Best Polysynths you can buy right now?

Exactly. We all know that there is no holly grail, that for one particular context one option would be better than other, but given another context, maybe is the other option.

Also it depends based on what you are basing your decision, most features, relation quality-price, sound, etc.

My original question is just about prioritizing based on whatever objective or subjective reasons, but pick one. :slight_smile:

Hello. Sorry late reply.

My list was an open question, those were the ones I could think off and have mostly owned at some point in time.

It would be great to have a native polling feature.

I think that the Digitone is great, mostly same reasoning you mention, but if you were offered lets say a Moog One or Prophet 5 or Digitone for free. Would you really pick the Digitone. Forget about prices and please dont say a Moog One to buy the Digitone and the Prophet 5 and some Volcas :slight_smile:

Oh so we can get legacy with it? Well in that case, besides the 990 (with Vintage Synth board natch) I would add:

Korg Wavestation A/D
Korg Lamda
Ensoniq ESQ-1
Waldorf Wave/Microwave
Nord Lead 1/2
Roland Juno 60
Alpha Juno 1/2
MKS-80 (with programmer or editor)
Oberheim Matrix 6/6R/1000 (with editor)

1 Like

Might as well go Matrix-12, no? :sweat_smile:

Also, Korgā€™s PS-3100/ 3300 come to mind when considering vintage.

Well sure, but I hear those are a nightmare to keep going.

1 Like

Ah ok, word. :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Has the Prophet 12 been mentioned yet?

Can you still buy those?

Not new :slight_smile: thatā€™s what i meant by legacy, haha.

But I did see a NOS Microwave 2 last year.

1 Like

was thinking about getting one these. demos sound great. Not sure how reliable the hardware is

Very, compared to previous Junos. Really dig mine.

2 Likes

Purty axe.

I have a Parker Nitefly SSS in the basement. Nothing wrong with it - I just play my Eric Johnson Thinline Strat, Tele and Dā€™Angelico a lot more. The stock pickups on this Nitefly are not a good match imo. I believe they are DiMarzio Blue Velvets, which are meant for Strats/Strat copies made of traditional materials, not a Nitefly with its composite neck and stainless steel frets - a guitar built to sound bright and focused. Iā€™ll eventually get more midrange-heavy pickups to compensate for the brightness and have a pro fix the wack job I did on the tremelo unit. It arrived with the trem decked and I think I messed something up when I made the adjustments to make it floating. The electronics also need work - scratchy pots and maybe something else.

The Parker has the most comfortable neck. The Tele isnā€™t far behind. I prefer it for more energetic strumming and funky rhythm. I prefer the Dā€™Angelico for chord-melody fingerstyle stuff.

1 Like

I get that, but I will go ahead and say that (to my ear), the Iridiumā€™s oscillators very handily destroy the SQ out of the oscillators of any of my favorite VSTā€™s. Especially in the wavetable department. (Of course, Zebra 3 is due out sometime in the next year or two, so maybe waiting until then could be wise, if youā€™re ok with involving a computer.)

That said, as someone who was gigging before COVID struck, I do rather appreciate not having to worry about CPU overhead in a live context, and even Zebra 2.9 HZ can start bogging the system down at 2048 samples (latency on my interface isnā€™t bad), if you start encroaching on 50% of the modulation overhead it affords you. Conversely, Iā€™ve had no issues with freezes or lockups while running 2 pretty filled out mod-matrices.

Lastly, factoring in the fact that Iā€™ve begun running reactive visuals alongside, I really donā€™t see how feasible it would be to incorporate audio generation on the same computer, and the idea of running two separate laptops is a bit unnerving.

Someone turned on the gas again

1 Like

Second that, looking for one now :sweat_smile:

Yes, I do get the point about sound quality from the demos, and also your point about live gigging where a dedicated box is far less risky than even the best computer. But I mostly mean the playing experience, wiggling it in real time aside from keyboarding patches youā€™ve already created. I donā€™t mean how amenable and fertile it is for creating patches, but how much that process itself can be like a performance, like a full-spectrum modular rig. I suck at sound design, only ever tweaking what those who do that much better than me come up with. Iā€™d buy the desktop unit to play the knobs and the touchscreen, but only if itā€™s fluid and a trip every time to do that. Iā€™m not interested in the keyboard unit because, as someone pointed out somewhere, leaning over the thing to play the controls isnā€™t appealing at all. Iā€™d sit the desktop unit on my lap and play it, if itā€™s good for that.

Actually, I would have much trouble to get some track done with the Moog One or the Prophet 5 alone, whereas I did 30 minutes of a live PA with the Volca Sample then the Digitone alone.
Between the OB-6 I own and the Digitone, my choice would be easy: OB-6 would go, and this decision would take me less than a second.
I love playing with the OB-6, but the Digitone bring me to tracks. And Iā€™m more into FM, lately, anyway ^^

That said, the sequencer and the voice sharing are perfectly designed in DN. And with filters on top of FM, you can reach analog-like tones as much as alien ones.
Not as smooth as OB-6, but definitely a high-quality polysynth.

2 Likes

Another pretty brilliant 4 voicer would be the Moog Model 15 App, that said I donā€™t really know if 4 voice synths are what I think of when some one says best poly. But anyone with a newer ipad should take a look, it sounds really dang good and gives you some modular freedom with your programming.

1 Like

I meanā€¦ I can listen to tons of demos of all three for free on the internet. and I can realistically afford (although it wouldnā€™t be easy) to buy any of the three. I own the Digitone.

obviously that doesnā€™t take price 100% out of the equation though. punting on an $8k synth ā€œjust to see if I like itā€ isnā€™t the same as doing so with an $800 one.

also itā€™s not really a fair comparisonā€¦ one is 40 years old and prone to issues. one is only a few years old and has already had its share of issues. one is 100% digital and has fewer components prone to failure over time.

I had a XD, great machine but couldnā€™t stand the small keys and lack of voices. So I sold the XD and got a Prologue. It is now my go to machine. Really fast to get the sounds that I need and no crazy menu diving. The user oscillators and reverbs is a game changer.

1 Like