If you had to buy a Poly today?

[rodion]

as for wendy carlos statement:

it might seem strange but I've heard many analog synth gurus (people who made the history of synthetic music like italian band Goblin, Easy going or Alexander Robotnick)
getting tired or sick with the even sides of their beloved analog gear.
what I mean is that after 20 or 30 years of analog machines they decided to jump on the digital train,
which gives them more portability, stability, the ability to recall presets etc etc.
I took the reverse way, I started 15 years ago with VA stuff and plugin and then I moved towards real analog.
maybe many of us did the same. I'll never get rid of my moog gear now so I'm not saying they're right,
I'm only reporting what they told me and what I read about them:
they loose something in terms of sound quality, but life, especially on stage, is much simpler for them now.

as for poly synth advice:
old times classics like the memory or prophet5 or jupiter8 or ob-x would obviously be the best choice, but they're pricey and sometimes unreliable.
I can tell you great things about the waldorf Q and the oberheim matrix 1000. I have them both and they're much more versatile than my Juno-106.
you need a software to program the matrix, but it's analog and it only costs something like 300e including the software and offers you a stunning modulation matrix.
what I usually do is running them through voyager or ms-20 filters and/or some moogerfooger ring or phaser to give them some body and saturation.
final analog touches are provided by a RE-201 tape echo.
that is to say that if you are tight on budget, you could also achieve great organic sounds starting from a good VA and then adding some analog stuff at the end of the chain.
hope this will help

ciao
ed

[eXode]

For reference and If you are interested, here's a small demo I did of the DSI Tetra: eXode - DSI Tetra Demo

The demo is consisting of 7 tracks, multitracked directly from the Tetra and into propellerheads Record. A bit of delay and reverb and that's pretty much it.
The volume of the recording is a bit low. I must underline that any critisisms that I had of it are pretty minor. It's such a wonderful little synth still and reckon the P'08 should be as well.

[yowzer]

I have been listening to this record for years, and it always inspires and confounds me. She is very articulate and knowledgeable about the topic; it's really a course in synthesis basics, and especially composing/arranging within the limits of analog.

Her point about "good analog is good but good digital is better" has to do with the complexity that digital waveforms can achieve, which are more like "real" instrument sounds and capable of a wider sonic palette. The way to visualize this is that analog sounds are stronger in outline and stand out like a boldly colored, commercially printed cartoon, whereas digital waveforms are capable of greater subtlety and detailed modeling (like an oil painting). Besides the Secrets album, if you want to hear how her ideas translate into her work, listen to Beauty in the Beast and Digital Moonscapes.

[gd]

You said you wanted warm pads/resonant strings sound any particular artist/song that you could post would also help in getting advice. I have a P08 (with new encoder boards gratis from DSI) that basic sound you described can easily be achieved moreso in 4 pole mode than 2 pole as was previously stated resonance cannot only be fairly mildly applied in 2 pole although the new OS update may change some of the issues. EP's are definately not a strong point with the P08 so adding a module of your choice would be best. Post a youtube link to what you are hoping to achieve and we can all go from there to give you more advice.

[Electrong]

I suggest a used Rhodes for Electric piano. A suitcase could get you the amp. You could use the effects loop for sounds. You could introduce another synth into that amp or another amp, one of the channel inputs on the side of the amp. This would be more economical than a Nord Lead II but they have great emulation of the Hammond and EP sounds. If you went the Nord Lead route, you could then use its midi and then just put a DSI Tetr4 on it. The only limitation to this scenario is you said you want the knobs to twiddle. A DSI prophet 08 would be great for that aspect of it. But true, you won't get EP sounds from it.

About Wendy. Secrets of Synthesis came out in '87. Think about that. This is an analog synth pioneer (Player, not designer) who, in 1987 is saying that Digital is better than Analog. So if you are saying a Virus is better than a Prophet 08 and you're using Wendy's quote from 1987 to support that statement, you need to realize that Wendy never knew what a Virus was going to be. In 1987 everyone was ditching their Minimoogs--they were available in pawn shops for a couple of hundred bucks! Something relatively new at the time was the Oberheim Matrix synths, though, and the Xpander and Matrix 12 were monster analog synths, not incredibly easy to program, but still there were many routings--much more than the baby brothers Matrix 1000 and the Matrix 6--and the pads you could produce on these (Xpander and Matrix 12) are incredible, because of the extra stuff they had. Various ramp waves and lag processors and other stuff you could apply to the filters, of which there were several notch filters and bandpass filters that you could add resonance to, and get all kinds of complex and interesting pads on.

