Well, spoke too soon about being done for the year. Rytm Mk1 rather quickly had to make room for a Syntakt. Not sure that’ll prove a wise decision. But Syntakt is slightly more portable and works better as standalone groovebox. One thing that bugs me, kind of: 12 tracks may sound like a lot, but some machines sound so thin by themselves, I have to double/triple layer a few of them to build a proper SD for instance. The Rytm seemed to have more punch somehow.
And I got myself a Flame Mäander. Someone sold one close to where I was staying over Xmas. Felt like utter self indulgence. I’ve been too intrigued by this thing ever since it was announced to not want to give it a try though. And it looks like it’s discontinued. Initial verdict: a lot more versatile than expected. Thanks to its seq/synth knob it can switch back and forth easily between huge sounding PWM+unison-4-Voice-Wavetable-synth and sequenced filter bank. Very cool. Too few demos out there and most of them focused of the filter bank side of things, which makes it seem more limited than it is.