Hey all, hoping for a bit of informed advice and I’m wondering what would serve me better? My dream is an OB6 but my pockets aren’t that deep yet, so I was very intrigued when I heard about the TEO 5 as it seems like a cost price alternative with more modulation possibilities. But I’ve had one eye on a syntrx 2 for quite a while as I own a Perkons and would love to team them up together. My dilemma is this, will a more bread and butter synth serve me better or will the sound design possibilities and overall weirdness of the syntrx 2 suit my needs? If you had the option of either of the two what would you choose?
I should mention I’ve got a few samplers and drum machines but no keys as I’m not a keys player, I’m more of a wiggler. I like the weird stuff you can do when you treat any given box as an instrument and play them so that’s why I’ve always been drawn to what the Syntrx 2 offers, but there’s always been that desire to have a workhorse poly that can give me some lovely pads or a great lead almost instantly.
Buckle down and learn some theory with a good poly, or get weird and drone off into the void with the Syntrx 2?
Cheers.
Hi, welcome to the forum. A couple of important pieces of information are going to be:
A) your outside budget and
B) roughly the style of music you hope to create with it.
This is helpful but when you put it that way, someone could recommend virtually anything and it will mostly fit the description.
Tell us how you want to interact with it, do you want it to have keys? Do you want to use a midi controller? Do you like drum pads? Do you want advanced routing like a semi modular or are you happy menu diving? How much desk space do you have for it?
I’m just trying to ask a few things that will help you get better answers, but with that said at the end of the day you probably want a hydrasynth or something with room to grow which you can also afford.
Buying an esoteric synth as your first purchase will probably lead you back to a more bread and butter synth purchase later. I’d say that buying something a bit more conventional will help you see what you do and do not want in a synth, and that piece of gear will always be good at what it does.
Sometimes with more experimental equipment they do what they do really well, but if you want a new trick you end up buying another synth. I don’t get the impression that your goal is a bottomless pit of synth purchases so good to make decisions based on the presumption that no one synth will fill all roles, but many can perform quite a few tricks very adequately.
Everyone is different, but as someone that came from a sampler background before getting into synths, I would suggest getting something that is easy to use as your first synth. My first two synths (MicroKorg and DSI Explorer) were really hard to program as a novice and that experience totally ruined synths for me for many years. I basically thought I hated synths.
Two synths that I can suggest that sound great and are very easy to use are the Moog Grandmother and the Yamaha Reface CS, depending on if you want mono or poly and what your budget is. I also have a Take 5, which is excellent, but it’s pretty pricey so I’d suggest maybe seeing if synths are for you before taking the plunge on something that expensive. My suggestion would therefore be the Reface CS. It’s hard to get a bad sound of it, it’s very versatile, has lots of polyphony, and is cheap on the used market. Even if you move on to other synths eventually, it’s a joy to use and is very portable, so I bet you would continue to find uses for it.
Someone recently pointed me to this awesome video of it. This was played into just a little multitrack and paired with a cheap Korg sequencer. It should give you an idea of the sounds you can get without having to add external effects.
Some ideas of other sounds you can get out of it. I dig the Twin Peaks patch in the first one.
Are you aware sequencers like: squarp hapax, oxi one, and synthstrom deluge? you could start your synth hunt by swearing off keys and then look for a synth module to control with these devices
getting a premium specialist synth might leave you dissapointed.
all rounder poly is the best choice in my opinion (and im not talking about OB6 and TEO5, those still specialize in bread and butter)
something like hydrasynth, that can both do regular things, and go wild with sound design.
desktop module is what id suggest if keys are not your input method of choice.
How’s your synth programming knowledge?
Do you know what an LFO does? Modulation? What the difference between a Sine and a Triangle are? How about a Square wave? Ever worked with a mod matrix?
I ask because if you don’t know those things, or at least a few of them, and know them comfortably, then a complicated synth is something you’re going to use like 8% of.
I wish I’d thought about this kind of thing years ago when I was looking at specifications and thinking that’s what I wanted.
If you don’t know many of those things, I can’t say enough good things about a used Korg Monologue and a few weeks of watching (and following) tutorials for it (of which there are MANY good ones).
It’s a subtractive synth tutorial in a box, and is pretty much knob-per-function for what it is. It’s simple. It sounds good. It doesn’t have ANY extras; super basic (thought it does have a sequencer that’s quite fun to muck around with). And they’re super cheap used, and pretty small.
Once you’ve mastered that, then you can get some of the ‘big boys’ of synth-ing.
The Op mentioned a poly synth, why not try a korg minilogue? Not too expensive and a piece of gear that is loved by many. And 4 voice may be enough especially if not really a keyboard player.
Out of honesty I should mention that I have never tried one myself, but had lot of fun with the monologue, my first analogue mono synth.
If I have to start now and I can afford just one synth to do it all, it would be Arturia MiniFreak. I have the VST version and love the simplicity and the deepness of it.
While there is something to be said for not overthinking this choice too much, you do want to spend enough to get quality and flexibility, but not so much that you might regret it, or feel guilty for not playing it enough. Out of all the choices mentioned in this thread, I might pick the Hydrasynth Explorer. You can do fine just playing presets with simple tweaking, but as you get into sound design, there is a lot of depth and scope. You should try one in a shop, though, to make sure the smaller keys work for you. You said you were not a keys player, but if you have any ambitions in that direction, you probably want something with full-sized keys.
If the OB-6 is the dream and the TEO-5 is within reach, is a used OB-6 not a possibility? I’ve seen the keyboard version go for £100-ish more than the TEO-5 RRP a few times. There’ll probably be a few getting listed up with the TEO-5 and Muse coming out.
IME substituting the thing you really, really want generally just delays the inevitable and ends up costing you more money in the long run.
It depends on a lot of things, mainly typologies and budget, in my opinion:
Best “budget” synths: HS Explorer, Minilogue
Best mono synths: Moog Gm, Sequential Pro3, Intellijel Cascadia
Best semimodular: cascadia, voltage lab
Best poly: Hs, Summit, Udo Gemini, moog muse(?), Sequential Take5
Best Fm: Korg Opsix
Best synth+sequencer: Elektron Digitone
