New video on evolving pads
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Amazing, thanks for the tutorial
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**** these are tempting for £500. When did stuff like this get so reasonably priced? It’s an outrage.
Thanks! Happy to share 
Price of the Argon8 is fantastic for what you get IMO.
Great stuff as always Gino. I always get something from your vids and appreciate the straightforward presentation.
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@Gino
Have been following your posts on the Argon 8 a while now and always with attention.
This one is on my list. I did not know I would be attracted that much to wavetable and also granular as I am eyeing a GR-1.
I am surprised of the price for the argon 8.
I own a Deepmind12, MiniNova and MicroFreak.
What other options would you look at for wavetable? Korg Wavestate? ASM Hydrasynth?
Thanks for any tips or advice.
Best,
V
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I think that right now there’s a lot of strong wavetable synths including the Argon8.
IMO the wavestate (although very cool too) is a different animal, and not directly wavetable synthesis. The Hydra certainly is wavetable, and that’s one I’d take a good look and listen to.
To me between the Hydra and Argon8, it’s really about what you prefer as a musician and what mood you are in. The Hydra is crazy flexible, and the Argon8 is intentionally more restrictive. It’s the “more is more” vs “less is more” debate. To me, it’s all about how they sound, and in the end that’s why I got the Argon8 as to my ears it had more natural sounding movement and blending of harmonics.
Most of my exposure to wavetable synthesis was through VSTs (mainly Omnisphere).
And although Omnisphere has 500+ wavetables, I actually got more from the Argon8 because I spent longer with each wavetable to learn what they could do. There are “only” 24 wavetables in Argon8, but that’s deceptive because you can squeeze a lot of tones and timbers from a single wavetable (esp as there are 32 wave modifiers).
I recently got a Pro 3, and for a mono it has strong wavetable support too. It has a ton of flexibility on the mod matrix which allows you do to all sorts of tricks and experiments (if you are into that).
I also recently pre-ordered a Waldorf Iridium as that looks to be the holy grail of digital synthesis (including wavetable). It’s expensive, but from what I see and hear, it’s worth it.
My plan is to integrate the Iridium with the Pro 3 using CV to create a monster hands-on synth.
With all that said, I still use the Argon8 actively, and it’s always useful in the mix. It’s a funny pattern that happens… I start with the Argon8 to “sketch” a sound, because it’s my main “build a patch from scratch in 30 seconds” synth. Later I use Omnisphere or the Pro 3 to take it further, and most times I keep the Argon8 patch and tweak it The Pro 3 will “out gun” the Argon8 on bass and grit, and Omniphere for sure on flexibility and vastness, but in the end the Argon8 holds it’s own if you put some time into it.
There’s a lot of Argon8 on this track:
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@Gino Thanks a lot for the detailed message.
I am not set yet on anything… I am not going to rush on this one as I am finding myself with granular synthesis also as another interest.
I know the Iridium covers that base but price wise… I am looking at the GR-1.
Will be able to test HS and Argon8 very soon and will decide then if necessary or if it can wait.
Again thanks a lot for your time.
V
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Hi all, Can anyone on this group advise on how best to connect the Argon and the Digitakt? I can’t seem to get them to run in sync. For some reason the Digitakt is always a few bars behind. Thanks!
How are you connecting them? I used the regular midi cables, and they seem to synch up perfectly.
Best regards,
Gino
Yes I just went looking for something similar in the argon manual (having seen these wavetable pics/summaries in the craft manual) and was disappointed not to find it.
Can anyone confirm if this looks like a good guide to what the argon8 can do ? Based on the list of names I mean … I don’t expect anyone to do an oscilloscope analysis on my behalf
have you seen this vid ?
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Hi Gino, sorry I totally missed this response.
I am also using a standard midi cable. All works fine if I use the dititakt as the master clock. The challenge is when I go the other way round. If the Argon is sending clock to the digitakt when I press play on the argon, the 1 button on the digitakt lights up but then it takes something very random like 34 beats to start playing. At that point it plays in sync but a few beats out. The main reason I want to go argon to digitakt rather then the other way is so I can use the argons sequencer and 8 voices. Have you had any luck with sending clock from Argon to Digitakt?
