Martian Telecom wrote:if you think synths are all basically the same, you mustn't of spent much time programming a variety of synths.
i'm not being an asshole, i just think its wrong to dismiss the entire industry that has grown around the colourful and varied world of synthesizer design over the last 40 years.
I bought my first synth about 14 years ago, I've had and used plenty of synths. Wavetable, Subtractive DCO, Subtractive VCO, Vector, FM, VA, Additive...
The point that I am trying to make is that having something to say is more important than having a room full of tools to say it with. If you write a good tune nobody is going to say damn the Prophet 600 on that track was hot! No one is really going to be able to pin it down.
Having a room full of variations on the same synth is more about collector fetishism than about making music. Give me a complex digital synth, a rompler, one subtractive poly and one vco based mono synth and I more or less have enough possibilities for an entire career. How much more do you need?
I currently don't even have that much, I have access to three channels of midi and a 707 and I am surprised with what I can do with a set up that humble. It is great because I have to think about my limitations and write around them accordingly.
If I had a computer and a room full of synths I will just run the same sequence through 5 boards, arrange the audio loops in my DAW, slather them in vst effects and make the same boring stuff that everyone else is making.
I am making the best music of my career and making the most personal music I have ever made. It isn't about having piles of gear, it is about having good ideas and executing them cleverly.
I would love to have all the classic roland x0x stuff and old arps and moogs, and weird modular sht, and 10 grand in pre amps and recording gear but I don't need it to express myself. Moodyman made all his classic sht on a k2000. I see those going for about 250usd on craigslist these days. Do the machines make you funky or are you funky with the machine?
but mate who said anything about piles of gear, rooms full of synths ?
you brought that into the equation here no one else. nrjizer was only asking for synth recommendations, and we were just trying to help him.
i agree with most of what you're saying, i dont have a room full of synths either, i also work with a limited set of gear, but i do know that there's no comparison between say my access virus and my SH101, the 101 is completely incapable of doing the things the virus can do, and the virus has nothing like the luxurious warmth that 101 is capable of. they are just two entirely different instruments.
a particular synth can completely shape the way you make music, i dont know why you have to bring fetishism into this, you are talking about a handfull of people who have money to burn, and dismissing the majority of electronic musicians who really do care about the instruments they use.
are we not musicians ? and do we not chose which instruments we use because we particularly like their character just like a drummer choses his particular drum or a guitarist would chose to use a Gibson Les Paul rather than a Fender Stratocaster because of its particular tone ?
i'm not just trying to wind you up or be argumentative for the sake of it, but your recommendation of 'just get an old Roland poly and call it a day' is the only synth i ever had trouble trying to write techno on, it was a jupiter 6, and it constantly drifted out of tune, so that it would be a semitone out by the end of the tune. i gave up, and i know other people who had the same problem. they also fetch very high second hand prices.
end of rant. sorry
