Any love for the DSI Mopho x4?

Whatsup guys? I haven’t really read anything about this synth here for a long time, and I was wondering why… compared to the minilogues and the rev2 the Mopho x4 seems to be kind of a forgotten piece.

I recently got another Mopho x4 after I’d sold my Mopho/Tetra combo some years before. I tried to replace it with a minilogue, and a prologue later, only to finally conclude that even though those synths are far more popular, have a great esthetic, and more voices (in the case of the prologue), they couldn’t replace the sound of the Mopho.

I really fell in love with my x4 again:
-it’s perfectly sized, feels very solid and has a great form factor.
-the modulation options are insane… I think theyre identical to the rev2, and they’re great for such a small synth.
-it’s quite easy and quick to program, even though some functions share controls.
-the sound is very full and powerful (I guess in part because of the sub osc’s and feedback, which the rev2 lacks).
-it’s one of the few synths I’ve ever used which shines both as a mono and a (4 voice) poly: It can do punchy, deep saw basses, but also shines as a Boards of Canada chord machine.

Any love for this synth on this forum?

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Lots of love for the X4 over here! Great poly to sequence with the Octatrack IMO. :+1:

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I have been looking for x4 for years. Everytime one has shown up i sadly have been out of money.

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Eelke Kleijn likes it enough to use it live :+1:t2:

Mopho is a great sound (x4) with a nice modulation sequencer and presets which makes it awesome for live performance.

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You probably hate me for writing “mk1” instead of “MKI”

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“Mopho times 4” :japanese_ogre:

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I thought it was called mopho mopho mopho mopho, no?

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In latin, yes :+1:t2:

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MoFOURker

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I’ve never got rid of my Tetra & toyed with the idea of the x4 as a controller. Went through a period of using it as a drum synth module driven by an Elektron sequencer with those four outs into the DAW but now back to it as a poly, it just sounds so good.

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Dope video!

You could add the Mopho se as a controller to get a 5 voice, 5x multitimbral tetra…

Agree with these things sounding great!

Haha good point…I’ve adjusted the title

The G1 is silent…and invisible, but it’s there.

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I dearly miss my Mopho Keyboard. I love that curtis filter sound.

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I have an DSI Mopho SE, which is a 44-key mono version of the Mopho. It is an awesome synth, but I mostly use it for synth bass duties on live gigs when hired as a bassist. Although I much prefer to play my electric basses, sometimes a synth is the right tool for a particular song.

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The Tetr4 (seeing as we’re being pedantic) was the only synth I felt I needed for years. I’d still have it if the Soundtower software hadn’t been a shower of shite.

I was expecting the Rev2 to be pretty much the same synth with double the voice count and mod matrix slots, but it’s not: the resonance thins the sound much faster, and there’s a big volume drop when the oscillator mix is in centre position. Because of this, I think the Prophet 08 and its children still have an edge for certain sounds. That is, until you use the extra four voices and four mod slots as a workaround for those limitations.

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Interesting to hear… did you switch your Tetr4 for the rev2? What is your overall opinion on this upgrade?

Eight voices across fives octaves with eight mod slots and nearly every parameter at my finger tips: I mean… it’s a joy. For a relatively keyboardy player, not to mention a tinkerer, it was a bounding leap of an upgrade from the Tetr4.

That said, in terms of vanilla sounds, I prefer Prophet 08 generation synths for the reasons outlined in my previous post. It’s not as easy, for example, to create a deep, resonant bass without using some sort of workaround (say, using the bi-timbral mode to supplement lost frequencies – but then you’re down to four voices).

In terms of other new features: other than a light bit of chorus, I don’t find the effects usable (though it’s cool that the parameters are mod outputs); the polyphonic sequencer is pretty awkward to use; and I could probably live without wave shape modulation (other than pulse width, obviously). I do, however, really like having two stacked arpeggiators running at different rates via the bi-timbral mode.

I go could go on and on. But, bottom line, I think the Mopho X4 is a gem and still has its niche. I can imagine a type of player, one who doesn’t go too deep with the mod matrix and needs beefier sounds, who would be better served by the Prophet 08 generation synths.

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That sounds like it tackles the main issue with the Tetr4 (painstaking dialling in), does it?

Edit: forgot it has an Aftertouch keybed too, hmm.