the review sounds nice , a step up from the ik Uno , though this is a little more expensive.
their craft and drum synths had nice elements to them , but the form factor and interface wasnt so good , it wasnāt usable in the hand like pocket operators , and was only usable via usb midiā¦
they had multiple functions per button , again not quite as intuitive than the pocket operators.
but the editor on ios / computers did have advantages to the pocket operators.the drum synth had parameter animation and few unusual ways to trigger/stretch a sample , playback was clean and punchy too.
Mine arrived yesterday. I took it for a test run on my hour-long bus commute this morning. A few super-first impressions:
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My old non-fancy USB portable charger worked fine for powering it. (2013 Mophie Powerstation Duo, 6000 mAh). Will consider buying some Eneloop rechargeable batteries for it, though it requires 6 of them.
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Itās bigger than I expected. Maybe the pictures Iāve seen of the OP-Z have reframed what āsmallā is in my mind. But those touch-capacitive keys are full-sized and generous, and I think thatās quite useful, so the size is not bad at all. It fits comfortably in my backpack along with my laptop, binders, etc. and it feels pretty safe there thanks to the included case. Iāve now got both the PO-33 sampler and the Skulpt in my arsenal as commute-anywhere gear.
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It sounds WAY better than you would expect for a synth in its price range or form factor. Some of the sounds got into the territory of my Prophet 12, honest to god. Itās definitely not an āall sweet spotsā synth by any means, and lots of the presets and tones I encountered sounded ugly and cheap to my ears (unfortunately, many of those sounds ended up in the marketing videos), but I leaned on my synthesis knowledge to massage those sounds into beautiful, deep, buzzy, harmonically rich stuff with just a few knob tweaks.
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The two continuously-sweepable waveform oscillators, state-variable filter, FM (osc 1 is the carrier, osc 2 is the modulator), Ring Mod, and more mean that there is an impressively large array of timbres and textures this thing is capable of. It doesnāt need to sound polite or tame or smooth if you donāt want it to. Experimental and bizarre is within easy reach. I got microtonal, gritty, clangorous. I hope some youtube demos surface showing off the wider unconventional range of sounds this can do. (I can see an oscilloscope being quite useful for it)
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The skewed placement of knobs and buttons at 90 degree angles has been controversial and a turn-off for some people; personally I found that things were already moving from āwhat on earth?ā to immediately knowing which knobs to turn without looking at the labels. The odd arrangement is actually conducive to muscle memory, I think, so itās a plus in my mind.
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The LED indicators are fantastic for providing visual information while youāre patching away. I only wish you could adjust the brightness or even turn them off completely as an option. The person sitting next to me on the bus definitely noticed I was playing with a synth and did a double take, but then ignored me afterward. I chose not to be self-conscious about it, but would like the option of less-ostentatious if I feel like it (I donāt feel very cool playing a synth out in public, I feel like people think itās performative or hipsterish. But Iām the parent of a small infant and my work commute is some of the only free time I have to make music). I also would rather not be blinded by blinking lights super early in the morning if I can help it. Just something for Modal to consider in a firmware update.
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Itās not a one-knob-per-function synth, itās more like a one-knob-per-2-functions synth. The āshiftā button does a LOT of heavy lifting as every knob here has a shift use, often for key parameters I want to use often. Not a surprise and everyone knew this, but in practice it can get confusing. My experience with Elektron stuff was that you hold down shift and press another button, and thatās it. But with this, you can press shift, and then shift REMAINS ON for a few seconds, then turns off. So there were plenty of times I thought I was tweaking primary parameters, when I was actually tweaking secondary parameters, which felt frustrating. Aside from always checking the shift LED to make sure itās on or off, I wonder if thereās a way to adjust this to behave more like Elektron boxes.
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In addition, there are button combos that seem like a lot to handle. Example: to set a chord in chord memory, you play a chord on the keyboard (so, three or four fingers on your right hand), hold down shift (index finger on your left hand), and press the chord button (thumb of your right hand). Maybe not a biggie, but did chord memory really have to be a secondary parameter requiring the shift button?
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I havenāt dug into the mod matrix, but it seems quite deep and powerful. I particularly like how easy and painless it is to set up routings (inspired by recent Sequential synths?). Donāt be fooled by its diminutive form factor, I feel like Skulpt is primarily for sound designers and people who understand synthesis and can work their way around semi-modular environments with relative ease. Or people who are beginners but are OK with using Syntorial or watching enough youtube videos to get up to speed with the basics. Otherwise youāll be working with the presets (some great ones, but plenty of boring or crap ones), or muddling around with tweaking knobs without understanding how to get into blissful territory. But there IS blissful territory, and itās fun getting there!
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Candidly, I was planning on selling my unopened box because my priorities have shifted and Iāve made some other big purchases that felt like enough to make me gear-happy (OB-6!). But my curiosity got the better of me, and based on this hour Iām now firmly in the mindset of sticking with this lilā Skulpt and seeing where it ends up taking me.
Iām sure I heard ikea chargeable batteries are eneloops with different packaging. Same factory etc , just cheeper. Probably worth a google to save cash.
Prophet 12 and ob6 ?
I, uh, traded the Prophet 12 for the OB-6. There you go.
I want thisā¦ Not sure if I need it, but I like little digital synths with creative sound design options and like that it has full DIN MIDI for Elektron co-habitation. But the one thing giving me pause is that Modal put up a couple of teaser videos on Facebook teasing a āv2.0ā
Which looks like an update / replacement for the Craft Synth, in a Skulpt style body. It looks to be about half the size of Skulpt, but with LCD?
