I’m looking to add a preset machine to my Ableton Move, something that I don’t have to programme sounds with. I just want to have fun, make some jams, that kinda thing. Also, I only have a small desk in my room, so looking for something fairly compact.
Any suggestions? To give you an idea of the kind of thing I’m looking for I’d say the Waldorf Streichfett - presets, smallish, my sort of budget.
Budget is £500 tops.
The Roland SH4D gets you a LOT of very flexible synthesizer - 4 channels + 32 freely assignable and ediatable drum sounds and bunch of different algo’s and a pile of nice fx.
Smallish, can run off a battery pack or usb bus powered, usb, midi, etc. Works well with external stuff but plenty capable of just sitting with some headphone on your lap in front of the tv or whatever tweaking sounds and ideas.
And you could probably get one with £100 to spare. It’s a great machine, it’s got a few idiosyncracies but that’s my recommendation I think.
Is a microfreak too big? It pairs really well with the Move.
Roland MC101?
MC101 works alright actually, it can even be powered from the Move’s USB-A port
And if you use it just for presets you don’t even need to deal with the UI
Another vote for the MC-101 - shit tons of decent sounds, good polyphony, 4 parts.
With mc101, I guess since type c audio sampling from the move isn’t possible?. I guess headphone to input on the move?
I hope they introduce type c audio to move soon if so.
/thread
I second this.
I recently bought an MC101 to pair with my SP-404MK2 and it’s been awesome. There’s so much sound variety in it. Plus it’s small and portable.
Yamaha Seqtrak?
This. Crappy plastic but really good sound quality
I don’t have an mc101 but I know someone who just got one for the same reasons, is loving it, and I can hear why. I could be suckered into getting one too but I won’t.
+1
Some other options: 1010 boxes like Fireball and Lemondrop, Dave Smith Tetra (or Mopho), Fred’s Lab Tooro or Manatee, Audiothingies Micromonsta, Roland JV-1010, Virus Ti Snow (if you can find a deal.)
MC-101 hands down. Or an iPad (and I hate touching glass).
It can be a bit of faff, but an iPad can be really good in this scenario. Heaps of synth apps which are great for presets and fx. I hate using a touch screen for programming but switching presets is fine.
Agree. It was stupidly simple and fast to play a few chords on the Korg M1 app and sample them into a Drum Rack on the Move!
Boss Dr. Synth
Just a quick note on the MC101:
Whilst packed with thousands of great sounds, you can’t select them externally via Bank Change/Program Change combinations.
PC is limited to selecting patterns (or clips or whatever), which is limited to 128 per saved project.
So if you need to be able select any sound remotely, bear in mind that the MC101 can’t do this.
I would have loved for a ‘Module Mode’ you could enable, and have every sound accesible in this way, but Roland may be reluctant as it might reduce sales of their software solutions (I’m assuming here).
One more thing to consider… I too wanted a preset machine, but ended up a little frustrated by the lack of hands-on control to quickly tweak a sound. It made me realize I prefer something a bit bigger with more knobs.
I wouldn’t call the Manatee a Preset machine.