Cre8audio East Beast & West Pest

So anyone who shares my confidence that overlays will be made for these two ( you can even get an overlay for the Models after all ), and who also are convinced that having to look at either while using them will forever damage your psyche and turn you into a pillar of salt, can now feel easy about ordering their East Beast or West Pest, or both. Assuming, that is, you like what you hear, can get along with the user interface, and have the scratch.

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I think they sound good, the interface seems fine (without having used one in person yet), and they are very nicely priced. I won’t be preordering, but I will probably give one of them, or both of them a spin at some point. And I am probably in the minority, but I actually like the stock art.

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Yup that’s a 100 times better readable. Although after inspection you might want to change the font on the smaller lettering. Some letters seem to stick to each other without any space between them. :slight_smile:

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Please find the time! :heart:‍:fire:

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Very nice! Guess you’re already working the West Pest now? :slight_smile:

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Perfect! I would buy it directly! Looks really awesome. :heart_eyes:

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Ye that’s the one

I don’t often like black and gold panels but that is pure sex and would be way more affordable if made from FR4 than aluminum!

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I was thinking of a few alternate themes of the west coast synth.

West Crest - Surfing/wave theme
West Zest - Citrus theme
West Quest - Fantasy/Sci-Fi theme

But at the end of the day, an innocuous black box would be fine with me.

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Hard to choose seeing them side by side. Maybe buy a second Beast problem solved? :stuck_out_tongue:

tweaks…

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These design mocks really underscore how badly the manufacturer missed an opportunity. That white one looks amazing.

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This one here is the one I like so far.

To be fair the West Pest doesn’t bother me much at all. Not what I’d do if I was building a synth but not horrendously off-putting. But that damn East Beast is all wrong.

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a) There is more to a design, than choice, arrangement, and layout of graphics, colors and design. Do you also feel the layout of the buttons, knobs and patch matrix is bad and non-functional ? Do you feel the color palette choice just taken alone is bad ?

b) You speak as if evaluating design choices is a concrete factual thing, when it involves many factors – decisions about the target consumer, projection of a feeling and mood, and reflects a time period and a style, following design objectives.

Sure everyone will have their opinion, but given Cre8audios expressed objective it matches that. In the EB collection of three images above, i prefer the original much more. I might make small changes, but i’d keep the basic black, blue and green parts.

It’s not a big deal, twenty minutes work with a twenty dollar overlay and it will be different. We’ll see if volume is high enough for Cre8audio to offer their flavors as well.

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This is my only real gripe with East Beast. The blue and green don’t work well together for my tastes. Not remotely a dealbreaker but mighty ugly.

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What is their expressed objective, please?

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Richard Nicol said in interview ( i paraphrase ) : have fun with the design, break the mold, and create a little excitement.

ADDED : This was in the interview with Gaz.

Those three are completely in line with the overall design of this synthesizer, so there is a match there.

Plenty of other makers do designs that grab attention – just look across the variety of styles of front panel design. Nothing new in that regard, nor is it any big deal.

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There’s a video with Nicol and Daniel Fisher of Sweetwater, that is one of the better videos to demonstrate the separate features of the East Beast.

Also worth hearing is the section where Daniel Fisher plays the arpeggiator, creating and recreating various chord progressions. Nice performance with an arpeggiator.

Oh and notice the lighting of the set.

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There will be overlays for these two.

EDIT : Emphasis added.

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