Trash Smash

Many people maybe hates its complexity. I love its possibilities. A synth you cannot explore totally in one single life, you'd need two, at least. That's why owners are keeping it during the years. Whoever is selling a Virus maybe has no time to approach it, what a pity... You can do almost everything with a Virus in the VA domain. So many free and commercial soundset around, you cannot avoid the Virus in electronic productions.. A standard, IMHO.

My beloved red devil. The most intuitive VA synth I've ever owned. Nice sound, easy to program and tweak, no submenu/hidden features hassles: what you see is what you play. Really Genius rotary leds, shame on Clavia (or how the f... it's named today) for leaving this nice led array and for never having released a patch editor. I've been forced to sell it 10 years ago but I have another one today, and will never leave it anymore. And it's the only "nord lead" featuring aftertouch...

What to say? It was and industry standard in the 90's studios, now cheaper than ever but still a great choice over some digital gear: just add a good audio interface, maybe behind its 8-submixes as if it was a multitrack tape recorder. Crystal-clear sound, near unlimited routing attitude (what a school is it!), almost uncolored mix and very high dynamics. Robust and made to last, even PSU can resist to herky-jerky voltage fluctuations... and a beast on stage too with all these send/return knobs...

One of the purest FireWire interfaces. Echo has left the prosumer market, anyway releasing once a while some drivers for new OSs in a world where a 5-year piece of gear is good for a Jurassic Park... Nice ADCs (even tweakable) super-linear. A must to interface an analog mixing console with 8 buses and still with some free inputs for masters and some other stuff.

Nowadays audio interfaces may sport a little better dynamics, good look and animated leds but essentially there is nothing new in terms of sound substance if compared to a Saffire 40. A lot of connection possibilities, nice software control panel, FireWire 400 can be connected to a Thunderbolt port... Sound is a true pleasure to hear, clean and transparent. At the time of purchase was a great step up for my gear. Still happy with it, No reason to upgrade it...

Very good reverbs, crisp AD/DA conversion, easy and intuitive menu. For the budget producer there is no other choice to get quality effects. Consoles on the market with built-in effects will be blown away.

A nice starting point to understand working with a channel strip on a budget. A complete device suiting all general purposes for vocals.