Obviously it’s a very different approach, but have you considered a Vermona Retroverb Lancet? It’s a standalone filter and spring reverb unit but an exceptionally powerful one. Run more or less any poly through it and you’ll get way closer to that sound than you ought to be able to for the price.
My personal favourite approach is to use the Volca Sample (Pajen FW) loaded up with single cycle waveforms for 4 note polyphony.
The Retroverb is also incredible for sound mangling when it comes to generating new fodder for your Digitakt etc.
I’ve owned the Perfourmer a bunch of times and always end up selling it to try something new and then regret it soon after. I just don’t think there’s anything quite like it.
Anyway, I grabbed one from PC this morning…maybe I’ve learned my lesson and will hang onto it this time!
So it was you that grabbed the last one! Lol, it’s probably a good thing. I was hovering on the add to cart button and I really shouldn’t be buying another synth right now…
When you know the synth, it’s quick and easy to get the sound you want. Each voices have just few settings so yeah you know exactly what you do.
It’s not really exactly the same sound each time. As a true analog gear, the temperature of the room and humidity can slighty change the sound. Also a slight detuning happen with time. That the beauty of true analog gear.
There are features that allow you to achieve quite a varied sonic palette between the four tracks. For tracks 2-4 you can sync oscillators with the neighbor track, yet the neighbor track is still independent. you can also sync LFO’s with neighboring tracks so you phase them in interesting ways. Really, once you’ve laid a few notes down for each track on a sequencer, it’s a happy accident machine with the different play-modes. But this we all know.
GreatSynthesizers.com did an awesome write-up a few years ago on the Perfourmer. Their reviews always include a ton of really great sound samples, and they hit it out of the park with the Vermona examples. Check it out…
I had a word with Vermona yesterday saying that my PERfourMER will be shipped end of June/start of July to my local store. This is great news as I was set to receive it in August.
And, for me, there is no alternative to the PERfourMER.
Has anyone on here ever used the earliest silver rackmount version of the Perfourmer? Is it functionally the same as the dark blue/cream chassis Mk1 version?
I think the play modes are simpler, plus this: “The act of swapping Playmodes is much improved over the slightly kludgy method seen before. No fewer than six options are ready at the turn of a switch.”
but then there’s this: “Some of the Mk1 Perfourmer’s features didn’t make it through to its successor. The filter has lost fully variable key tracking; in its place is a switch offering fixed settings of zero, 50 and 100 percent. The LFO no longer has that useful reverse sawtooth but gains sample and hold instead — a reasonable swap. The oscillators have mostly picked up extra features, but you can’t now select different pulse widths directly from the panel. As on the Mono Lancet synth, this is the exclusive and slightly odd province of the mod wheel. Last, and probably least, the VCA’s LFO modulation is no more. This was never a favourite feature of mine, but it might have been fun trying it with the extended LFO sync options.”
worth reading the whole thing (and possibly the 2003 review I remember drooling over a lot) if you’re considering one.
yeah when I bought the DRM1 I purposefully went for the “standard” version versus the version with the silver knobs. while they do look bad ass, it seems like it’d be tough to see what the hell is going on, especially in a dimly lit studio.
This reminds me of every thread title I see here and elsewhere. “Should I buy…?” I don’t have to read any more or open the thread. The answer is yes. Other threads that have the same effect: “Am I doing this wrong?” Absolutely. “Is it just me or is the OT…” It’s always you.