Itās frankly a little strange to suddenly be putting something like this out there when the Skulpt is just barely getting out the door, because now Iām unsure if I should buy Craft (I do like really little noisemakers), Skulpt (almost like a battery operated Modor), or wait for this new āv2.0ā thing to come to light.
I like the white/blue color scheme and Iām not gonna lie itās kinda cute 
These guys are soā¦ crafty. Itās cool to see them continuing to push forward, building on their successes. Iām with you - I find it hard to resist little noisemakers (just built a microgranny when I barely have time for other gear), so Iām curious to see what this turns into.
Itās frankly a little strange to suddenly be putting something like this out there when the Skulpt is just barely getting out the door
Yeah, as someone whoās had his Skulpt in his hands forā¦ a little over 24 hours, I have to admit Iām a little annoyed by the timing here. Iām pretty happy with the Skulpt, but it wouldāve been better for Modal to be upfront about the planning on this one. Maybe I wouldāve chosen the CraftSynth 2.0 instead of Skulpt. Itās cheaper, cuter, more portable, and seems to be fairly deep in its own right. (āGet both!ā I hear you say, andā¦ no thanks)
More details on the new CRAFTsynth 2.0. It is a āmonophonic wavetable synthā. Interesting. I was suspecting it might be a monosynth in keeping with the craftsynth theme.
Looks much better / usable than v1.
Iād expect it to cost a little more , maybe 99 / 129 volca price.
The. Editor on v1 was decent too.
Hi! Iām new to this forum; Iāve just been looking for any place to discuss the Skulpt. Iāve had a few days to play with mine, and Iām very pleased with it.
Pluses:
- Big sound! Iāve gotten tired of monosynths, and the Skulptās 32 oscillators really beef things up. (Even the factory presets are pretty good as such things go; Iāve found several keepers.) As someone else noted above, the spread controls plus ring-mod plus FM plus waveshaping really offer a lot of sound possibilities.
- The mod matrix is very full-featured, lots of sources & destinations. And some of the controls are cleverly designed to take advantage of modulation, like the way the OSC 2 wave shape ends with a range of filtered noise, and way the Spread controlās first half is continuous but the second half is quantized to intervals.
- Easy to mess with from the front panel. The UI is very well designed for such a minimal interface; reminds me of the Circuit in that way.
- The editor app is excellent, and makes the tricky bits like the mod matrix more approachable.
Minuses:
- No step sequencer; the sequencer just records what you play āliveā, without even quantization. And disappointingly, the editor appās sequencer page lets you edit the automation but not the notes themselves. As Iām a crap pianist, this makes the sequencer less than useful for me.
- The USB interface tells the host it needs bus power, even when the device is running off batteries. This means I canāt connect it directly to my iPad or iPhone ā I just get an alert that āthe USB device requires too much power and cannot be usedā. Workaround is to put a powered USB hub in between, which is OK but reduces portability. (Modal support say this is a limitation of the USB standard: a device canāt report different power requirements at different times, i.e. when itās on battery power vs. bus power.)
- The 4-voice polyphony is a bit limiting; I notice it when Iām using sounds with long decay times and the decay gets chopped off by succeeding notes. (Not a big surprise for a $300 portable synth! Still, I wonder if theyāll add an 8-voice x 4-osc mode in a FW update?)
Welcome to Elektronauts home of the anonymous synth addicts 
Iām not sure complaining about 4 note poly , when itās a core feature , is fair , notes getting chopped off is typical of limited poly synths for 30 years. ā¦ I think a Ā£20k synth would have same issue depending on how itās retriggering the envelope.
I presume theyāve done polychaining ? , starts to get expensive buying multiples just to play more notes.
With 32 oscillators, one would think there might be enough power to deal with more voices and less oscillatorsā¦ 8 voices would indeed make it a pretty good synth.
This thing is doing my head inā¦ so I caved and bought one 
Hoping the clock input is compatible with volca / PO clock stuff
I think it was the editor/librarian app and 8 bars of unquantized sequencing that sold me in the end
BTW is it just me or does this box not beg to be used for some UK bass stuff (reeses / stabs / plucks / donks / pads etc) 
But the craftsynth 2.0 looks pretty much like one voice of skulpt, and just trades the sequencer with the wavetables? To me the skulpt is the better model, easily.
That might be the case, but it still wouldāve been better to give us the choice from the beginning. Both are viable and attractive options with different price points and features. They simply didnāt tell us about the choice in order to ensure the Skulptās Kickstarterās success could be maximized and not spread between two campaigns.
Guess so. As for myself, I might end up getting both anyway 
Iām not sure that I share the cynicism regarding Skulpt and Craft2.0 but I could be wide-eyed and naive. By the time the C2.0 comes out there will have been 5 months between it and the Skuplt being released. The way I see it was that they were sensible in there designs so that if Skulpt was successful they could move relatively quickly on a follow-up. Keep in mind that once the Skulpt was funded and they were getting into production mode that there would have been scope for the designers to be starting to develop a follow-up.
As for comparing the two, I was initially thinking that C2.0 was a single voice version of the Skulpt but a bit of research and I think that in spite of shared lineage theyāre quite different machines. The filter and the modulation is the same but there beyond that there are a number of significant differences. The sequencers are quite a bit different. The oscillators using multiple wavetables on the C2.0 is markedly different to the traditional morphable analogue waveforms. But the biggest differences is the various oscillator modifiers on the C2.0 such phase and frequency modulation, bitcrushing, sync, wavefolding and such like.
At the time of the Kickstarter I was convinced to back the C2.0 even though I already had a Skulpt. Since then, the further details on the wavetables and oscillators modifiers that have been shared on their youtube have only further convinced that I made the right decision.
Your mileage, of course, may vary greatly.