Muff's Modules & More

essex sound lab · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:57 am Post subject:

In addition to the Walforf stuff mentioned, I'll second (or third) the shout outs for both the Access Virus and the V-Synth XT.

sydilaxe · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:12 am Post subject:

The AN portion of the EX5 is also only duophonic. So, you can't really expect to get any pads out of that anyway...

I must say that the V-synth rocks my world. It is currently my favorite digital synth by a long run.

obscurerobot · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:46 am Post subject:

aumgn · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:19 pm Post subject:

aumgn · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:30 pm Post subject:

[quote="lilakmonoke"]great and concise info, thanks!

Love that cz 3000 video

Doing ambient music is like a perminant vacation for any musician, when all else fails just get some stuff cycling and float away.

I'm lusting after a Casio vz myself.

Never knew the supernova etc had looping envelopes , great synths.The ks series is also really nice , 2 x super weird lfo's.

Roycie Roller · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:48 pm Post subject:

i recently bought an Ensoniq SQ-80, and it's insane woah

it sounds like a horror film soundtrack!

4x multi-stage envelopes, 3x Lfo's,, 3x 8-bit waveform VCO's, 4 VCA's, CEM filter, plus extensive editing of mixing, panning & other global parameters (AM of 2 VCO's, sync of 2 VCO's, reset of eg's, lfo's & vco's, etc, etc) .

it's like a modular in layout, in fact, and does ambient/evolving soundscapes with ease

& sounds beautiful! love

plus i think you can drop in your own eproms (i have the hylander PPG's which i'd like to try, just have to double-check schematics).

And i haven't got to the sequencer yet

Have a look at Casio's HT series, & Keytek

worstofthewurst · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:00 pm Post subject:

clusterchord · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:35 am Post subject:

if i were going for minimal setup to make an ambient record, id go with these:

Roland JD990 BladeOfGlass
Microwave XT Amenthes/NimbusDei , waldorfxt+spaceecho
Korg Z1
Eventide - Orville, 7000, Eclipse or something.
Akai MPC3000 or S1100 sampler

FS1R is also really nice, if youre satisfied with tweaking presets, ive made some phenomenal sounds half tweaking , half by accident.. importing things from TX802. Nord Modular G1, Roland D550 and Korg Wavestation are all classic too in their own right. actually the choice for digital poly is rather wide..

as far as analog polys, while were on the subject, the only ones i found that can sometimes fit into the colder/vast soundscapes of ambient are Xpander and Andromeda. everything else just sticks out way too much.

A6-ThickPad- 2nd filter self-oscillation
A6-BerlinPad +Orville reverb

Hanz · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:03 am Post subject:

Mmm, agree, if only one: V-Synth XT. So much power in there for making ambient sounds, and you get the classic D50 and the extensive vocoder / choir cards thrown in. 3 in 1, really, as long as you can do multitracking - they're not available simultaneously!

V-Synth GT is also a good candidate, but misses out on D50 emulation. It's extremely good for natural sounding 'ethnic' instruments, thanks to the unique AP Synthesis functionality, basically some sort of playing aid. It somewhat starts to go into Yamaha VL1 territory, soundwise.

Otherwise, my favs are K5000s, JD990, FS1r and MicroWave 1 (not 2/XT though).

chinard · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:07 am Post subject:

wow. i totally forgot about the FS1r.
good call

jonah · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:21 pm Post subject:

obscurerobot · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:41 pm Post subject:

tIB · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:47 pm Post subject:

Ive had an R3 and a radias, the radias is miles better and I scored it for pretty much the same price.

Ranxerox · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:34 pm Post subject:

I got an E-Mu Morpheus recently. It's got crazy filters and grainy ROM-sample loops, and it's great for swirly, grungy Wolfgang Voigt-sounding stuff. Drum sounds on it are pretty rad too. I also have a Microwave II, an FS1R and a K5000S - all potentially great for ambient.

In the case of the FS1R and the Kawai, if your imagination doesn't extend very far beyond the standard 2-oscillator subtractive patch then you probably won't get much out of them. These are proper digital synths in that they are not designed for emulation - they're not simple ROMplers or VAs.

Here are a couple of good sites for info about digital synths:

http://www.deepsonic.ch/deep/htm/hard_idx.php
http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/

My issue with the K5000 is it has so many redundant parameters - each harmonic has about a dozen, and there are 128 harmonics per voice, then the 128-band 'formant filter'. The Soundiver editor doesn't help much, so I created an environment patch that lets me draw curves with a mouse across the full width of the screen - to set the parameter values for each harmonic. Yes I'm a geek.

Respect to the Ensoniq effects as well, I posit that the DP/4 would make a pretty good reverb machine for ambient. The Lexicon PCM81 is also an excellent choice and can be had for not that much money these days too.

clusterchord · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:40 pm Post subject:

worstofthewurst · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:27 pm Post subject:

obscurerobot · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:47 pm Post subject:

Hanz · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 4:45 am Post subject:

Well, VSynth is only at its most basic a VA. Potentially, much more like a granular / sampling box of tricks.

Ranxerox · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:50 am Post subject: