Maybe I´m wrong but most people here saying it´s perfect for synthpop should be younger than me
I think for us (40+ oldfarts) the A4 does a very good 2013 representation of 80´s synthpop
That means that the round low end of a Moog and the bouncing character of a closing Roland filter isn´t here
You got rawer oscillators with not such low end…you can do some tricks to achieve it but they tend to be thinner in the low octaves, specially the saw wave (look at this old thread at E.U.)
http://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=28&func=view&catid=9&id=209098
So, can you get synthpop out of it? in a word: YES, but if you´re looking for 80´s softer sounds it´s hard to achive…you can get a more “modern” sounding synthpop though, and this could be even better for some people
Other than the tricks in the link above there is some stuff that you can do to get such sounds out of the A4:
use long release times in fast attacked sounds
use just 1 filter, mostly in LP mode
use saw waves with square subs, like in the old roland
monosynths…sometimes I use the saw wave of oscillator 1 with the sub square of oscillator 2, just to get control of the suboscillator level
use the sub square wave as your main square wave…even without PW control it sounds closer to an old monosynth
use vibrato…just a touch of it and any sound will get a more 80s flavor…low depht and hi speed
use the chorus…better yet: abuse it! it sounds great and (((STEREO)))…I almost don´t touch it because the factory settings are what you expect from a chorus fx in a synth: lush, dimensional, juno-like chorus
use reverb, of course
use arpeggios, lot of them, with delay better!
this demos are not synthpop but use a lot of synthpop-ish patches