I’m in the same boat, looking at SH-4d / Minifreak.
had the Grandmother for a while and miss it a lot but it’s quite expensive these days.
A sub-1000 dollar-euros poly synth that is simple and fast to use is pretty rare.
Essentially your only options for on-the-market synths are the Korg Minilogue and Minilogue XD.
The XD has some pretty decent onboard effects and a bass booster for the ladder filter. You’ll notice synths with ladder filters will lose some low end when you turn up the resonance, sorta ruining your bass lines. The original Minilogue is like this, but the XD added a secret digital bass boost EQ in the signal chain to compensate, making it the more versatile of the two, but it is slightly more complex to use due to it having a third digital oscillator besides the two analog ones. But both synths are incredibly simple yet have a very wide variety of tones that you can quickly dial in.
I guess you could always get a Behringer knock-off like their MonoPoly or one of their other poly synths as long as… you know… you’re ok with your synth being built by slaves in camps…
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What about a Streichfett? Obviously it’s got a limited sound palette, but will it give me enough to make some techno bangers?
I got rid of my Streichfett after less than 3 months of owning it…it was simply too little control over the sound I could get. Not a huge fan, but some people swear by that particular string sound and the morphing effects it gives you.
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System-1(m) or System-8 are perfect. Almost one knob per function, easy lay-out and instant gratification. Also very versatile, despite lacking a proper mod matrix or even a second LFO (except if you load in the System-100 plug-out). The oscillator section of the native engine is really awesome and will give you a lot of variety.
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+1 for the System-1 en Minilogue. Both are excellent hands on 4 voice affordable polys. As said earlier: The System-1 is very versatile because of its oscillator section, but the Minilogue is definitely no slouch either with the osc shape section. The XD even more I guess but I don’t have any experience with it.