Coincidentally, I was reflecting this afternoon on how Nord went from the Micro Modular and Nord Drum 2, to recycling keyboards.
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Rabid Elephants
Monome - Crow, Norns, Teletype … amazeballs.
Chase Bliss - Blooper
Teenage Engineering - OP-Z
Really not seeing where Nord is going, they have slowed down so much, Yamaha (!?) has caught up with them. the CP/YC series, address what Nord users have been complaining about ( I love my CP73)
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And yet the kyra fails to offer a distinctive advantage over a very famous synth based on an old motorola architecture.
Yeah that more or less is why I said hidden innovators, none of those synths sound specifically better than nice DSP synths but I believe that if people continue down the FPGA road it will likely be where some unique innovations can happen.
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I agree, Korg has been killing it. The Wavestate is amazing, and its sound pallet is unlimited.
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monome
OTO machines
Chass Bliss
Korg
for me at least
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Innovative playable sequencers are still only in my head but Norns is getting close with some scripts. Orca is great as a brain for my modern classic Perfourmer mk2. And I always wanted TTA Trigger Riot,still do want.
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Ciat Lonbarde.
Soma.
ERD.
Noise Engineering.
IME.
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All of them are innovative. The market is brutal.
After picking up the Subharmonicon yesterday, I’ve got to add Moog into the mix. The whole subharmonic thing for both the oscillators and the polyrhythms is genius. I know it’s not an original idea, but it’s so well realised with SubH.
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The thing that changed everything for me was Linnstrument. Went from being a crap keyboardist to a much more nuanced synth player.
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What seemed to change?
Well, I started on bass guitar when I was 10, so the 4ths layout already made sense in a way that a keyboard didn’t — I just never logged the hours. Also, because I like to program my own sounds, using y axis and aftertouch modulation is great fun. It’s like playing a note and twisting two knobs with one finger. Or you can go the Roger Linn direction and say it has the expressive type of a stringed instrument. I already have stringed instruments for that, but I appreciate that I can vibe with a synth like a bass but to totally different ends.
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PS—I still love a good sequenced groove though, too.