Cheap Romplers/90s Synths Recommedations (Paired with Octatrack)

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi, Elektronauts

As my formative years happened during the late 90s/early 00s, there is a lot of nostalgia for me hearing synths that were popular during that era.

Examples would be the Roland D-50 (PSX loading sound), Sound Canvas (Final Fantasy VII), the JV-1080 (probably used in a lot of pop songs during that era) and so on.

Looking at eBay, a lot of these synths can be gotten for relatively cheap (especially the sound canvas modules) - due to the lack of tactile control via the front panel.

For anybody that has a good background in using these synths with the Octatrack, what would you recommend? Ideally, it would be multitimbral and have comprehensive MIDI CC control capability in editing sounds.

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#2

E-Mu Proteus 2000 range.

Extremely deep synths with very heavy editing capabilities, 50 Z-Plane filers, effects, expandable etc. The family come in two versions: Standard and Turbo, e.g.:

  • Proteus 2000 [Turbo] with Composer Rom
  • Mo-Phatt [Standard] and Turbo-Phatt [Turbo] with Pure Phatt Rom.
  • Orbit-3 [Turbo] with Beat Garden and Techno Synth Construction Yard Roms
  • Xtreme Lead-1 [Standard] and XL-1 Turbo [Turbo] with X-Lead Rom.

Standard | Turbo:

  • 64 | 128 voices.
  • 2 | 4 Rom Slots
  • 1 | 2 Midi In
  • 2 | 6 Audio Outs

Fundamentally they are all the same, just different fascia’s and default ROM’s.

Best bet is to grab a Proteus 2000 and expand to taste.

The Roms vary in price depending on desirability and availability.

The best, rarest and thus most expensive ones are:

  • Beat Garden [Orbit-3]
  • Techno Synth Construction Yard [Orbit-3]
  • Vintage Collection [Vintage Pro]
  • World Expedition [Planet Earth]

Mo-Phatt and Composer are the cheapest / most common / worst. And I’d skip Protozoa as it is just a repackaging of sounds from Proteus 1/2/3

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#4

I have a Proteus 2000 & MoPhatt, love them both. I got the Proteus, mint condition for $150 & the MoPhatt for $100 (MoPhatt condition was poor, but I already had the Proteus 2000 so I stuck the MoPhatt rom into the Proteus so all sounds are in 1 device).

For the price, the emu romplers are really worth it, they come with a ton of sounds & a ton of features. I admit some of the sounds aren’t great, but a lot of them are, plus you have a lot of options to shape sounds into something you like.

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#5

Good recommendation, stupidly sold EMU stuff, though I actually dug the Protozoa - had some really nice orchestral sounds in one of the banks.

Another cheapie which I quite like is the Alesis S4/S4+. Filter is not much chop, but definitely capable of nice sounds, lots of envelopes and lfo’s, ADAT output and the quadraverb fx unit with big screen and some knobs. Also takes additional sounds (as in samples or presets) via pcmcia cards.

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#6

i’d recommend: roland d110.
controllable via patch base apps on ipad, try the randomiser!
as used by drexciya, here is a cover with d110 in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cev-ZuoFcxo
very interesting and unique synth architecture
lush sounding and warm synth due to dac and outputs, simple reverb, those TV filters - to my ears almost sounds analog at times. different/less bright than the d50.
cheap as chips

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#7

Nice choice. That was my first multitimbral synth; unfortunately I lent it to a friend and haven’t heard from it in about 20 years. :rofl:

Other items I would look for that should be very affordable:

Yamaha TG33, SY22 or SY35
Kawai K1 or K4
Kurzweil K2000
Roland JV series and M racks (M-VS1, M-DC1 and M-BD1 if you want to sound like Seinfeld, etc) or Fantom XR for something much more modern.

Of those, the K2000 will probably give you the most enjoyment with plocks, IMHO.

That said, the Proteus range is top for CC controls as far as I recall.

You shouldn’t struggle to get 4 of these for less than $1000USD.

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#8

Re: E-Mu Modules:

Orbit-3 came with two Roms: Beat Garden and Techno Synth Construction Yard

The roms were made by Rob Papen… you might have heard of him?

Virtuoso 2000 also came with two roms: Orchestral Session Vol 1 and Orchestral Session Vol 2

afaik, they were the only ones that came with two roms. Vol 2 is the better one as it has all kind of cool hits etc. on it; whereas Vol 1 is more pianos/horns/strings etc.

Also…

My understanding / foggy memory is that Planet Earth [ World Expedition ] was the last module; the second to last module was Orbit-3 [ Beat Garden | Techno Synth Construction Yard ]

Very few of those three roms were sold separately afaik, as they came right at the tail end of E-Mu / being taken over by Creative Labs. So apart from being three of the four best; there are not many kicking around that were brought purely as expansions.

I like my E-Mus and Roms… would like more time to spend on them though!

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#9

JV1080 or 2080 really is hard to beat for the price. I love my 1080 and they’re the best selling synth of all time so the spply is going to outstrip the demand for a long time yet. They’re a steal (but some of the expansion cards are pretty expensive these days).

