Just make sure to say Crayg and not Creg.
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Excellent video review. Would recommend to others for the pleasure of hearing Crayg speak.
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Is this a good beginner synth?
havenāt really heard any sweet spots with the Nymphes yet
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maybe with a controller, but not really easy to navigate. The synth I learned the most about synth and that is perfect for beginner is the DSI mopho, really nice keys, the layout is quite logical and endless creativity on it.
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I really love the DSI Mopho too. I started with the desktop version, and mostly controlled it via a midi controller, because I really donāt like the few buttons on it. But a few weeks ago I decided to buy the keys version too to polychain it to the desktop. And additionally I have a bit more control.
Nice review from Krekg! I donāt know about the Nymphes though. For that sound I would just use a VST and pipe it through some hardware fx, filter, cassette maybe,ā¦ . YMMV.
My wife is Greek, got her on the mic for a word check, resulting in:
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Great vid
Appreciate!
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I bought this spontaniously instead of a Roland SH 01.
Design is nice, but sometimes I had problems reading
the pinkish lettering on it. I would prefer white, it gives a better contrast to blue.
Anyway, IĀ“ve put a lamp on my desk until I know that synth better.
Navigating presets and saving presets is much easier than expected and
much easier than shown in some videos, especially when you stay in one bank.
Also you can do everything with one hand, so you can keep playing a keyboard with the other hand.
Navigating the menues isnĀ“t that complicated either,
a lot of clever things going on here, but of course itĀ“s not
that much fun if you want to fine-tune three parameters on three
different levels of fader-settings at the same time.
but I got used to it very quickly.
The basic sound is really good, exactly what I expected.
Of course there are tons of possibilities to ruin that great sound
like you can hear on many presets (sorry, just joking, itĀ“s always a matter of taste)
Some highlights for me:
Filtertracking of resonant filters works like a charme, I love it. Always wanted to have a thing like that.
The chord mode
IĀ“ll spend a lot of time with this.
Setting the chords is very easy (as easy as setting the MIDI channel 
)
and these chords are saved with every ! preset, they are also saved when actually not used in a preset, like hidden easter eggs.
Independent LFOs:
was experimenting with that kind of thing with MAX for Live and waldorf blofeld recently,
Nymphes is much more limited, but super easy (haha) to set up for that scenario:
the Reverb is interesting, but I donĀ“t consider it an āactualā reverb.
reminds me a bit of a digital, resonant spring reverb.
Unfortunately you canĀ“t control most of the other parameters when you are
in reverb mode. could be done with external midi controller, but wellā¦
I get some clicky noises on some settings, I know many people hate that.
I can get rid of them sometimes, (seems like the filter enevelopes can
produce them) but on some ocassions I have no glue where these clicks come from.
anyway, on some sounds the click sounds really good, someone should invent a on/off switch for that.
I have powered it with an dedicated USB thing and use DIN midi, no noise problems at all.
IĀ“ll keep the Nymphes, lotĀ“s of power in a very small box.
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there are worse ones, and better ones. I always tell people to try and get a synth thatās as close to one knob per function as you can get. that way itās very clear what is happening and you can learn by just playing around, and thereās less guessing and navigating menus. but even then, the problem is that the knobs (or sliders in this case) donāt always reflect the current value of all the parameters in the sound youāre hearing. so thereās still some guess workā¦
you could certainly do worse though (like a MicroKorg, ugh). and if youāre feeling like youāre not getting the basics of synthesis, try playing around with a basic software synthesizer in addition to it. the sound may not be quite as good, but the interface is usually very clear. but the main idea is that the synthesis used by the Nymphes can be carried over to a VERY large percentage of synthesizers ever made. so if you āgetā it, you should be good picking up most any other synth from then on.
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I wouldnāt think it would be a great synth to learn basic subtractive synthesis on, but you might be able to get a bunch of great sounds just messing around. If you know the architecture well, then the unique interface seems like less of an issue.
I think it fills a Gap in a small set up. Imagine how much power you could have on a desk if everything was this size.
fair enough. maybe itāll work for some and not others. I mean, the first synth I owned was a Sidstation 
(after borrowing a Nord Lead for months thoughā¦)
I just figured the Juno 6/60/106 arenāt far off of this. and theyāre very easy to learn subtractive synthesis on, but deep enough and beautiful sounding enough to give you a lifetime of sounds. thereās another layer here (versus them), but it doesnāt add that much of an abstraction or that many more parameters. the DSI Mopho was suggested, and I think that would be way more complicated for a first synth, simply because thereās more abstraction.
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DSI Mopho keys was my first hardware analog and I can concur: not a good first analog synth. But, 11 years later, itās still in regular use. So not a waste. I just had to grow into it.
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EDIT: not my video !
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Anyone knows how this compares to a Roland SH-01a? Judging from Youtube videos they sound quite similar, but from what Iāve heard there is some distortion in the sub oscillator of the SH-01a (that I really like) that might be missing in the Nymphesā¦
absolutely love the form factor but the bite it has reminds me of the medusa
Would like to know this as well. If they sounded similar, then I would probably prefer the Roland since the controls are more closer āknob per functionā
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This is a great priced and sized poly, splendid job Dreadbox 
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