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 | Hi all, so been lurking around these parts for what must be over a year now... Always had an interest in music but never really spent much time on the making end of it. Spending lots of time on sound setups, sure, amp & speaker audionaut, yes, but making, not so much. Sure, played electric guitar when I was a teenager and was into that for a little bit but never seriously. Most recently, bought a uke to play blind when I had laser eye surgery, so became OK with that over a few weeks, but keys & synths was something else entirely. So march on to the pandemic and I decide I wanted to learn synths and keys. So it all began, the usual story said here many a time over. I'm a tech enthusiast so turning things over on eBay and such is never a worry for me, excellent rating, not much of a problem for me to buy secondhand and sell on a few weeks later for a little gain / loss. Only sell on Ebay selling offer fees which come around often for me. So over the last 14 months I tried to gather as much as I could on the whole synth and music noodling thing I could, resulting in, purchasing and selling (sometimes multiple times) of these bits of kit. Started it with: Volca Bass, loved that thing, great filter on it it, really nice, especially for the price Then... Korg Monologue - Great device, needs FX, didn't know what I was doing... Wanted something that could do everything Novation Circuit - Really got me into the whole concept of groovebox Korg Electribe 2 - Wanted something with more bones and this had it, bit slow on the whole process though TE PO-33 - Awesome pocket thing, loved it, wanted to move on to bigger things though Arturia Microfreak - Great value - but keys could be a bit finicky sometimes and needed FX to sound good, but I was on a march now... Behringer Crave - Fun thing, didn't keep it long, used it to learn more about synthesis and patching. Would be great tin a bigger setup Model Craftsynth 2.0 - Cool sounds, but found the interface to be really slow and cumbersome Then, in rapid succession, got a few things together: TE OP-1, got an unexpected bonus and got one right there and then. Still have it, but it is up for sale now. TE OP-Z - got it for the sequencer, awesome for that. Sold it and bought it again. Now likely to be sold. Elektron Digiton - Loved the sounds it provided, something very different to everything else out there and coupled with the four tracks and P-locks makes for some super powerful creations. Sold it but recently bought it again to see if I could get by on the hardware only side thing... Not sure if it will be kept, hard choice this one. Dreadbox Typhon - Amazing mono synth, onboard FX and mod capabilities make it something far bigger than it would suggest, bought 2nd hand and sold for a nice profit, I tried it again recently but returned it due to physical issues with it (brand new, damaged box, damaged screen) So for a long time I just had the OP-1, nothing else. There is something special about it for sure, hard to pin down because it doesn't sound the best, it's not the easiest to sample with, has limited capability for holding many samples / synth patches, the tape track thing is a blessing and a curse, its great for making you better at playing live, with the keyboard and such, but its such a shame it doesn't have a good sequencer on it. It really is an oddity because there really isn't any other compact keyboard type synth out there that has it's form factor. So then I though I would get some bigger keys, a poly synth, to really try learn keys properly. So I went with Amazon on a Poly D. Awesome sounds, big beastly in its presence, and you can have fun with that filter and live playing. But it's not really poly and to be fair, it is pretty narrow in what it can do. The best it was good at was in mono mode and using all 4 OSCs to create some really cool depth. But as a poly, na, not there really. On a whim I put a bid on an Argon8, watched many reviews on it before and always seen it as impressive. But my bid won, just over £300 for a mint, boxed, original condition, perfect Argon8. So, it arrived and, well, wow. It can do so much, really incredible sounding thing with the FX on it really taking it to a whole new level. Really nice sounds. Filter is fun, not as cool as the Moog style ones but does the job. But the thing that sticks out the most to me, is the keys... We have an upright piano, old, out of tune but its a real thing, and the keys on the Modal have the same sort of nice, felted, smooth and progressive feeling as that. I've played on a few midi keyboards and none of them felt like this. The keys feel like they are ivory, solid, heavy feeling. So, what did I get to compliment it? Well I chucked in a low offer on a gold MPC one, and for some reason it got accepted. Just over £400 for an immaculate Gold edition MPC One. Well, I have to say, the MPC workflow is like it's own language to me, simple, easy to follow, no issues other than a few hours to learn it. The sounds it can chuck out, well I wasn't expecting much but really, it does sound great with the 2.10 update, the Hype synth can match the Argon8 on the whole spacey pad thing, plus there's plenty in there for typical analog sounds too, but being able to bring in samples to cover the rest is great, limitless really. Super happy with the MPC thing and I'm now considering a Live 2 for the added mobility and speakers. Honestly, with the keybed on the Modal, plus added hands on patching it brings, coupled with the MPC, it's like a perfect match, for a really great price. It's difficult to think of a combo at this price point that beats it. I've always had this drive to have a setup for under £1000 and I get anxious when I have more than that's worth of kit whilst not being a full time musician, don't know why because I've never worried so much about having camera setups in that price range... Anyway, useless post other than to say the Modal Argon8 and MPC are a great match and good value! [link] [comments] |
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