Pause Tape Cruiser

The discontinued PMAD (details at http://pittsburghmodular.com/analog-delay/) has a perfect implementation of "that sound" in the almost the smallest package possible. They've replaced production with a different delay, but I went to great lengths to find the out-of-production model because there's no point of having a delay unless it perfectly self-oscillates and the feedback has that special timbre where each echo is organically distinct from both the original signal and each other echo. The PMAD has that quality more than any other iteration of the bucket brigade I've experience in its price range.

Many of my favorite analog synth sounds are some combination of sounds that were originally intended to emulate brass or string instruments. While early synth-using piano players who wanted to compose brass or string parts might have been disappointed in the accuracy of these emulations but I'm grateful for the result of these inaccuracies. I play with the Performer as an homage to that history, but also because on the Performer, there's nothing in the way of achieving a simple resonant-filtered mishmash of inaccurate brass and string sounds, which is essentially what we all mean when we say "lush pad". Bonuses on this machine: it's easy to open up and work on, and there's a separate output for the brass sound.

Like the Toraiz after it, most reviews of the Tempest are heavily covered by it's price. The other concept that negatively colors them is the conservatism of drum machines and drum machine users, who all expect drum machines to be faithful recreations of some combination of the 606, 707, 808 & 909. The Tempest is of course a drum synthesizer that it capable of house-shattering renditions of those sounds but isn't meant to be a preset and forget initializer of those sounds. It is however a machine so capable and so inspiring that I could easily make an entire album I'd be proud of using just the Tempest, a Yamaha MG16xu mixer and a microphone. Hell, I could improvisationally tour on that album using just those things as well, since the Tempest is a great playback + performance tool as well. If Roger Linn or Dave Smith created a Tempest 2 with polyrhythms, an SD card slot, per-pad MIDI channel, custom sample loading, a mic input, reverb and an additional MIDI channel for a chromatically triggered pad (it already has one chromatic single sound channel and one multi-pad channel), then the Tempest would be not only capable of doing a whole album by itself, but a luxury to do so with. Such a Tempest 2 would be worth $2400

...the kick, toms, agogo sound really good in all configurations *and* the hi hats sound cool as fuck when you mess with the grain setting in real time. Beware that of all the Volcas, the Beats has the greatest difference between what it sounds like through it's own speakers vs. headphones or a line feed. Like perhaps all Volcas, the MIDI implementation of the Beats is strong as Bunyan. I've been able to use a Squarp Pyramid MIDI CC track to get good sounds out of the Beats that I've not gotten out of any other drum machine, including the Tempst. And this, without any effects!

Unlike most of the internet, I don't feel the Volca Keys sounds that great unless you put work into finding the right combination of 5-8 parameters. It's not like an OB-6 (duh) or even it's brethren like the Volca Bass (less duh) which both sound great no matter what you do. Still unlike most of the internet, though more positively for Korg, I think the greatest strength of the Volca Keys is it's best-of-class MIDI implementation. By class I mean size+price. Despite it taking either a powerful CC-fluent device like the Pyramid or wizard-like knob-twiddling ability to make the keys sound like a trackable synth, it's the synth I take with me on vacations because, in concert with CC massaging on the Pyramid, it's a powerful experimentation tool.

The ease-of-access to MIDI CC, the intuitive access to a diverse set of scales and one-button chords, the 5 configurable knobs + XY matrix, the easy path to polyrhythm creation, the simple beauty of the interface, the relatively small form factor... I could go on, but this gentle beast has so much to offer. The way it changed my way of writing for keyed instruments is this: rather than spending 15 minutes or so feeling my way around which scale I want to use based on trying to augment an initial couple of chords with supplementary chords, I can quickly scroll through a bunch of scale+chord combos while mashing my fingers on a couple buttons (smart pads they're called). It doesn't limit the type of chord progression I come up with as the range of scales is so expansive and the full chromatic range is always available simultaneously. Great stuff from the French company Squarp.

The price of the Toraiz, paired with my neverending quest for a complete laptop replacement, made me dissapointed the Toraiz couldn't do polyrhythms, handle samples over 32s, or do proper MIDI recording and sequencing. That said, the DSI filter sounds fit, the large array of track LFO destinations, the ability for the LFOs to modulate live audio, and it has the best color touchscreen audio interface I've seen in hardware. For $800 it'd be a 5. At $1300+ it's not.

The Volca Bass as the exact controls I want without unnecessary knobs getting in the way. The sequencer isn't easy to use, but I would rather it didn't have one at all since it's always going to be better to use something like the Pyramid, Deluge or Toraiz to seq. It's not a good bass exactly, but it's the perfect rhythmic bass clef resonant squelching machine!

What the DX7 lacks in analogish performance capability it makes up for in sheer amount of downloadable patches and the great feel of the keyboard. It'd be a 5 if it had more knobs, layering/splitting or a better MIDI implementation.

In respect to my own use, the ESQ-1 can cover some of the same territory of both DX-7 FX & bells *and* middle-of-the-road resonant analog pads of synths w/ DCOs such as the JU-06 or Poly 61. While it doesn't sound huge or high fidelity by itself, the ESQ-1 sounds great in a mix and is a great songwriting companion as it covers a ton of territory with an unassuming interface that doesn't distract from building solid progressions and melodies. I don't give it a 5 because it commits the sin of having neither an accessible knobby interface, nor a good MIDI implementation. Useful CC messages are not-existent and the only ways to access a filter|OSC|LFO during performance are the mod wheel and a single "XPARAM" which is the Ensoniq parlance for assigning a single CC message number to a single global internal parameter such as filter frequency or an ASDR level.

While the OB-6 has a lot of range, there's one thing it's the best in the world at and that's warm poly sounds with a sizzling filter activated.

The Pulse 2 isn't the best at any one particular thing (like the Tempest is at drum synthesis and performance or the OB-6 is at warm fizzy sounds). However, it covers so much sonic territory decently and has so many unique-sounding presets, that it's a no brainer at it's low price. I frequently switch my MIDI controller over to channel 11 (which I have the Pulse on) to add that last little splash or two to make a track really shine.