Sell the Peak, buy a monotron.
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cool reply dude
Youāre the cool one here, everyone can tell.
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thanks Hawk
I get that maybe you just say the kind of shit youāve been saying in a generalized, intense sort of way and donāt assume people will take it personally, butā¦
we donāt know you, itās hard to read ātoneā on the internet, thereās gear space for that, etc. etc. Youāre probably gonna get banned for that tantrum anyway, but if youāre notāand actually I donāt know that you should beājust know that most everyone here is really cool, and thereās no need at all to get all huffy like that. I think most of us come here to relax, and this shit definitely isnāt relaxing. Just chill out.
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im chill. i dont think its chill to respond to a very clear question about a particular synthās eccentricities by saying āi think you need to learn to use a ring modā by multiple people
i come here to talk about gear and music. not to have a synthesis-off with people who think they know more than i do and like to talk down to people who ask questions
itās not clear to me that tribal mob-rule is the correct answer in situations like this although im sure im in the minority with my reading of this thread.
I eyed the Peak and Summit for a long time, thinking it might replace my Prophet12 since I was after that same suggestive and haunting sound that the Prophet12 has, and heard some demos from the Peak and Summit that reminded me of that.
With that said, once my mate got a Summit, I played it extensively at his place and I had the same experience. Iād say itās top notch quality for whatās going on there, but it never moved me.
I really think it just comes down to the character of the instrument, which to a large extent derives from the way itās designed from oscillator to end stage, including hardware as well as software choices.
Some instruments just donāt move you the way you think they would, despite looking good on paper and sounding great in the hands of another musician. Most people I know, donāt care much for the Prophet 12 but when I play it, they usually get interested. But when they connect with it, they still donāt feel it.
With that said, moving on to another bread and butter synth that just sounds great, is probably not the answer for you. I think you should take some time to figure out why the Peak doesnāt move you, and then search for that sound elsewhere. But Take 5, from what Iām hearing, and the Super 6, theyāre cracking great instruments but most of what Iām hearing from them are like ā¦ well, the expected, high quality, top notch synth patch you hear everywhere else.
If you wanna look elsewhere, just for inspiration, donāt mind the price cause itās stupid expensive, but just to see if it moves you - check out Deckardās Dream. Itās out of range for most musicians as far as price goes (including myself), but it has a sound you wonāt find everywhere. And if you like that sound, you should know that the Yamaha Reface CS, itās not miles away from that sound, despite being a VA and stuff.
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i think i agree, thatās good advice. i liked the rev2 a lot. i connected with it in a tactile way. and mod mapping didnāt feel monotonous. i think it also has something to do with faders for envelopes. they dont feel as natural to me. like less mechanical, like driving stick kind of. envelope modulation on the prophet felt a lot more natural and deliberate. at certain points with the peak, i feel like im midi controlling a vst.
i just get kind of bored with synths in general i guess when ive exhausted most of their abilities. i think iāll like the take 5 because of its sequencer, which hopefully can be used as a modulation source like the rev2ās gate seq. and it has a unique timbre but also powerful oscillators with wave morphing and flexible filter options.
i think elektron instruments have spoiled me for fun features.
thanks for the advice
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I dont think anyone who replied to you had an attitude.
What synths have you used that you like the sound of? I saw some reference to modular, and then you mentioned vcv racks. Im not question your experience or anything, but it can be helpful to see what you have used and what you need to focus your skills on to get the Peak to sound good.
Ive brought my Peak to friends with both vintage polys, and modern analog āhigh endā synths, and none found the Peak lacking in comparison to OB-6 for example. But it sounds different. The Peak will not be the best synth for those massive vintage style brass sounds. But it will not sound thin or weak either.
A thing to note about the wavetables in the Peak is that they are based on additive synthesis. This makes them a bit muffled sounding compared to other wavetable synths. I still find uses for the wavetables, but it is not the thing i use the most. When i use wavetables i often use alot of pre filter drive to give them some edge for the filter to have some more harmonics to work with.
I mentioned the osc levels and gainstaging earlier. It is important enough to mention twice. 
Another thing i like to do to get some āvintageā tones out of it is to use LFO 2 in sample and hold mode, with a pretty high slew rate and slow lfo rate to modulate the pich of one of the oscās. That way you can really dial in the randomness you want.
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Iām the same, most synths donāt move me and I tire of them. At first, I thought I just needed to find that synth as far as features go. Then, I realised, Iām not into synths all that much, Iām into a very specific sound that I can get from sampling a synth, then doing other stuff with it - granular, pitching, resampling through boxes, that stuff. But with that said, the source needs to be something still, and thatās where the Prophet 12 comes in.
But new synths donāt move me at all, even if they sound fantastic, because they also all sound like synths with a few exceptions, Deckard being one of them. Sure, the CS-80 sound is one of the most defining electronic sounds out there. Yet, thereās not much that sound like it. Thereās a lot that sounds like a Moog or a Sequential these days, albeit rarely as good.
