Synths and samplers that deserved a better fate

i don’t know much about other genres, but Electribes (of all generations) are HUGELY popular among psytrance producers.

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hugely popular too in rave/hardtekno circles… at least in Europe.

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i’m almost in Europe (Ukraine) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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That’s almost Russia to me (F) :sweat_smile:

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Woah those illustrations for each valve :drunk:

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Korg R3?
Lots of people still covet the Radias and MS2000, but the R3 packed a lot of their sounds into a compact, budget package.
Was my first proper hardware synth.
You never see anyone using one.

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Korg Prophecy, with it’s terrible MOSS engine.
Some synths are a nightmare to programme, this thing has me wondering why i don’t just give it to the local kids on bonfire night, i’m sure they’ll get more pleasure out of it than i ever have.
Five minutes and i lose the will to live.
Rare as hens teeth, probably because they all ended up on a bonfire somewhere. :heat:

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“Gear that deserved better”
“Throw it on the bonfire”

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had an Electribe Sampler 2 for a few months. Really great build quality and they sound excellent (to my ears). Stereo sampling / playback too though that takes up 2 pads (logical) BUT the menu diving really killed it for me…
I sometimes feel I should have just used it more to get to grips with it but I bought it at a time when I could not afford a DT and needed a decent sampler. In frustration I finally sold it and bought a DT.
Digitakt UI is a walk in the park compared.

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There are shortcuts. Unfortunately no graphics for them…

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The Waldorf Pulse and Pulse+ are amazing sounding synths.
Maybe they suffered of their matrix style of editing… but man the sound.

I love so much this synth, I did a jam with some of my presets with and without reverb.

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maybe… but the pulse2 is also matrix-based and seems to be well considered.

Yes good point.
It will remain a mistery :smiley:

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Nord G2. Not properly marketed to electronic musicians and/or ahead of its time.

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I actually like matrix-based synths… the evolver comes to my mind. Such a crazy synth… a shame it’s no longer produced.

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Waldorf Attack Rack. Always wanted one, always shied away because of the rack format. Waldorf bring it back in a Blofeld/ Pulse format!!!

This guy has a lot of interesting videos on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOJVsjPZcE9HxsgPKCxZfAg/playlists

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I should have labelled the machine. I did use shortcuts but I’d be back and forth with the manual trying to remember everything. It’s a bit of a shame and maybe short sighted on my part that it just didn’t gel for me.

Some people sell overlays: https://cremacaffe.shop/products/electribe-accessories

Even using the shortcuts, there’s still a fair bit of menu diving. Also the fact that the encoder used in the menus is the same as the one to change patterns can lead to fuck-ups.

Still, a nice machine to grab on the second-hand market.

The Micron / AK is definitely a sleeper that still has potential. I especially enjoyed the two sliders on the Micron that, although not really any different to two wheels, did allow for some pre-Octatrack crossfade control. As an eight-part drum synthesiser, it was great - and the editing wasn’t too bad if you focused on the shortcuts under the keys. It had some nice filter emulations, too - not technically stellar, but definitely covering a lot of ground.

The Electribe ER-1 MKII was another example I’ve owned - not amazing if you approached it as a regular drum machine, but start playing with the signal generators and cross-mod options and it could get into some interesting territory, like a budget Machinedrum. I guess it was quite popular in its time, but it seems to have fallen off the radar these days.

Another is the Yamaha A series of samplers - the built-in tones and extensive effects options made these surprisingly capable synths, and the tempo-based effects they introduced in the 4000 gave them some powerful rhythm capabilities, too. Overshadowed by Akai, and let down by the hardware, in my experience - you will encounter skipping encoders eventually. But you could start out with an onboard sawtooth and quickly get somewhere on one of these.

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