william_henley's Reviews

Not great

I got this to serve as a basic FM synth. It feels artificially limited. It does not respond to program changes, does not respond to velocity, and only has 3 voices. I could deal with the limitation on voices, but was disappointed about the lack of velocity response when controlling the synth via MIDI. The fact that the synth doesn't respond to program changes is extremely disappointing.

That being said, it serves the purpose I got it for well enough for me to not totally hate the thing. I may upgrade to something better somewhere down the road.

Fun, useful and expressive monosynth

I purchased the Pro-3 because I wanted to replace a couple of analog monosynths with something that had patch memory. What I got not only fit the bill perfectly for that, it is also an absolute blast to play. I strongly recommend it.

Great Drum Synthesizer

The Vermona DRM1 is a great drum synth, capable of TR-808, CR-78 and other vintage drum machine sounds as well as many other interesting bleeps and bloops. Probably the best feature is that each channel can have an independent output, allowing for independent processing of each channel.

The 808 that's not an 808

Microtonic is a drum synthesizer plugin that does synthesized (i.e. 808-style) drums flawlessly. The step-sequencer is easy to use yet versatile. The synth engine for each voice allows you to do kicks, snares, hats, toms, cymbals, claps, bells, and anything else you could want from an analog-style drum machine. MIDI control of the plugin, from triggering individual notes to switching patterns, involves simply sending notes to the plugin and this system works well.

My go-to for bass

I purchased the Moog Minitaur because I wanted to have a synth for the occasional Moog bass sound. I wasn't expecting much out of it because of its relatively simple design. Despite its simplicity, the Minitaur is probably the best all-around bass synth I have ever heard in person, and as a result I now use it for bass in almost all of my songs. It can do anything from big almost modular-sounding basses to rumbling sub-basses and everything in between.

Great in sound and versatility

I ordered this guitar after seeing Agile guitars recommended around the internet. It arrived in perfect shape, set up well and almost perfectly in tune.

This guitar is pretty much a straight-up LP copy with two changes. First, there is no weight relief. This guitar is HEAVY. Second, Agile added coil-splitting to the controls (accessed by pulling out the tone knobs) which grants access to single-coil tones.

The Agile AL-3100MCC sounds amazing, especially at its price point. I will probably upgrade the pickups at some point down the road, but making that upgrade will purely be a personal thing. The stock pickups are absolutely solid.

My only gripe is that the pickguard became scratched up very easily, but at $400 I can't complain about something that is ultimately cosmetic.

All the inputs I need

I only have three synths with a total of six outputs, and this interface is more than enough to accommodate them all. It is a no-frills 18 in 20 out interface that works effortlessly with Reaper on Windows.

Quirky Little Thing

The MS-20 Mini is an odd little synth. It excels at making unusual sounds and squelchy resonant sounds. I don't give it five stars because it's a little hard to talk good sounds out of it, but it's definitely worth the effort to get what it does best out of it.

The Underdog Monosynth

This was the first synth I purchased when I got back into making music this year. It is a solid bread-and-butter monosynth that makes an excellent pairing with any polysynth. It is well worth the price of admission, especially if you don't have any other monosynths.

Phenomenal Synthesizer

This synth completely revolutionized how I make music. I went from mostly relying on software synths to relying on this beast to produce most of my tracks practically overnight.