Yeah, I snatched it. Owner’s kind of famous too, which I didn’t realise until we got talking for real, which makes me even more comfortable. He’s been caring for it, and also he’s shipping it across the country, so there’s always the risk of course, of striking a deal with a gent you don’t know. But as opposed to when Solo approached the Death Star, I have a good feeling about this.
fwiw i have had a MEK for 12 years and it still doesn’t bore me, the sound palette is huge, modulation possibilities are crazy, I have it poly chained to a PER and boy can you get some fat sounding pads with those 20 oscillators!
1 Like
Today’s ‘dated’ is tomorrow’s ‘retro’.
I see you’ve already gone and purchased the Evolver. It’s a beast. I haven’t encountered anything that quite sounds like it. It’s complex, it’s rich, it’s got tons of MIDI controls. Because the default spacing of the oscillators are hard-panned left and right, it’s really easy to make powerful stereo patches. I don’t use my Evolver nearly as much as I should, but when revisiting older tracks, I can always spot it in the mix.
Kindof like the Monomachine - it’s a really unique instrument, and its sound doesn’t always work for everybody. But things that work for ‘everybody’ tend to be a little less interesting to me. I have no particular draw to many of the other DSI synths, but there is a lot about the Evolver I like. FM, Ring Mod, envelope following, tons of distortion, tons of LFOs and envelopes. Extensive MIDI control. Feedback. And that stereo spacing… I never even really got into the sequencer of it but that can pull some neat tricks too.
2 Likes
congrats! see his empty place for some time…
Rozzer patches are great! to upgrade the EVO!
https://www.rozzer.net/tag/evolver/
Happy Tweaking!
4 Likes
Every time I ignore my Evolver (desktop) for a while I come back to it & get impressed all over again. Recently I’ve been using it to process external gear (dx7, casio cz5000). Running the dx7 through the filters & adding some distortion & even a little noise. I’ve also been using it as pure “noise” beast getting some classic Merzbow ish “wah wah”-ed noise. I only recently discovered how to access the modwheel, breath, & pedal controls via midi cc.
It’s a great synth.
3 Likes
Had it for the evening now. Makes most of them Minilogue youngsters and their mates just look bad. I mean, they’re not even painted in blue.
2 Likes
I LOVE running my desktop in tandem with my MEK, either as a 2 voice synth (with all the mods going on, that’s more than enough for a wall of sound) or for a little old school Berlin fun and games a la Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream with some desktop drones/sequences and MEK noodling on top.
Dirty Little Secret Number 1:
Unless I’m making a sequence, I’m actually a little more comfortable programming on the DEVO. Which kind of negated my rationalization for buying the MEK. Oh well…
But yeah I love both. If I had to get rid of most of my life’s inessentials, I’d still keep the DEVO. So much depth and fun out of a teeny little bullet proof box.
Dirty Little Secret Number 2:
I went on a trip with one of my girls. She uses a white noise generator to help her sleep. Spent a week sharing a room with her. When I got back, I couldn’t sleep. Set up a white noise patch with a slow LFO mod on the filter sweep into a desktop speaker. Snooze city.
8 Likes
You’ll love it! Had my MEK for years. It’s got its own sound But it can still wear many hats.
1 Like
First morning with it now. It’s oozing with character. Although a synth can be great in many ways, it doesn’t always have personality. But by lord, this one has an entire gallery of character all its own.
2 Likes
Glad you’re enjoying it. The Evolver’s are deep but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a good sound going on, right off the bat. They reward you with the time you put into them for sure.
Here’s my first very brief jam with it. Damn, this synth is cool. Here’s the rational part of me realising why the emotinal me always felt this might be a good match:
4 Likes
Very Evolver esque! It excels at those short decay sounds I think. Really snappy envelopes. The delays are fab too. Dead easy to set them up as chorus and flange effects with shorts delay times and Lfo modulation. Plus having three lines means you can still have delay too!
1 Like
Yeah, the mind’s spinning. But the Evolver interface makes it not intimidating, but only fun.
1 Like
Wait until you turn down osc 1&2 and just concentrate on the waves on 3&4… Prophet VS tastic in an Evolver stylee 
2 Likes
1 Like
Digital oscillators aside the Evolver is a masterclass in what you can squeeze out of the CEM3396. I’m fairly sure that’s what they use just with a different part number (my understanding is it’s a rebadged 3396 by On Chip Systems (CEM as was) exclusively produced for DSI.) Same chip as the Cheetah and Oberheim Matrix 6/1000. The (in)famous synth on a chip.
1 Like
Yeah, it’s an interesting thing because even though I know Dave Smith has elaborated on the Evolver design in products that came after, it doesn’t seem like he wanted to just make the Evolver again, but just better. Once the last line of the Evolvers went out of production, it seemed he used ideas from it in ventures afterwards, but never the same basic concept.
I’ve had a few DSI / Sequential boards and they’re all great in one way or another, but the only one I’ve had which actually had a lot of character and wasn’t just generally great, was the Tempest. The rest of them have been top class gear for their time, but tougher to pick out in a crowd if you only heard them, didn’t see them.
Yeah I remember reading comments years ago that when they developed the Evolver DSI were trying to build the ultimate CEM based synth. As it was their first instrument they tried to cover all bases. However once they realised there was a market for stuff like the Prophet 08 they realised they could offer a range of synths rather that just one flagship product. So essentially they ‘split’ the essence of the Evolver across several instruments in what’s really a marketing move. Can’t blame them really as is just good business.
1 Like