how much would you pay nowadays for this strange “beast”?..seriously
wish i still had one i think i paid $550 for it and sold it for $650 a few years later.
i recall when music stores were blowing them out for $300ish.
i think current prices are pretty dumb. $1500ish and even saw one for $2500 or so… totally insane
i could see paying $600 ish for one again but not much more. it’s a great sounding synth. deep. amazing. but the interface is cramped to put it mildly.
i ended up buying a DX-11 for $100 and i’m pretty happy with that for a hardware FM synth… and a bunch of software synths get it done.
elektron could really do something with an FM engine. hardware knobby box loaded w/FM elektron style would be a killer.
Like everything, it’s worth putting in to it what you expect to get out of it. I have one, and it’s unparalleled for a hardware FM synth, but you have to invest time as much as the upfront cash if you want to realize its capabilities.
It’s a very different kind of machine to all the much simpler (2-op, 3-op, or 4-op) implementations that appear on many other instruments.
They are like gold dust. I have been looking for 1 for about 3 years. One came up once on here but unfortunately I didn’t have the cash when it came.
i thought about tracking one down again but opted for a G2 engine instead
One of my dream synths. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy one 2 years ago when they went for like 500-600€, now they’re 1500-2000€.
One day!
Bought one new when they were running them out.
Had it for 6 or 8 yrs???
I even went to the trouble of getting my own waves controlling the
f seq using 2 different editors.
In the end it mostly got used being sequenced by my MnM for drum sounds
Good synth, can sound very detailed, lush, punchy
Extremely complicated with voiced and un voiced stuff, formant seq, multi envs, etc etc
Absolutely requires editors and still much much patience
Sold it for more than i paid
Not really fun to use, but great to listen to.
I always thought, now if only they had of made a full sized keyboard with a decent interface, Yowsa!
I tried to buy one last year, from my local Cash Converter store. It wasn’t in the best cosmetic condition, but for £150 I thought I’d take the chance. Strange thing was that I really really couldn’t afford to spend that money, so when I went to pay my mind went blank trying to remember my PIN number. Walk away without it but felt relieved I hadn’t spent that money.
Yeah the pieces are crazy and to get the most out of it you need it hooked to a computer. Easily my biggest regret seeking mine (only got £350 for it!) a few years ago but it did let me but my new born son some baby essentials.
I got mine new as a congratulations present of my dad for passing exams. Back then I had time to program it and came out with some honest to God amazing multi timbral sounds. Always wanted to get hold of one again but no danger id be willing to pay over £500. So I’m priced out for now!
Hardware-wise it’s price is too high, since it has same 4096 sample for a period look up table and YMP706-F x2 aka AWM Tone Generator & Digital Filter
also it’s DAC is 48kHz
thanks guys…i was just wondering since i grabbed one few month ago for 150€ …really mint, not even a scratch…
…but was thinking of selling it again cause i really hate the interface…sounds are great, lush, warm (yeah crazy for a fm-synth)…
tried a freeware editor but everytime you change a patch, it’s dumping forever…thats really annoying and stops me from beeing creative with this baby…anyway i think i have to spent some more time and dive in deeper…maybe we’ll be friends sometime
cheers
€150??!
Nice catch! You can sell it for 10 times the price if you don’t like it.
150€ is dirt cheap for a FS1r I paid 500 for mine.
I think the freeware editor is ok (the japanese one) at least not as bad as you describe it
But there’s also this commercial one - zeeedit:
http://zeeedit.free.fr/
42€ - but the serial number is locked to one machine only.
150 Euros. I think I actually hate you right now…
hehe…actually it was 150chf…i wasn’t lookin for it…but as i saw it that cheap, i felt it must be a bargain…but i really didn’t know the actual prices…but ten times this price??..no way
i saw a tr-808 last days for about 5000chf (4625€) but that doesn’t mean that these machines are worth it…these days people put prices up which are far from earth…so i feel that putting the fs1r on with 1500€ is way too much and i don’t think, people are going to buy it that pricey. holy shit.
anyway…thought about zeeedit, but as i tend to buy me a new macbook later this year, i don’t wanna pay twice for this software…serial number locked to machine?!..tzz…crap
jogging my memory
Both S/W editors I used were free and worked reasonably well.
I think zeeedit was free then???
One was a sound editor, the other allowed you to use any waveform become
a f seq.
There were a bunch of preset waves to use as f seq, but you needed the S/W to use you own waveforms/loops/beats what ever up to a certain time/
So you could use any sound as a modulation source on the formant filter,
if my memory serves me.
A fascinating area of synthesis combining complex voiced and un-voiced FM with vocoding.
A billion sounds tied up in astonishingly small box.
And ime it was difficult to better many of the preset.
150 euro seems great , recent ones ive seen on ebay / gumtree are asking £500 ish.
i think theres one on there at the moment (gumtree / uk)
I’m a big FM nerd, so the FS1R is a bucket-list synth for me. But they’re trending at US$1.5k. I’d love to get to know it a little, first.
I thought “it’s digital, I’ll just buy the emulated plug-in version to mess about with before I commit”, but I’m not finding one. Are there really no emulations of this available?
Nope