My live setup always has an Octatrack and I add 1 or 2 of the following in my arsenal depending on the show: Digitone, Digitakt, Yamaha FB-01 (using Octatrack’s arpeggiator), Volca Sample, and iPad. I’m GASing for one more kick @ss synth / sound module to add and keep it as a more regular thing with the Octatrack. Portability and size are important. I don’t need anythin* with CV or modular interfacing. I try to buy everything used. So far I have my sights on the following:
Modal CRAFTsynth 2.0 (only $140 including tax during Black Friday)
Roland SE-02 (about $300 used)
Any others you’d recommend instead? I’d like something unique and different than the sounds I currently have. My budget is USD $500 max but ideally want to spend much less. Thanks.
DSI Tetra? I love mine.
4 voice analog poly, 4 part multitimbral too. No on-board fx but you could route it through the Octa.
Theres a thread here with some pros/cons and a great video by @nedavine
What music you making, mate? How versatile do you need the synth to be? Do you want it to be a good all round workhorse of a synth or do you want killer leads? Pads or mono-timbral?
I want a wide machine in terms of sound palette. I’m more into pad and ambient sounds or chords. Not looking for a bass machine or 8-bit, noise or granular stuff. I don’t need anothe4 FM synth as I have a Digitone and FB-01. Wave table or someth8ng of a different flavor appeals to me. Analog only is too limited. Based on this I’m leaning toward either Blofeld or Modal. The Modal looks fun, much more affordable and sounds fantastic but feels cheap compared to the Blofeld. Not sure wha else ticks all the boxes.
Cool. That Studio Electronics synth will be amazing for sure too! I had an SE-1 for the longest time and loved it! It’s so phat! Other than that, the D-05 would be hella cool!!! The OP-1 and an Octatrack could arguably be all that one would ever need.
Considering your list of potential candidates makes me wonder, what you’r really after … …?
Pulse 2, Slim Fatty, and the SE-02 are definitely monophonic synths and AFAIK best used for fat basses and leads. Pad and ambient sounds I would rather create with polyphonic synths with more than 4 voices, particularly in a live situation.
I don’t know the CRAFTsynth for it’s sound, but the Blofeld. If you are on a budget this little machine might give you many typical Waldorf-esque sounds. It’s a very versatile and underated synth. If one can become friends with the matrix-UI, it’s a very powerful little device for rough and gritty sounds, as well as for smooth ambient pads. IMO the factory presets are not very convincing and don’t show off, what the Blofeld is capable to do. For great sounds It’s necessary to get ones hands dirty
For pads made up of more than four voices we have many other synths on offer as well:
Novation Peak
Korg Prologue
Dave Smith REV 2, Prophet-6, OB-6
Roland System-8
Access Virus series
ASM Hydrasynth
Modal Argon 8
Behringer Deepmind 6/12
You may also get one of the polyphonic synths of the 80-ies in good shape and for cheap:
Roland Juno (60/106)
Korg DW-8000
Roland D-50 (or in the shape of the Boutiques … D-05)
DSI Evolver desktop has 2 digital wavetable and 2 analogue oscs. (you can tune these into chords for pads) also 3 delays and distortion, can sound sweet for pads but also totally weird for ambienty soundscapy stuff, I have a MEK which is much easier to edit patches on on but it may be worth considering
I’m doing a little gig this weekend using the Octatrack to sequence my modular (via a Vermona QMI2). The Octatrack can grab loops and add extra effects as well as giving me loads of prepared patterns. Makes for a neat little setup - and I don’t even need a mixer.
Blofeld is a great studio sound design tool but is completely unreliable in a live setting because of very poor midi implementation. OT frequently overloads and crashes it when using plocked midi arp. also, despite the manual, you cannot midi sync it, so if you want to synchronize its LFO or its onboard arp (which is otherwise stupendous) you need to set tempo manually
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