First I would suggest, you might consider to mind your language … there is no reason to be rude like you.
Novation is now offering a hardware synth for about 1.4k to 1.5k. IMO the Peak can be compared to synths like the Virus TI, or the new Quantum from Waldorf, or the Modor NF-1. All three are polyphonic and at least the first two offer the one or other feature, which I would call “fresh ideas”.
BTW … I can do many sounds, which are not programmed and some would even not be possible with synths
I don’t think I was being rude, it is a lame argument.
What can you do that’s so ground breaking? Oh this bass sound, or pad or whatever is soooo groundbreaking, or this guitar tone has never been heard before, said no one in the last 10 years!
The synths you name are a lot more money, a grand or more extre. That is a lot, and nothing on the quantum is new either, absynth just to name one has been doing all that for a long time already!
Sorry, not sorry if people don’t get me being fastidious!
Remember that, and I will quote this from the forum Guidelines, “this is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, (et al) safe for family and friends.”
[quote=“alfred, post:56, topic:38574, full:true”]
Contrary to what some seem to think this seems like it’s not “just another VA synth”. The oscillators are based on FPGAs which is probably the first ever desktop synth of that nature, plus the converters seem to feature some extreme up sampling.[/quote]
I always thought Roland AIRA ACB were based on FPGAs.
A reasonable comparison for price would probably be the Prophet 12 module. That has 4 digital oscs (5 if you count the sub), 2 filters per voice, arps, modulation, digital effects etc.
It has 12 voices, and bi-timbrality, but fewer knobs per function than the Peak.
Given that the P12 goes for £1700 or so, and the shops are currently showing £1249 for the Peak, it seems like a fair price to me.
It’s only really worth what you make of it though. I’ve bought some pretty expensive paperweights in my time…
Totally agree with your point of “groundbreaking sounds”. It’s definitely overrated sometimes.
Music can be done with very simple noise generators (like spoons for rhythm), with mechanical instruments (all the classics are) and so on… IMO the soul of music comes from the musician, the composition, the arrangement, but also a little from decent sounds.
If you read my previous post completely, you will find that I didn’t even critisize the Peak It just reminds me of something, which I know and have already
I think to compare synths, which are obviously all digital machines, is not only a thing of cost. For me it’s the sound in the first place. The Peak sounds great, but like the P12 it seems not to take full advantage of it’s digital nature. And that is distressing. We see this quite often since some time.
In another post it has been asked, why not have the options like the vintage OSCAR had. Novation even draws the connection to this “heritage”. THAT would have been a great idea, although not new, but it would be acclaimed by many. Something like this would indeed give us some very interesting hardware, even if we have seen this in software already
The depth of the mod matrix on the Peak, and the Animate functions both are very impressive to me.
In many ways this is what I wish both the Blofeld and Prophet 12 were: Knobby, but with plenty of power still under the hood.
Bi-timbral would have been nice, but those onboard FX sure are stellar.
I am still waiting for a digital synth, which is going off-road and does not follow the mainstream of VA, which is focused around subtractive synthesis. To have wavetables too, is great, but I guess, there is more possible with digital engines.
It’s great that many modern digital engines sound so “natural” today and this should be used to implement features, which are not seen often in hardware and are more or less the strength of the digital … or better the algorithmic domain.
What I would like to see more often in hardware is user-waveforms, user-wavetables, and tools to create and edit them. And there are some algorithmic methods going beyond wavetables. A synth could come up with a couple of waveshapers and wavefolders, which are user editable, or the one or other method of physical modelling concept, or granular-effects, or formant-effects, or convolution of two waves or audio channels, and I am sure there is more possible … it’s math after all and math is very flexible.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a digital-modular-synth as hardware? There are “modular-VA” synths like the Arturia Origin, the Nord Modular, or the Solaris by John Bowen … why not develop something “modular-digital”? Maybe the Quantum is heading in that direction, we will see.
I don’t know what people always have with “user editable wave tables”. It sounds nice on paper, but I don’t really see myself sitting down and spending my time creating wavetables. It is a very abstract process and it is always hard to tell how musically useful your result will be. I am happy to leave those decisions to the synth maker. A good stock selection of wave tables can cover more ground than you’ll ever be able to explore.
I would say … they should provide the same audio quality. Since some time we have digital synths, which are sounding really “natural” (some would call it “analogue”) and if we don’t use them to play typical digital sounds like wavetables (e.g. Waldorf-like), it should be very hard to tell a real analogue synth apart from a modern digital engine.
This said, the synths by Tom Oberheim have a specific timbre or sound coloration … like Moogs are Moogs, Dave Smiths are Dave Smiths, or Rolands are Rolands etc. and Novations are Novations …
Now it depends, what you are expecting from the Peak. Novation says that the Peak has inherited the filter concept of the Bass-Station II, which has it’s own sound. We could expect the Peak to go in a similar direction, but providing more waveforms, the wavetables and other features.
From the specs we can tell that the synth engine of the Peak is much more versatile than the OB6, but it will be no replacement of an OB6, why, because it has not been designed to be.
I just realized this thing actually has polyphonic aftertouch. That’s pretty rare, and it makes a great combo with Launchpad Pro, especially for non keyboard players like me. You can get all that expressiveness without really having to know your way around the ivories.
Do you have the link for the FM demos of this synth?
Was really excited about the specs, particularly FM of the 3 osc, but have been reading a few brief reviews stating FM rates don’t go nearly high enough for the classic fm aggressive leads??
Can’t find any demos on the FM implementation
