Samplers with analogue filters / Synths with sample oscillators

The Lounge Other Gear
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My history with synths stems from the late 80s and big sounding beasts like the M1 and JD800. I love the layering of sounds both synthetic and natural, those big pads that were part big saw brass and part choir, that sort of thing.

Now we’re in this new golden age of synths and gear, why is there still no modern synth that allows simple use of a wave file as an oscillator and runs it through analog filters?

Ah, you say, Prophet X is for you! Yeah true, it’s very close, it’s just having to make instruments before means it’s not quite as simple as a folder of files. Also, it’s very expensive and it’s pretty much it until the Minifreak hopefully gets used waves.

There’s the VAs, such as the Wavestate, which is what I’m looking at now. But even then it’s still not plug and play. But it’s definitely the closest to what I want above.

Well that is except something like a Fantom 6, which seems to be the only way to use custom sounds with the Zencore synth engine. Again it’s a fortune. I think the MC707 does too but it’s much more convoluted. Or going back there’s the XV5080, though the issue there is cost and the sound.

Other than that, it’s back to the 80s / early 90s, and the Mirage, EII / EIII / Emax, Prophet 2000/2 but while they are really analogue filter machines, they are all expensive, all light on memory, and in many cases needing lots of maintenance.

So for now I have a combination of Korg Wavestate (power but not user wave friendly), Roland S750 (JD filters and great synthesis but old and short on memory), and a few VSTs (that do sound superb) but no analogue filters between them.

Can someone please just make a modern synth with nice analogue filters and drive path that you can assign a user wave to an oscillator, maybe even add a couple of layers too? It’s really not that big a deal!

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Microfreak with latest update.
Or any new Roland zen core (with emulated analog filters though), even a mc101 can do that.

Digital oscillators with an analog signal path are quite uncommon, usually synths are most commonly either full analog or full digital, but hybrids are the exception.

You could run any sampler into an AH+FX to get what you want, but it’s not exactly the same as having filters per voice.

Edit: forgot about the Waldorf M, seems pretty much what you’re looking for.

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Analog Rytm mk1 with a retrokits box to address it as a polysynth?

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Some of the vintage synths you mention definitely don’t have convenient file management - the mc707 or 101 are much easier. The mpc one is also easy and filters sound fine.

If you want something weirder ans actual analogue there is also the gotharman boxes- thought they’re expensive and the more unconventional sound is not for everyone.

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Toraiz SP16, but the tracks are monophonic. Maybe the retrokits thing would work there as well? Not sure.

I think the Waldorf quantum does this, but that is even more $ than the Prophet X.

Definitely seems like there are some holes in the market. We have obviously seen newer synths that have digital and/or wavetable oscillators with analog filters, but I wish there were more options that allowed loading up .wav’s, or easily sampling into, that have analog filters.

Microfreak, as mentioned above. I imagine they will add it to the Minifreak, but who knows when that will be?

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Microfreak is using Oberheim SEM-style analogue filter, which is totally fine but I did not feel it adds something special to the sound. It’s quite precise and has some “narrow” characterful resonance and that’s it. And the sample length is very limited (is it really 3-6 seconds?)

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Doesn’t your isla s2400 have analog filters?

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Peak or rytm with single cycle waveforms

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The S2400 does have the fixed filters similar to the SP1200, but they are fixed, so no control over cutoff frequency or resonance. Good for running a sample through to roll of the top end a little, to warm it up and hide some artifacts/aliasing if you want, but not so good for using it as a synth, or any scenario where you want any control over them. Also, the fixed filters aren’t all the same. Channel 1 & 2 have dynamic filters that include a little envelope decay that modulates the cutoff. Channels 3-6 all have flat fixed filters, but each one has a slightly higher cutoff than the previous one, and channels 7 & 8 don’t have any fixed filters.

Now, there are per-channel filters with frequency and resonance control on the S2400, but those are digital. Isla is currently working on a per-channel analog filter board for it that will be user-installable, so that’s cool. They are also working on a digital FX board for it.

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This

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I’d be curious if anyone has any experience with this? While I think it would be cool to try out with something like the RYTM or SP16, the workflow seems like it might be a little bit of a headache. I think it works well with the Digitakt (no analog filter obviously), because of Control All. If you need to tweak the the filter cutoff, resonance, envelope, etc. for each voice, just use Control All and every voice is affected at the same time. Granted, much less of an issue if only using monophonic.

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Also, just to correct myself here, the SP16 analog filters are master filters only, not per-channel.

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The A4.

From the manual :

IMG_5579
IMG_55791624×235 61.1 KB

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I think that this is the best way to go about it. You’ve probably already got something that can work.

Personally, I’ve been occasionally running my old Zoom Sampletrak through my Uno Synth Pro. You can turn the oscillators down and just run the signal through the filters. The Sampletrak can’t really play loops but it can record long samples. So I just record long notes and have at it.

On a side note:

I don’t think it would matter. The way that the firmware works on the RK-002 if you send a cc message it will be sent to all of the channels you’re using. My Circuit Rhythm doesn’t have any kind of control all. But it worked the same way.

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This Machine has a lot to offer.

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If it works in that way for all values, then I mostly agree with that. But you’d still need a controller or sequencer that you can map out all of those values to, as opposed to changing them on the device itself.

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Does that NINA take samples?

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I don’t know, I returned it. The workflow wasn’t for me. Apart from Grooveboxes, I’m a one-Synth-one-Sound guy.

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I understand, you gotta use what works for you.

I might be a Two-Buck-Chuck or a No-Sleep-Till-Brooklyn kind of guy.

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Buy a modular system, either route a sample vst out and print through the filter, or use Analog 4 with overbridge and route a sample vst through it.

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