Hey… just wondering if someone has both keyboards, what’s their opinion on them, how do they compare sonically, is GM as punchy and has crazy presence as vintage Source?
I’ve sold SH2 some time ago and kinda miss simple mono with nice full sound. Always wanted Source, but somehow GM is easier to obtain, plus has bit more options.
What you guys think?
I also have DFAM, cool for what it is, but can’t compare with vintage Moog for punch. And I don’t like Matriarch much from listening at Super Booth… too soft and polished sounding to me, prefer Mono/Poly for those paraphonic things…
I had a Grandmother for over a year, and the Source was my main synth many years ago. The Source was more ‘refined’ than the GM, and even than a Minimoog. The Grandmother has a woolier, more aggressive tone. The Source was built for playing rather than patching, offering fewer sonic possibilities than what you get on the semi-modular GM with its patch points and many knobs.
However, the Source has the advantage of two full ADSR envelopes - one for the amp and one for the filter. This goes a long way towards crafting interesting bass or plucked sounds.
Having said that, you could get two Grandmothers and have money left over with what you’d pay for a Source these days. Plus, you wouldn’t need to worry about that failure-prone membrane or entering data via the big dial.
I loved the Source and used it for many years, but oddly enough, I never thought of it as particularly “Moog-y”, I just thought of it as an excellent monosynth. Mind you, it was the 80s/90s, and maybe I wasn’t all that concerned with such things. On the other hand, the GM was oozing with that Moog sound.
