PEK version of this synth but at that time way too much money for me. I think evolver works better as a soundmodule in your daw! It could be me that I hate matrix synths, to difficult for me. Also some parameters you use a lot are placed weirdly like for example cutoff and resonance! It’s a supercool synth soundwise and I would buy the keyboardversion if I find it cheap but they had lots of problems with the first series potentiometers. The evolver desktop is in my opinion cheaply build for example
-most knobs fall of
-it doesn’t have a powerswitch

#38

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but the evolver was the worst sounding synth I ever heard in my life. Once I got the Monomachine, I sold the evolver immediately. I couldn’t believe the difference in sound quality. And the interface… goodness gracious…

#40

have you ever heard the Poly evolver?

#41

In videos, I never owned or used one. I only had a desktop evolver

#42

I was blown away by that synth when the musicshop had one! the desktop version can do a lot and sounds great actually but can also sound very gritty and dirty thx to the digital part.
There are some very nice ambient pad things I heard on it.