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yeah maybe i misread the tone. my fault. sorry.
i could have been more clear. i meant to say i had a 84hp modular setup before, ive used a lot of different gear though. i just think an understanding of modular kind of implies that you know what you want from gear and are interested in pushing synthesis to itās limits. but i did learn synthesis fundamentals in vcv rack, which i think is a very helpful resource for anyone starting out. especially with the tutorials available and the new ports theyāve emulated from instruo and whatnot. very cool software
i did not grow up with an affinity for synths, so this is just kind of a way for me to extend my desires for sound design limit pushing into a tactile hardware realm. but the ones i like lately from online demos are the jupiter 6, the prophet 8 & 6, the matrix 6 and the matrix 12. cs-80 obviously. maybe its a dco thing. i also like the A4 but i just sold mine.
i like function generator style envelopes, very snappy, west coast complex waveshaping, serge/buchla-esque territory. im more interested in textures, but not in an ambient reverb way.
but to your Peak tips, yes i also use the pre filter drive almost at around 120 sometimes. i am always careful to set osc volume around 12 and the vca level pretty low if im using any of the analog drive, but even when using multiple oscillators obviously the gain staging helps. i just have a very hard time blending two wavetables. so a lot of the time im using the basic waveforms. i dont know if im after āvintage warmthā or what a good adjective is but yeah im not a huge fan of controlled random āslopā either way. i do think it adds character but in my case it doesnāt help much.
i actually just bought an analog drive maybe 4 days ago to put after my digital synths to see if that helps at all. its worth trying. doesnāt sound bad
@circuitghost im sure iād love the deckardās. i think most of the black corp stuff ive seen looks interesting. id have to sell a lot to get it though. im at a point where i only get new gear if i can sell something i already have for it, in an attempt to control my spending. ive always been interested in the yamaha cs stuff too, so thats good to know. i 100% agree, maybe i just dont like synths much.
i would buy a p12 in a heartbeat though. i have to at least try it. need to learn a little more about that vs the x
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Sell it. Itās not for you.
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I did that journey too Prophet 12 all days in the week and twice on Sundays
But it is a very strange beast, like Dave Smithās Evolver. I can totally see why itās not for everyone.
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The problem with modular synths is that you have all these posibilities available, but its easy to forget the small stuff. Everything kan sound interesting when you have alot of modulation options. I think i almost made cooler stuff on my modular when i had fewer modules than after it grew. Because i didnt need to push every thing i had to get stuff out of it. hehe.
My first analog synth was an Roland SH-09 back in 95 or so. It is so basic that you have to get creative to not end up with the same sounds all the time. When i later got a Juno 106 i hated it as the tone was pretty bad compared to the SH-09. But i was young. Might have liked the 106 better now.
My buddy had a Jupiter 6 over to my studio earlier this year. Its a lovely synth, and sounds good. Its not as polite as some other vintage polyās, and can make some harder and more experimental sounds when pushing it. But again, the Peak didnt stand out as a clear inferior synth when we used both together.
I never cared for the tone of the Prophet 8. Never tried the Rev 2 tough. Love the OB-6, but it can almost be too much sometimes. hehe.
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im not sure its inferior. i just cant put my finger on why im not gelling with it really.
and yes, thats why i had to sell my modular stuff. i could get mind blowing textures with granular, and fm and cross mod with phase distortion and some of the crazy nlc stuff like dispersion delay and modal synthesis with resonant bodies. but i spent way too much time messing around with sound design that i never made any music. so im stuck between wanting a lot of possibilities but also wanting something musical that makes music limitless, satisfying, tactile and expressive/intuitive in the hardware realm. i know thats a lot to ask. just venting my frustrations. i didnt mean to offend the peak fans
i feel like the ob6 probably is similar to the rev2, not in sound, but in that they do one sort of sound very well. which is why i got bored with it. i always wanted one, but i would be worried about that. i dont have much evidence for that claim, its just the feeling i get. i love its overall sound though
Have you tried the Rev2? It seemed to me like a very powerful synth, especially for brassy sound of you dig itās filter sound.
The fact that you can stack two patches makes it a good choice for complex sound design Iād say.
As for the Peak, the only trick I can think of is making the unit patch not the blend default sound, but whatās on the panel. A good way to get a fresh start, as itās often the sweet spot of another patch.
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Perhaps itās not the peak or the modular stuff or any other machine then, but exactly that what you write about.
You are searching for fun and relevation it seems. Do you think a perfect synth that never ever exists could fix that?
If Iām in that state I grab my bike instead investing in another machine.
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yeah the rev2 was my last synth, before the peak. loved it
not fun, just a way to explore the limits of creative sound design beyond traditional synthesis in a hardware environment. not an enjoyable process necessarily, but also not one that requires a mouse and feels like data entry. i did mention that i know its not entirely realistic, but i also think that there are a lot of options that i have yet to try because i dont live near a moog factory or thomann synths
For what itās worth, I spent a long time researching a flagship polysynth and (with a lot of input from people on this forum) ended up with a Summit. Over time, it dawned on me that it wasnāt a P10 or a CS80 or whateverāand that my expectations needed to be adjusted. I started thinking I needed to sell the Summit to fund a P5 (P10 is out of my league), but in the meantime have come to accept that the Summit is powerful and versatile AND I probably need a proper poly with VCOs to do, as @LyingDalai says, the thicker, brassier sounds.
I will say, though, that with the Summit having the 16 voices and option to stack them and still have reasonable polyphony does help, so I imagine that I might also find the Peak limited in some respects.
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here are most of the patches iāve made so far, Bank-C 014 being the most recent. if anyone wants to critique or see what iām attempting to do for some reason
BANK-A 081621.syx (65.9 KB)
BANK-B 091721.syx (65.9 KB) BANK-C 092021.syx (65.9 KB)
you can scrutinize them, whatever you want. not sure what the opportunity is, there are maybe 8 good ones
just putting them out there. feel free to not download
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