The V Collection Synclavier has been a surprise hit with me, so I’m excited to see this. It makes some sense to just evaluate it on its own specs and merits against other synths, but I see it as more of a Prophet 6 (etc) type of product - a reissue that expands on the original while bringing in some new flavors.
Synclavier has so much depth - even just working with basic waveforms you have LFO-controlled panning of individual partials in the stereo field, 2 operator FM on each partial, and a kind of octave/harmonizer ‘chorus’ effect on each partial. On top of that you have a sort of wave sequencing thing for each partial where your waveform can evolve over a set amount of time between frames. So you can make some huge soundscapes, even before you start loading samples. It can be the drone machine the 1980s never knew they had, among other things. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface with what it can do.
A brand new Synclavier back in the day would have been unattainable for most…I think it was around 100k? Nowadays you can get a refurbished one for 12k, which is still a lot of money. Plus they are really, really big. It’s pretty neat that we can do the same thing in something the size of a frozen pizza for one these days.
I do wonder if offering a controller with the various knobs and buttons on the original Synclavier keyboard might’ve been a good offering to leverage the existing iPad and VST software. Like the Soundforce Prophet controller. Since originally you’d have a computer for editing stuff anyway, it’d be pretty equivalent to the original experience. Admittedly, Synclavier dipped a toe into this with the Synclavier Knob, which was one really expensive USB knob. (I was wondering why they didn’t put the knob on the new one! Maybe you can plug it into the USB ports if you have one already.)
Anyway, I think it’s really cool they brought this back. Whether the new features and the output stage add some secret sauce over and above the VST, I don’t know, but it’s nice to see it get some recognition as the unique system it is.
I can definitely see getting one of these, probably to use paired with my Electra one. For the sound design scope and ~90 voices and 12 timbres, it doesn’t feel overpriced. Could I do that with a VST much more cheaply? Yes. But then I’d have to use a computer all the time, and I’m just not interested, so shrug. Other folks can do what the like, but this might be a good fit for me.
That’s the thing, it’s the controllers ( plural ) that you pair with this beast that gives you the playing connection, and makes it all happen. It takes Poly-aftertouch and MPE, but i am wondering about NRPN. ( I haven’t found the operators manual yet. )
From the video, one of the sound designers, Paul Schilling, did his patches using the Hydrasynth as a controller, so his patches are setup to use that keyboard capability. ( He also did a lot of very impressive patches on the Hydrasynth. ) I like that Synclavier has invested so much in sound design already, and likely more if this sells.
I am picturing the HS, and eventually Osmose keyboard, in front of this. Setting up macros on the HS, or all the other ways you can output stuff from the HS, will be amazing. Those comfortable with the Seaboard would have fun with this too.
This synth is super deep but the UI makes it quick to get to stuff. Obviously you could spend a lot of time doing all sorts of detail on sound design, it’s there if you want it, or you can still make great sound and not knock yourself out. It’s very flexible.
There are Francophones in Nova Scotia — a minority. I don’t think that determined the look, but whatever. Does this synth look Canadian ? I think the company still has Massachusetts connections and roots too.
I wanted to like it but looks, sounds, interface, price, everything was just meh. I agree with @brisket who said it looks like it was designed without reference to anything else on the market. And not to its benefit in this case.
Yeah probably trying to be true to the Synclavier workflow to a fault, which seems pretty similar to various workstations since then in many ways. It is much more a “players” instrument though, which maybe makes it a mistake to not release it attached to a fantastic keybed.
I think more people would be interested and accepting of a high price ask. Even if the price jumped. Currently to me it looks a bit like a oversized universal remote for a TV or something.
The fact they are trying to patent the buttons you can slide your finger across seems well dumb but I suppose whatever, I don’t think anyone will ever pay to use that if they get the patent.
I think they will find a bit of a market in people who always wanted a Synclavier but I also think that market is smaller than they think. Like most people who said that are likely just pining for the idea of having a giant studio that had synths that are essentially furniture. There is definitely some sort of niche I could see it in but it is kind of similar one to a workstation module. It does sound really good but maybe not as good as the competitive synth focused options in that price range but then it has its crazy voice count to make it its own.
I really wanted to like this, but can’t. Maybe if it had a knob instead of a swiper, and definitely a greater chance if it had more than one. I’m super disappointed in Synclavier.
I’ll be interested to hear from people once they’ve used it for a while. The UX seems elegant in some ways, and menu-divey/obsolete/aggravating in others. Sometimes the benefits of a particular scheme aren’t obvious though, and you only really appreciate its logic once muscle memory has kicked in.
Yeah — the Electra specifically feels like it should be a good choice, because you can e.g. copy the envelope visualizations, etc. I’m not buy it immediately either way, but I’m interested in seeing how the software evolves over the first six months or so, especially about remote control. If I do get one, I’ll probably be playing it primarily with a linnstrument exactly to get the expressiveness it looks to be designed for.
I missed the original announcement about this but I see that Perfect Circuit now has these on their “New Releases” page. Has this made it into anyone’s hands yet?
I’ve had one since February. It takes a bit to get to know it — the manual is excellent, it’s a matter of careful reading, doing the tutorials in the manual, and practicing.
It sounds absolutely awesome. The presets are great, and once you get the hang of setting up partials, you can do some amazing things.
I’m really glad I got it. I haven’t produced anything with it yet, but I’m getting great drones out of it with a lot of texture, and it’s easy to cc map parameters on each partial to provide movement.
