How many synths are too many synths?

Anyone who plans on purchasing an UDO Super 6 because you’re bored, I assure you it’s a very, very boring synth.

Please message me after a week of ownership and I can take it off your hands for no fee at all, I wouldn’t want anyone to have to deal with it.

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Dizzy has it spot on.

For me it’s about the overall sound of an instrument but it’s technical details like architecture, circuit topology etc that appeal too. Take the string machines for example. On a general level they’re all similar; high freq oscillator running into a TOS and divided down. Some pulse shaping, filtering and all fed into a BBD ensemble effect. Except each of mine sound very different to the next… Logan String Concert sounds totally different to an Elka Rhapsody which in turn is nothing like a Godwin String Concert, Some are paraphonic while some have a VCA per key for full poly articulation. Yamaha SS30 has two oscillators while the Korg Lambda has three. That’s just the stringers. The synths cover an even bigger range.

I won’t lie, aesthetics plays a part, as does what I am willing to pay and what’s available. I’ve still got a want list as long as my arm!

Oddities are another pull for me. Who doesn’t want a polysynth that’s not _technically _emphasized text__a polysynth really__emphasized text . Have a look for the Crumar Trilogy… The highlight is the six CEM VCF’s… the not so great bit is the divide down oscillator waveforms. But it’s okay, they gave you presets, adjustable via trimmers a bit like the CS80…although that’s where the comparison ends. They were feeling generous so the threw in an organ section and a string synth. It’s a fascinating slice of keyboard history, straddling the multi instrument keyboards and real synthesisers.

What crosses my mind is that it is not about the amount of synths, but the fact that you worry about it. I hope it makes you happy, worry is a burdon. So all I have to say is I wish you happinness whatever you do or own.

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How many synths are too many synths?

with spare units or without? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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you are sitting on a treasure, so keep them in check at last…

wait 20 years …

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4 ( for a project … ) but you can stash them as much you have space for :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Depends if you’re a collector or not, I guess.

Honestly, I live a fairly transient life moving every 4-5 years (different countries/different universities), so I get a bit anxious about accumulating too much.

I want something like this: I can jam in my bedroom quickly and fit that shit in one bag and kill (the good way) a soundsystem with it.

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I hope that’s not your cables, because that is disgusting and I know your mother taught you better.

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Guilty as charged… I do have a couple of doubles in the collection!:joy:

There is no such thing as too many synths.

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I would have a panic attack if that was me! I have a fair share of OCD when it comes to cable management.

The Moment when you spend more time to buy, resell, learn and configurate Synths than actually making music.

But that‘s the same thing for every instrument i guess.

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same here

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From a musical view I would say, each instrument, which is not used on a regular basis might be obsolate.

From a collectors view I would say, several identical instruments are “n-1” too much :wink:

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We are all descended from ‘hunter-gatherers’. It is very much human nature.

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Nice! I always fancied a command station to see how the midi side compared to the RM1X’s I used to use.

I’m lucky I guess. I get as much enjoyment repairing and restoring as I do playing, just a different type of enjoyment. If that makes sense? :slightly_smiling_face:

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It depends on the individual as well as the synths and of course the goal.

If you have a large setup it doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to use all of the gear all the time, personally I don’t like owning too much of anything, but I also don’t like not being able to make certain sounds if I want to, for example a 0-Coast is never going to make a resonant bass squelch on its own, a DX-7 isn’t going to sound like a Juno-6 etc. It can be fun trying to squeeze a non typical sound out of something that isn’t associated with that sound, but it can also be unsatisfying sometimes.

I like to have a certain palette of sounds at my disposal, and a certain amount of possibilities and also inter-connectivity, in an ideal world though I’d just have a computer and some decent controllers and a nice audio interface, then any single portable sketchpad type device like a OP-Z or Electribe or Deluge for capturing ideas.

But since I don’t have the patience for using a computer to make music, then I have to do it the hard(ware) way. I simply cannot stand waiting for a computer to boot up, keeping everything up to date, security patches, driver issues, having to wait around while the computer does something unrelated to what I want to do, software updates, new versions, etc. If someone ever came up with a fast music centric operating system on dedicated music computer hardware then I might be interested and get rid of most of my hardware, but in the meantime microsoft and apple already owe me hundreds of hours in wasted time so I’ll never try to use them again for music.

So, for me the answer would be a couple of polysynths, a couple of monosynths, a couple of drum machines, a couple of groove boxes, a couple of samplers, a few fx, a sufficient mixer, a modular.
That would be plenty, but even so I am under no illusions that I would actually NEED all that to make music that I would enjoy, any half decent groovebox could fulfil that role.

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i have both RM1x & Command Stations.
Command Stations are superior, but RM1x sequencer supports polymeters properly.

I’ve never had my hands on the command station but I seem to remember they came out around the same time as the Yammy? I can deffo remember reading reviews for both of them in SOS. Over the years I’ve seen the Emu pop up on eBay on occasion but the time was never right for me to get one. Plus I’ve had the Orbit V2 since the earlyish days so I always guessed I had some of the sounds covered. Still wouldn’t mind trying the midi sequencing out tho. Didnt they have dual midi output ports?

I didn’t used to use the internal sounds much if at all in my stuff, I used it pretty much purely as a hardware sequencer but that said… the RM was such a hoot t write on. Headphones on, sat on my lap I could write for hours, substituting the internal sounds of external gear for tracking. I’m still a sucker for anything with an onboard sequencer for the same reason, hence what brought me to Elektron gear in the first place.

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