If you want something cheap and a little off the beaten path, an Alesis S4 could be a good option, too (I’d avoid the s4+ though, the main “improvement” is they replaced 8mb of excellent for the era piano samples with a GM sound set). QSR is more advanced but has a terrible UI, the s4 is really easy to edit. I’ve only owned an s4+ and QSR but I’ve heard the S4+ is slightly dirtier sounding than the S4; the QSR is noticeably more hi-fi but you’d need to use a software editor to really use it to its fullest, it makes the D-110 and Wavestation SR look user friendly.

Speaking of D110, a D550 would be really nice, too. I’d love to have one of those.

Also don’t overlook the late 90s and early 2000s samplers, especially Akai (IMO). A sampler is basically a ROMpler that can sample. There are a ton of sample libraries available for the Akais too and they’re fairly cheap and easy to learn. I got an S5000 with most of the expansions (no USB and no effects, but all of the voice and i/o cards) for a couple hundred about a year and a half ago and it’s fantastic, especially after swapping the floppy drive for an SD reader and loading a couple gigs of samples onto it. There are other samplers of that era that go deeper into sound design and synthesis areas (EMU, Yamaha, Roland) but the Akais have a great workflow. An s3000 or s3200 could be a good choice, too.

I love the TG33 and K1 but they’re kind of niche things, especially the K1 (which is fun to program and can make some really exotic sounds, but it’s definitely not a normal ROMpler by any stretch - it’s quasi-additive synthesis using a bunch of single cycle waveforms with pitch and amplitude modulation - there aren’t even filters in it).

I got a free D-110 a few years ago and I like it butit is a hassle to edit if you don’t have the programmer, even if you get on well with 90s buttony interfaces like I do.

Personally I’d say JV1080 or a vintage sampler.

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#10

If you loved playstation, you need some korg romplers in your life (M1R, wavestation). They might not be the cheapest option anymore, but well worth the money IMO.

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#11

I can vouch for the jv1080 and the emu xl1, i have these 2 rack mounts and think they are brilliant and still relevant…had to laugh to myself when i found myself sampeling the EMU rompler into my DT though…hahaha sampeling a rompler…now i just use the DT to control the romplers…much smatera…

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#12

If you get the 1080/2080 and want some expansions that aren’t too expensive but are useful, I recommend:

SR-JV80-15 Special FX - all kinds of non-musical samples like soda fizzing and wind and jingling keys and stuff, which are great for mixing in with the stock samples to push them into weirder territory.

SR-JV80-16 Orchestral II - cheaper than Classical 1 and released soon after Titanic to cash in on the “Celtic new age” sounds that were used in that. Lots of things like Uilleann pipes and panflutes and stuff that get pretty A E S T H E T I C when you misuse them.

The “experience” samplers are really limited and were basically promos for the full blown expansions but if you have a free slot and find one really cheap (like $30 or something) they usually have a couple good things on them. I have the Experience II installed more or less only for the “Boys Amen” sample, since it’s good to blend in with other stuff, but really don’t don’t seek these out. At some point I want to replace mine with Vocal Collection or World or something.

The sought after ones like Vintage Synth and Keyboards of the 60s and 70s will cost you almost as much as an actual 1080 and probably aren’t worth it unless you really need a lot of bread and butter synth and keyboard sounds that you could get out of a VST these days (but I’ve never used any of the expensive expansions so maybe I’m underestimating their usefulness).

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#13

Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the mid to late 90s Roland samplers are almost like a 1080 you can load your own samples into, the effects and architecture are pretty similar from what I understand (never owned one myself). So if you like the 90s Roland sound that’s an other option (plus ifyou get one with VGA and mouse/keyboard expansions you are automatically cooler than me).

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#15

In this vein, a Boss DR-5 might be worth checking out, too. They’re dirt cheap (although all of this stuff has gone up a bit in the last year or two), have a soundset that’s closer to something from a MOD file or Super Nintendo soundtrack than a proper ROMpler, plus you get a little, rubbery isomorphic keyboard with a pretty fun auto-chord system, and an amusingly glitchy audio-to-MIDI interface.

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#16

Roland do a software plug-in version of the Sound Canvas synths, if the intention is sample food rather than a hardware synth to be midi controlled. The Korg M1 plugin is a steal as well, currently $24.99.

https://korg.shop/korg-collection-m1.html

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#17

Famously used for the Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack (SC-88), among others. Total classic!

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#18

Thanks for the pointing this out. I’ve just bought it.

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#19

Yes, and my all-time favourite video game soundtrack, Sin & Punishment. :cool:

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#20

Good reminder, also perhaps worth searching out the Emu Proteus plugin.

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#21

This never worked on my computer for some reason! Should give it another shot, maybe it can replace my lovely but large JV2080…

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#22

Yep! Funny how the QY70 fits with OT in that position. :content:
I have a QY100 (same sound theorically) I’ll keep, painted black, almost OT form ratio! :wink:
OT + Qy100 + voice

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Emu things seem very good!

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