Tried the Cobalt8M about a week go. Returned it. On paper the the Modal stuff seems great, but when I tried it I was honestly disappointed. Love the form factor, Modal app and the concept of the algorithms. But the raw sound just turned me off. To me it just sounded weak and bland I think it had something to do with the non-free running osc. I see a lot of other people love it and more power to them.
Got a beat up Virus T1 with bullet holes instead to scratch the VA itch.
For anyone who cares, Detroit Modular has the Cobalt8M for $649 and the LD10 discount code works on top of that. And if you have purchase points, that can bring the price lower – in my case, to $560 and no tax. I’m definitely thinking about it.
However, shipping with insurance and a tracking number costs extra.
?? Their free shipping option is UPS. Which is tracked and insured.
Not according to their checkout shipping options or the salesperson I asked about it a year ago. UPS shipping with insurance and a tracking number is $18.10 to upstate New York, where I live and that’s without any difference in the estimated shipping time.
But because you mentioned it, I’ll doublecheck on Tuesday, when someone might answer the phone and/or an email.
This thread seems to have gone quiet but I’m seriously considering picking one of these up for bass and pads. Anyone care to comment who’s had one for a while, good or bad? It seems very competitively priced. Lack of distortion is a missed opportunity imo, but as I’m going to stick it through OT I will have plenty of distortion on tap. Also, those with the X, does the OT perfectly fit the wasteland on the right hand side? Also, I see the Argon got a 2.0 and above update, so can we expect some additions in the future, maybe?
Well, we were all trying to take a nap, but I guess we’re up now.
I had one for a few months last year.
It sounds really good, the raw oscillators are crazy good sounding. The filter’s a bit marmite, it’s okay, but don’t expect too much craziness out of it.
If I remember rightly there’s a couple of distortion or bitcrushing effects in the FX slots, but there’s definitely no drive into the filter, which is a missed opportunity.
I made a lot of good sounds with it, it’s all over my first album. I was happy with the sounds but I just couldn’t get into the interface, I had the 8m and it was fine, I just found using the sequencer and a couple of other bits a bit fiddly and I just couldn’t build up the muscle memory with it.
Nice 
Yeah, it’s the oscillators that most appeal to me and the Model:Cycles-esque timbral shifts with a small turn. I might rely more heavily on the OT for filtering and distortion duties to get around the bland on-board filter, though the dual notch one sounded awesome from the demos I’ve seen. I probably won’t bother with the sequencer either – I will just play the keys (basic chords) or throw some midi at it from OT. Thanks for confirming my suspicions that the oscs sound beefy.
Yeah, I’d say the filter is good, and can give really nice results, especially when morphing it about. It’s just that it lacks a little something, a little danger maybe.
It’s really good for bass and pads though and I think for your use case would be very decent.
I actually prefer the filter on the Argon; especially in combination with the distortion. While it’s true that Modal spent more DSP power detailing the Cobalt’s filter, the Argon’s filter ended up with all the character, in my opinion. Digital though it may be, I think the Argon sounds really good. There was something lacking in the Cobalt’s sound for me. As someone said above, perhaps it’s missing an element of “danger”.
Cheers!
Yeah, now I’ve done a lot more research, this criticism of the filter (lacking a certain character or more extreme settings) seems to come up a lot. I wonder if Modal have seen this and might give us a few more filter flavours in a firmware update? Also, I noticed a bit of stepping in the filter when using the knob, but not when using an LFO on it, for example. Is that something you guys noticed?
Is there somewhere official for us to submit feature requests to you, @ModalElectronics?
Me again. Anyone tried both the Cobalt8 and the Argon8? I’m mostly leaning towards the Cobalt, but I’ve heard some gnarly bass sounds out of Argon, which got my interest. There are surprisingly few comparisons of the two on YouTube. Bobeats being the main one.
Did you make a decision?
I have both and love them, makes sure you install the Soundsauca patches if you get either and the v2 patches on the Argon.
Not yet haha. I’m awaiting a Craftsynth 2.0 first. If you could only have one of the two out of Cobalt and Argon, which would you pick and why? Also, let’s say it is your only synth to pair with a sampler 
Hmm I don’t know I haven’t gone much beyond preset surfing yet but maybe the Argon is smoother and Cobalt fizzier and weirder.
Really depends what you are trying to pull off. The algos for both are powerful. Coin toss I don’t think you can go wrong.
Both sound lovely. There’s a certain beauty to them, very… outer spacey.
I’ve got a Craftsynth 2.0 and a Cobalt8m - I got the Cobalt because I liked the sound of the Skulpt as was looking to upgrade. I’ve played with the Argon8 a bit because my mate had one but being honest, the Craftsynth gave me enough of the Modal wavetable flavour to be happy - I know the Argon8 has a lot more scope but I wasn’t so fussed to explore it all. For me, the Cobalt works really well as a nice take on what you’d call “classic polysynth” sounds but just enough features with the various oscillator types that it can sound quite unique without getting into batshit mental territories (I’ve got other stuff for that). As it was, my mate then sold his Argon8 when he scored a deal on a Hydrasynth…
Thanks for your thoughts. Much appreciated. As I’m looking for one polysynth that can do batshit as well as more classic stuff, maybe I should look again at the Hydrasynth and just accept that there’s going to be a whole of learning before creating again. The Modals appeal to me because of the ease with which sound design can take place for all bread and butter sounds and then a bit more on top, but if I will grow bored of them after a few months, that makes me consider the Hydrasynth. I don’t suppose you also have a Hydra for comparison? CraftSynth is a lock btw.
I haven’t used a Hydra (but I’ve seen one on TV) but I wouldn’t recommend the Cobalt for anything batshit. It’s not that it can’t do batshit, everything can do batshit, it just doesn’t feel like it wants to do batshit, it wants to do nice.
My vote would be Hydra, that thing looks batshit.
I own both the HS and the Cobalt8M. I find the HS way easier to grasp in terms of sound design (brilliant interface), but takes quite a bit more work to get to sounds worth having. The Cobalt is not as accessible as the HS, but it’s sounds seem much more pleasing and “powerful” right out of the box (not sure how to put this). I like having both, but if I had to choose either, I’d say Hydrasynth. I do like that both are MPE compatible!!!
I don’t have a Hydra but I’ve played my mates and it really is a cracking synth and has plenty of scope to get mental. The most out of any of these. But it does take a bit of time to setup the various waveforms, decide which you want to morph between, decide which mutators you want to use. But you can go deep, deep, deep…
I suppose with the Cobalt you can set the two oscillators onto quite different algorithim types and start modulating hard between them and likewise with the two parameters for each algorithim at same time. Plus if you started to add in modulation of the unison depths too… There still is plenty scope (especially if you’re sequencing from something like a DT and start plocking midi CCs) but @Fin25 is probably right that it’ll never goes as deep as the Hydra - fun coincidence, I bought my Cobalt off him…
Definitely worth spending some time with the CraftSynth as if that is really up your street then maybe the Argon8 would be a good shout as an upgrade.