Thanks
I don’t understand what you are trying to achieve. If you run the Digitakt as master, you can still use the Argon-sequencer.
Or are you hoping to play the Digitakt with the 8-voice Argon-sequencer? Digitakt is monophonic, a polyphonic sequencer will not change that.
I just got the 37 key version, and I’m just blown away by how good it is. Earlier this year I sold my Peak and my Blofeld, and had pretty much sworn off WT synths. Then a few weeks ago, I got a Skulpt and loved it, and started to realize that the Argon was everything I liked about the Skulpt times about 50.
Sure, there are some minor annoyances, but to me the Argon is about as perfect as a synth gets.
Favorite things:
The sound. You could just use the VA and it would a great synth with that alone. Sounds better than any VA I’ve had and I did an A/B test with my OB6 and I actually like the Argon more for the music I want to make.
Wave mods. Again just with VA on Wave 1 and 2, wave mods open up almost infinite number of sound shaping options. Bonus is the ability to see the changes to the wave in the app.
Spread - 4 ocillators/voice. Allows you to use wave 2 as a mod source for wave 1, which can act as a two oscillator poly all by itself or a single oscillator poly with a sub oscillator.
Osc mods. Even more tone shaping options here.
A Mod Matrix without a menu. Which leads me to:
Immediacy of controls. Sure there are a lot shift controls, but this is an Elektron forum, and the learning curve is actually quicker, IMO.
The Modal App. I don’t think I experienced a more useful and more straightforward one of these. And I love the fact that there are versions for different platforms.
Effects presets. Haven’t seen this mentioned, but this is an easy way to audition and save different combinations of effects without having to set them up each time I start an init patch.
LF0 2 polyphonic audio rate modulation.
Filter modes and morph. I love having the standard and classic for more extreme and gentle filter options. And the notch versions are excellent, IMO.
Wavefolding distortion. A great idea that is a perfect one-knob approach to add some kick to sine and triangle and other mellower waves. A little distortion on Sine waves on 1 and 2 and spread set to Oct + 5th is instant transistor organ mode. And there’s a rotary effect! And I love transistor organs.
Envelope modes. 8 of them. All useful and easy to set up. Great for mixing and matching.
Stereo audio input. Sounds so good with the DN mixing with the Argon. FM + Wavetable = wow.
Modal tutorial videos. Long ones. These already have been a great resource for ideas I might not have thought of on my own.
Big firmware updates that add really significant upgrades.
Price. I got this on sale for less than $700 US. That is just mind blowing to me.
Low end that doesn’t turn chords to mud. This is a huge deal for me. It is just incredible to play two-handed chords that have clarity to them without having to spend much time tweaking envelope and filter settings or being stuck with pad sounds.
And I could go on, but I’ve got stuff to do. But I wanted to write this because I imagine there are people like me out there who heard Wavetable synth and tuned out. To me, the Argon is a synth with a lot of flexible, morphable wave types that are easily visualized on the OLED screen. And I think this demystification of wavetable synthesis may be its greatest achievement.
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A new soundset for A8, just found. Very high quality imo:
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I proposed to @ModalElectronics small and easy to implement feature request for the Argon synth family, to improve user workflow while choosing the envelope type like this:
“Hold the ‘Patch’ button and turn the EG ‘Depth’ encoder to choose Envelope Type rapidly”
This is a function I aim to access very often when programming a patch, currently it’s a pain to dial it via the EG menu each time I start or edit a patch.
Hope they’ll consider that!
That’s one of those things the app is great for. i’ve never been an app person, never use the DT and DN ones, but I love how it wakes my sleeping computer up when I plug in the USB cable. That’s super convenient. To me, that’s another surprising thing. How did this little company create better software/hardware integration than everyone else? I’m not used to companion synth software working this well. Working with Korg, Novation and Arturia software is always a headache. Elektron seems better, but I wasn’t around for the earlier versions of Overbridge.
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The Argon8M we have in our studio is not displaying parameter changes on the screen but is kind of screen locked to functions. Any ideas what is wrong here? I don’t really know the machine but how do I get it to display parameter changes? Restarting doesn’t help.
Check this part of manual:
Hope it helps.
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