southern's Reviews
8 reviews Back to southern's Equipboard
115
Lovely drum machine for drum tweaking and performing
Soundwise, it's sort of a combination of Roland TR 808 and 606 for the most part, but with some nods to the 909 as well - all very positive. The advantage of having the performance options of a Beatstep Pro built in to the unit really opens it up to experimentation and live grooving. Plus having MIDI IN/OUT, CV clock in/out, USB and individual sound outs means that it integrates really well with pretty much anything you might already have. Overall, very straightforward to use with some useable sounds and at a decent price.
115
Simple to use and great results - plus it's free!
Quite literally the Swiss Army knife of audio editing, Audacity is great for chopping up samples, applying light effects, recording incoming audio and doing transcoding. That it's still free, easy to pick up, features plenty of support and has tons of plugins is testament to how useful this programme remains for many thousands of users. Well worth picking up if you haven't already!
115
An underrated gem
According to Vintage Synth Explorer, the XioSynth25 is an evolution of their X station keyboards, but in my opinion it packs all those features and more into a really compact package. Combining very useable built in effects and the eight voice polyphony, this is a lovely little string and pad machine with a straightforward programming interface (a free editor is available too). The only downside is that this has MIDI out only, so if you want to sequence this you have to use it from a DAW.
115
Chip off the old block
Don't be fooled by the diminutive size! This kid brother to the MiniBrute packs an awful lot into a small space and like its older brother does basses and leads justice. The little patch bay that the Minibrute doesn't have makes this great for playing with other modular gear and the 32 step sequencer is a welcome feature too.
115
A bit of an analogue monsoter
While build quality can sometimes be hit and miss, my early issue MiniBrute has been going on strong and is great for complex basslines and leads. Occassionally I think about selling it, but after playing with the aftertouch, the enhanced ultrasaw and additional noise generator, I am reminded why I kept it. Only downside is the size - it's a bit large!
41028
dwarfed by my sub-phatty and MIDI Moog SE1 rack... wanna talk unnescasarily big monosynths? huge, heavy