Like @ddiamond84 said, the Polyphrase is quite tempting.
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Alright, everyone needs to stop with this Polyphrase love. It’s the one pedal from Vongon I haven’t tried yet, and it has been on my wishlist for a while now, and I’m probably gonna have to get one now.
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I like the fact the delay and reverb sit next to each other.
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Some people think that the synth market is oversaturated, therefore a synth that doesnt offer any new features, is expensive, and isnt easy to use doesnt make sense.
My perspective is that this synth is interesting because the market is oversaturated with options, so its cool when boutique companies come out with things that look weird for fun, and dont necessarily have any crazy features. Most synth people already know how to use simple subtractive synths, so its not necessarily critical for the labels to be legible. This thing is stylish and weird. Its got a cute shape and a weird color. If you move your head around youll see the labels catch the light. Its fun for things to be obscured or made mysterious sometimes.
I think it’s sad when folks react to this as if it’s in some way bad for this option to exist. It’s not for you - that’s fine. Its a small company making something weird for a small group of people who have a bit of disposable income and want music gear that looks weird.
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I like synths that have a limited range because they don’t overwhelm me. Probably won’t buy it but would use it a lot if i would own one.
On the other hand i have not the slightest problem with people disliking it or even bashing it. We live in a world full of consumption. It’s ok for people to hate on some of these products imo. If it’s interesting to read about other people’s opinions is another topic though. 
But it’s up to me to do it or leave it.
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Interesting product. It’s definitely laser focused on appealing to the boutique guitar pedal/tone focused crowd (hence Mark Johnston who is definitely not a synth person being the first major promoter to hit at launch). I can’t think of another small pedal manufacturer that has gone this route before so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.
Their pedals are all tightly designed with limited features, great aesthetics, and an excellent core sound. I’m sure this thing sounds great but as much as this will appeal to “guitar pedal collector who wants a synth”, it’ll equally put off the average “synth collector that wants more synth :” based on marketing as a VA tribute to the Juno 6/60/106 where there are already analog (nymphes, deepmind) and VA options (ju06, jx-08) that all sound pretty good with the same set of parameters.
I think it’ll do fine at the price point with limited runs but if it does indeed become a gateway drug for guitarist for hardware synths, I don’t see it holding the same value relatively to an ultrasheer or polyphrase on the used market (if that’s something a person cares about).
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The ‘Update Firmware’ instructions on their website references connecting to the “Daisy Bootloader” so I assume a Daisy Seed is inside. This may also be why the synth uses micro-USB rather than USB-C, if they have just exposed the daisy’s USB port (which is micro-USB).
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Daisy Seed says it uses 24 bit hardware though?
I don’t know anything about this stuff though, but on the surface is it software that’s running at 32bit but then the hardware runs at 24bit?
like the op-1f I think?
The Daisy code runs at 32-bit, the Audio I/O on the Daisy Seed is 24-bit. The Replay specs say “32-bit audio sound processing”. So either they are ignoring that the I/O is 24-bit, or they may have connected a different DAC. I think the former is more likely.
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It’s probably just like how DAWs work, you can have 32bit internal processing for greater headroom but still output from a 24bit audio interface.
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makes sense, thanks!
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I didn’t see a link to this interview.
It gives some light on the vision and the process.
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seems they have a vision and dont wanna cut corners, i respect that approach. guess it will pan out if the QC is held to an equally high standard
From the shape of the keybed, sleekness of the enclosure, custom finishes, and even the functionality of replay as both an instrument, and as an art piece—she was adamant that we not compromise the design of this product. We spent so much time working on each and every detail of replay , and think it looks, feels and of course sounds, exactly as planned—rad!
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I appreciate and really like that they’re sticking to their vision for the instrument, and the interview made me slightly reconsider my initial judgements (which are also admittedly based only on the Oora video). I still don’t know if it’s for me, but the passion they clearly put into it shows.
I also really appreciated the section on the initial analog design, and how it informed the final digital design.
replay is designed with the Roland Juno 106 and Korg Polysix in mind, specifically. It is not a clone, but rather my own compact version of an instrument that covers the sounds I love from those synths. Initially, I prototyped the design as an analog circuit, with oscillators that were clocked from a digital microprocessor, mirroring the original Juno operation. However, that analog design turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for us. I totally underestimated the difficulty of maintaining consistency between each voice (ie. filter tuning, resonance, envelope response, volume balance, etc.) Ultimately, I had to make a tough decision and discard about eight months of work. I started over and recreated the design in software as a virtual analog system.
The digital design came together surprisingly quickly for me, and sounded even better! I gained significantly more granular control over the factors that were challenging in the analog design. The filters harmonized better, the envelopes were much snappier, and I could fine-tune the response curves of each control. A typical challenge when designing a digital instrument is to maintain the warmth and character of the analog equivalent, but because I was so familiar with the analog circuit, I was able to really fine-tune the tones of replay.
In the end, the eight months of analog work weren’t a complete loss. The discarded work helped me grow and expand what I thought was possible. We are extremely pleased with the way everything turned out.
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I’ve two of their pedals: though I may be a sucker for their marketing, I really like their quality, simplicity and musicality.
Several other pedal cos have brought out flagship reverbs and delays with more features than a full synth, but I keep coming back to the ultrasheer and polyphase as go to sweetness.
The replay looks pricey and simplistic - but I suspect there is a real quality proposal here.
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For those who like portable compact subtractive sounds, the OP-1F Dimension synth probably covers some of the Replay GAS
While I’m in agreement with you on scratching my head over this synths allure and what benefit people see in it, there’s sorta voicing that confusion in a pleasant way vs an antagonistic way.
Personally, I fear coming off as stupid so I would never outright plant myself entirely in my own perspective. So I wouldn’t call this synth crappy(because I can’t know), I can say “I don’t get it” and at least then I’m speaking facts 
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the most interesting thing for me about this thread is that I see a lot of reinforcement of a phenomenon that happens a lot with electronic musical instruments : VFM tends to be focused on features…
I suspect I’m not in the market for one of these, but I’ve got to say for a VA it sounds absolutely stellar & it’s clearly designed to be a proper instrument - you’ll get a lot from a design like this once the muscle memory kicks in . For me, it’s not about features at all - it’s about sound & playability - does the thing inspire as an instrument ? Does the tone of the thing do it for you ? Often simplicity is a big win, not a loss.
I don’t see flute or violin players worrying too much about features… 
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