I know people who were into synthesis when it was actually new--like Wendy--and have heard them make similar statements. These people had long sold off their Oberheim SEM modules, but they still had their Xpander. They had sold off their ARP Oddysey but still had their ARP 2600.

Wendy was an innovator, and in 1987 Digital synthesis (particularly FM synthesis like the DX-7s and, later, the then-newer SY line of the early 90s. I read an interview with Wendy about the SY-77 and she was raving about them. She spoke about their ability to create various microtonal scales, etc. And it is true that FM synthesis was a very wide-open platform, and you could come up with many different tonalities because of their complex modulations that happened with the various algorithms.

But this was before VA. I think every time I hear VA it sounds cheap. It may be valid for most dance/stage applications, because by the time the sound source is amplified and put over a high-wattage speaker system, and mixed in with other sound sources, the human ear can't generally detect the difference. Still, if you listen to analog oscillators and filters and compare them over headphones or a good speaker system, by themselves without processors added, VA comes up very much short in emulating analog sounds. That doesn't mean they're not valid.

So for the above reasons I am going to simply remove VA synths from my personal list of choices. What does that leave left over? It leaves very few analog synths, the P08 and Tetra and other DSI being part of those choices. I'm not shopping so I'm not aware of very many other polysynths being sold today. The Andromeda is no longer sold. It has good word out on its sound quality and it probably has fantastic patches. I am not aware personally of how good the pads are on the Prophet 08. I would guess though that you could get the best of both worlds with a Poly Evolver. Those feature 2 analog and 2 VA oscillators per voice. You could get P08 sounds and Virus sounds out of it, and combinations of the 2 so I would imagine you could get all kinds of thick pads from a Poly Evolver. That's just based on limited viewing of them online, though. I have personal experience with the Xpander and Matrix 12. If you could find a good keyboard/Midi controller you could have your cake and eat it too, by getting a controller synth like the Prophet 08 or a Poly Evolver, and then if you feel like you need some EP emulators you could get a Nord Electro Rack. Or, go the other way around and get a Nord Electro and use it to control a poly synth module like an Xpander, or a Tetr4. There are several ways to approach it, I think the onboard knob outlay of a Poly Evolver or Prophet 08 is very enticing, and then you could get a nord rack later. I don't see the benefit of getting more than one keyboard controller unless you need them for discreet control of the sounds and the ability to play other sounds with another keyboard. The extra money in cost seems redundant.

Also I don't mean to offend anyone who's hell-bent on getting a good VA. You can get them from your computer as well, though. I just think that MIDI is a good thing to use to save space, and so far my ears haven't been convinced that VA is really better than or as good as analog. It may be great at what it does, though, without being compared to analog.

[EMwhite]

Many good points above... my head is spinning.

If I could get a Matrix 12 for < $2,000 in good shape I would but that's not going to happen.
If I had $6k, I'd buy a new Rhodes and spend the next few years playing rather than tweaking knobs (ha!).

The Electro gives much of the good 'dedicated purpose' sounds and the recommendation to couple a Tetra with it is a fair one. As I may have mentioned, I already have a Hammond w/Leslie.

As always, it's gear lust and not enough cash or space.

A Fairlight would be nice!! Gotta dig that green monitor it comes with; I remember reading Kbd mag as a teenager and listening to the flex records that they included in the magazine. When I was a kid, my friends dad knew Wendy personally, he was a rep for Synergy, among others and always had interesting people and great equipment through his home studio.

I'm a few mouse clicks away from picking up a Prophet 08 Desktop PE with fancy knobs but did have a look at the Tetra. Despite being 1/2 a P'08 but with SubOSCs and all sorts of fancy multi-timbral beep box capabilities, I don't think I'm going to be happy playing a 7th chord with even a single bass note and having it drop notes. I also don't think I'm going to be happy needing a computer to program it.

I have two controllers at the moment; a Novation 25SL MkII that I use to tweak my Taurus pedals while playing leads on my LP Tribute (which is across the room), and an older M-Audio Keystation 61 that I really like the feel of but has zero features.

Growing up in the 80's I listened to Pet Shop Boys, Flock of Seagulls (don't laugh!) Thomas Dolby, always liked Tony Banks from Genesis, Level 42 so I think the P'08 will do it. I already have all of the pure analog stuff covered with my Phatty and Old School. We all can't have what Paul Shaffer has... namely everything.

Thanks again guys.

[BadAlibi]

Well, if you have to ask,

I DID (yesterday)

And I bought..... a prophet 08 keyboard!! (dun dun dun dun! )

Now i need to wait for my case