But is there such a thing as a performance polysynth? This has too many knobs and is too heavy (45 kg) and expensive to be roadworthy.
From the Sonic State video, it sounds similar to the A6. Most of what you need to do on the Alesis is on the front panel, and it has just as many oscillators.
“Discrete circuit?”
In saying that though, hats off to the guy – what an achievement.
What I’ve been really wishing for is a Slim Phatty type rack expander or even poly expander with no interface and a subsequent cost savings. Obviously the idea is a unit with the front panel would be the interface, or conceivably those not wanting one saving up could use a computer editor via MIDI or USB. I’ve noticed a few of them have come out over the years, most notably the Dave Smith Instruments one for the Evolver. Then again sadly I think they don’t sell all that well. I’m guessing the quite different concept Tetra far outsold it, though that’s an amazing value if one is willing to forgo knobs.
Looking back at history one has to remember that units like the MemoryMoog, Prophet 5, Jupiter 8, etc. cost mid thousands in their day as new, and would be even higher today unless very redesigned… though Sequential & Dave Smith have done that a couple times. The not quite as good Prophet 600 in 1983 having an extra voice, MIDI, some cut corners and not quite as good sound coming in at half the price of a Prophet 5 and then more than 20 years later the Prophet 08 delivering a great more or less analog poly for under $2K.
that poly has too many knobs
Well this could be humorous comment with some truth. Knobs do cost money (look at the Phatty price) and in this case lead to a large synth if you have large numbers. Then again the thing is many people just don’t like menus for a bunch of reasons, it has been commented that the synth at the show seems to have some sort of LCD but likely doesn’t have all sorts of menu driven features. It was interesting that the Old School Voyager tried that approach but wasn’t a smash hit, then again a lot of the people who don’t want menus also probably either don’t have much money or the opposite of sinking a lot into modular gear… or I guess like me, already have a non-Old School. Because the fact of the matter is it did come out years after the original Voyager, so one had to have money, not want menus and not already bought the regular Voyager or one of the umpteen special editions. But something I would instantly put on my must buy list would be something like an RME without knobs or better that with say 4 voices. I have the regular Voyager, I would if feasible use it’s knobs to control the rack.
Back to the Schmidt. I can only guess the designer is aiming to build his vision of an ultimate polysynth. It would sure make more sense off the top of my head to build a mono let it get acclaim and then do the poly. But thinking more, I get the feeling most of the money is in the panel and if 25K euro is the rumored price for a poly that probably might mean a +10K monosynth that I don’t think that is likely to be a sales hit.
I’m curious about the panel. I’ve not seen one big enough to read though one might show up. I have no idea how efficient or over the top it is.
It’d be nice if Moog made the Phatty duophonic and the Voyager triphonic. Sure, there’d be shared envelopes and filters, but it’d be great to be able to play 2 or 3-note chords per unit, allowing for even wider chords with true polyphony more units are chained in to a system. The ARP Quadra has this feature (with portamento controls for each oscillator!) and it is very handy.
