Moog Music Forum

Did you guys see this?

http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/products/tetra/

seen it. Hopefully Mopho prices will plummet because of this. Sounds great layered with my LP!

Yep , a 4 voices Mopho..... great sound (I got one of those.... love it)

But I have mixed feeling about the Tetra. Twice the price, four times the voices a bargain? Not really. 4 voices is not enough for a poly synth. Chain them together? 4 of these is 3 thousands bucks... What do you get for that? Four square boxes and a lot of wiring in between (but no CV's or keyboard). And a nightmare to tweak one.. imagine 4.

Btw, the Tetra is priced similarly to a Blofeld (which I like, first class interface, very easy to program and tweak, it's growing on me atm) or a Nord Rack 2x, both sporting 20 some voices + multitimbral for the Nord (did not check specs writing this.. going from memory). The Nord is a workhorse, Blofeld full of potential, but true enough, i'll give the advantage to the Tetra (or Mopho) for sound quality.

Not the tweaker's dream synth.

IMO, I would have prefered a full knob job Mopho. At least, it would have lessened my intersest for Tom Oberheim's reissue of the SEM.

All that being said, the LP is still the one I want to turn on when I wake up in the morning.

Portamental wrote:But I have mixed feeling about the Tetra. Twice the price, four times the voices a bargain? Not really. 4 voices is not enough for a poly synth. Chain them together? 4 of these is 3 thousands bucks... What do you get for that? Four square boxes and a lot of wiring in between (but no CV's or keyboard). And a nightmare to tweak one.. imagine 4.

What about two P'08 modules (= 16 voice) for $3k? You can poly chain, and all of the controllers are transmitted from master to slave.

Not the tweaker's dream synth.

IMO, I would have prefered a full knob job Mopho. At least, it would have lessened my intersest for Tom Oberheim's reissue of the SEM.

I hear ya. An original SEM module sold for NZ$800 (= US$530) online here recently. It took a bit of will power not to bid...

the LP is still the one I want to turn on when I wake up in the morning.

Well said! You can beat an egg, but you can't beat a Moog!

I had a Mopho for a month. I returned it because it felt digital and sounded like a software synthesizer. (The final straw was that the envelope sequence modulation settings were buggy. Has anyone tried programming their Mopho internal sequencer with the mod destination assigned to Env Attack, Env Decay or Env Release? It does not act as it should. When I called DSI about it their answer was sort of "well it just takes a little getting used to, but that is how it should sound.") I imagine the Tetra is basically four of these.

The only thing the new Dave Smith unit does is make me want the new SEM fom Tom O. all the more.

Portamental wrote:But I have mixed feeling about the Tetra. Twice the price, four times the voices a bargain? Not really.

Hell yes it's a bargain. It's a 4 part multitimbral analog for $800.

instrument comparisons....... never understood it. is it that some people are still looking for the "end all" synth? i have all of these mentioned, including old sems and they are all great and none of them will ever replace the other.
waste of time discussion...... just buy them all and you'll be happy!

Mitchell Chastain wrote:instrument comparisons....... never understood it. is it that some people are still looking for the "end all" synth? i have all of these mentioned, including old sems and they are all great and none of them will ever replace the other.
waste of time discussion...... just buy them all and you'll be happy!

"Electronic musicians" who are in reality collectors are a major problem in the field of electronic music. There is something to be said for having one synthesizer that you love and play all the time.

What the hell? Jesus...hey, Mitchell Chastain, you're a "major problem in the field of electronic music"....

That must mean I'm a lieutenant problem as I haven't bought them all!

toryjames wrote:"Electronic musicians" who are in reality collectors are a major problem in the field of electronic music. There is something to be said for having one synthesizer that you love and play all the time.

Theres also something to be said about having lots of instruments that you love and keeping your inspiration from getting burned out so fast.

toryjames wrote: "Electronic musicians" who are in reality collectors are a major problem in the field of electronic music. There is something to be said for having one synthesizer that you love and play all the time.

Absolutely, and easily most of the best music performed and recorded throughout history has been done by musicians through their mastery of an instrument only capable of a very limited number of sounds if not one single sound.

this is the first polyphonic analog synthesizer for sale under $1k since like the Reagan administration. Whats not to like?

4 voices is definitely limiting to some extent but you can still get away with a lot, esp with a little delay on it. Add in consideration that you can throw this into unison mode for 8 dcos and suboscs and you're looking at a powerful machine with flexible modulation options and a lot more.

Honestly I don't think the Blofeld is worth comparison here, it's a VA, different realm, very different sound. It's justifiable to want to put this thing up there with the Virus TI Snow et all, but it's analog! If the DSI sound isn't enough to warrant the shortcomings, then it's probably not for you.

I for one wish I had the $$$ to justify it, but I'm not willing to sell my virus for instance to get it. Cute as hell though, and I really like their editing software. Alas...