I’ve been able to get great basses out of the Deepmind. It does 12 voice unison… I dunno
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I have three “synths” that I use for the majority of my tracking:
- a very versatile poly-synth (Dave Smith OB-6) 6-voice that I use for pads, leads and special effects that includes a very nice 49-key keyboard with Bend and Mod, surprisingly good effects.
- a very productive monosynth (Roland SE-02…very good value) that I use for electro-style basses and leads
- A Nord Electro 6 that has a wonderful keybed (Fatar TP100) and a huge variety of sounds…modelled organs, sampled electric and acoustic pianos, and big wavetable/sample synth section…plus very decent effects.
I’m primarily a keyboard player and so I generally just skip MIDI and play parts in live (except for drums which I sometimes generate with Roland V-drums but mostly program (I use Addictive Drums plugins)
I also play woodwind instruments for many years (Saxonphones, flutes, clarinets…) and play these in directly to create sections or leads.
While I have a variety of soft-synths (in the box) the only one that I use regularly is Applied Acoustics GS-Strum which is an awesome guitar (includes basses) section. The voices use physical models to generate realistic sounds that have ‘life’ but the real secret is the performance engine where you can voice chords with your life hand and strum (up/down with speed control, palm damping, arpeggiation across strings, etc…) in a way that is very expressive. Also incorporates pitch bend realistically.
I use Reaper as my DAW, but mostly record live analog with some MIDI input, and use Reaper primarily for arrangement, mixing and mastering.
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I had some problems with my Roland SE-02, but a good USB isolator fixed the problem handily (effectively a $50 accessory for the Roland as it is dedicated use)
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Thanks! No not SH101. Moog sub 37. Pads and chord stuff was done by sampling every note into an ableton sampler and making my own poly moog.
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ha 
Shows that I can’t even hear the difference of a moog and a roland in a song 
Though I heard both in person and they sound completely different
what is the difference between a cheap usb isolator and an expensive one (besides the price ).
Do they affect sound quality?
Well there you go. Given that all sounds are coming from the one synth… you might ask the question- does it matter which synth you choose? Anyway thanks for listening
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it does matter. mostly the question how fun and easy it is to come up with the desired sounds.
I can get all the sounds I want from the A4 for example, but sometimes it can be very tedious
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Another vote for the AS-1. For me it is my favorite synth under $1000. It’s one voice actually sounds slightly better than a Prophet 6 voice (due to gain staging) and I wasn’t really a fan of chords on the Prophet anyway (took up too much space in the mix… ESQ-1 or Wavestation work much better.)
But whatever mono you use, one of my favorite things to do is make it polyphonic by tracking a 3-note chord progression one note at a time, making subtle tweaks to filter, envelopes and lfo mods on each take. Pan the root note track center and the two other tracks right and left, glue it all together with fx. The resulting movement of the chords can be mesmerizing.
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You said you have a A4 and. Digitone. If you’re multitracking and want to keep your studio small, that should do it. Unless you’re trying to make a very specific genre that requires a specific sound ( early acid -303, etc) stick with what you got and focus on mixing / production techniques that “make” your genre.
If you want another synth/sound source that “rounds out” the Digitone/A4 that’s going to be cheap and small and get you in that IDM area.
- couple Roland boutiques(acid early IDM, early afx, BoC)
- sampler! ( or just good samples of 606s, amen break, tribal voices, etc.)
- Something like a micromonsta paired with a Quadraverb (if the Quadraverb is too big, the Valhalla vintage verb chaotic algos get you pretty close to that 90 warp records sound)
- Deepmind 12D, it’s cheap and incredibly versatile. If you don’t go nuts with the effects, it will sit well in a mix.
- a bunch sound packs for the Digitone and the A4, sometimes you just need some new starting off points.
- Plugins, (tape plugins, compressors, glitch plugins, etc)
- a minilogue XD desktop. The user oscillators are flexible and you can get quite a wide pallet, (Im not sure if it’s going to new sonic territory, it’s very hands on and easy to to program though,)
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Thanks for all the suggestions.
I’m pretty sure I made my decision
I sold already everything except OT, DN, A4 ( I feel rich now 
)
But I think it’s time to say goodbye to the A4. I had it for six years now, but the DN has taken over.
They do sound different of course, but I use them in a very similar way (workflow and sounds) and the DN just sounds better/ is easier to get the sounds I’m after. I think I don’t need two elektron synths.
I defended the sound of the A4 here many times, but I got a bit tired of it.
I’m about to get the AS-1 + a SH01a for my roland faible - they basically will do the job of repro1 and the TAL-synths. I don’t like the Juno chorus anyway.
I can get them both for about 600 euro…
So my planned track making setup will be mostly ableton - DN - SH01 - AS-1.
OT mainly for live sets and solo explorations
Guess I put the AS-1 into DN and OB so I can have all synths through USB… if the USB isolator works with the SH01a…
Let’s see. Thanks for all the inputs
So not much multitracking needed I guess.
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All covered 
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This thread is precisely why i’ve preordered an Udo Super 6.
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Nice! Looks super cool!
I am somehow not the guy to make a bigger investment into a single item. Even if I can afford it.
And now the Pro3!!!
My mind seems to focus better when it is limited. If im spoilt for choice i tend to procrastinate more.
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“Option Paralysis”
Yes its that.
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I can totally understand that. That’s why I try to keep it fairly small as well.
If I buy, I sell first
sounds like a solid setup. I’ve been thinking a lot lately that if I needed to, I could slim down to something quite similar: OT + DN + a mono synth or two.
regarding your original question: I think it’s fine to have a “do it all” type synth and use it for many sounds within your tracks. but I would choose a multitimbral synth, not something like the OB6 as you mentioned. simply because it’s more difficult to write a song without hearing all the parts together. you’d have to write a bass part, record it, then write the lead, record it, then a pad, record it, etc… and if you want to change anything, you have to go back to that part in the synth and re-program it then re-record it. tedious and non-fun, to me at least.
anyway something like the Nord Lead would be awesome for this. very versatile synth and 4 part multitimbral. or just go crazy and get a Moog One 
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