Great threat. Difficult question though, as fun is obviously very subjective. Here is my shot at trying to define what makes something fun for me in no particular order:
It feels intuitive (to me)
I can get going fast and create something quickly
It has lots of potential for randomness and happy accidents (LFOs, modulation etc)
It has plenty of live control options
It puts a smile on my face and I can’t put it down
Has internal FX to play around with
Has a good and flexible sequencer
It has the right balance between being flexible and being limited at the same time.
The boxes I enjoy(ed) most based on these criteria:
DT & DN: tick all of these boxes
A4: all except 2 for now, but I think that will come with experience
SP404mk2: sold, but was a lot of fun
Arturia Drumbrute: sold, but I had fun with it
Other boxes that might be fun for me based on these criteria and the impressions that I get from them:
I think the Microfreak, it’s just fun to play and explore and most of the times I come up with something worth sampling. For someone who has no keyboard technique, that keybed is super-expressive.
Just got an SP-404 and so far is the most immediate sampler I owned, could become the funnest piece of gear…
Oh, totally forgot about that. I finally got myself a rehearsal space again after a long hiatus. I should take my Nord Drum 3P there. That should be real fun.
Yeah, for me it’s the Nord drum 3p.
I played drum’s when I was a kid for 5-6years and even if I’m one of the worst drummers out there it’s Soo much fun.
Also feeling a huuuge bass makes me smile every time . In my case the Moog Minitaur is doing the job, but it could be anything…
Axoloti – allows me coding my very own MIDI processing stuff in C (without real C knowledge!) and running it in standalone mode, from any piece of gear to any other piece of gear;
Launchpad Pro – perfect input device and user interface for the above.
Moog Grandmother is immediate and rewarding to me in a way that the Matriarch was not ( but wow that delay)
Whenever I work on the Soma Pulsar 23 I feel like an electric warlock at my spell desk.
The Make Noise shared system is a fantastic maze- I always start with one purpose and end up somewhere else three hours later.
I miss the Digitakt, I feel like I made great stuff happen in mere moments (now I have the analog RYTM and while the stuff that comes out of it sounds better it feels like lawnwork to get there in comparison)
For me, the SP-404 MKII + any synth is the most fun.
Quick sampling, messing with effects and resampling, skipback recording is awesome.
I made a BomeBox project that maps all the 404 pads to 2 channels both in and out.
So now I can just play the pads on the 404 and it gets recorded on the Octatrack sequencer.
So much fun.
After 30 years of making music and accumulating a studio full of synths, desktop groove boxes and Eurorack the thing I pick up most often for fun or if I just have 5 minutes is an acoustic guitar or my tele plugged strait in to a Fender Blues Jnr.
I also like plugging my guitar in to a my Zoia or Hector (via an Injectr module) so I am not a total luddite
that was the one i fell in love with. …taught bass lessons at a local shop and played that thing a ton. i’m not sure why it took me 10 years to get one but i just went with the most recent, hoping that 8 years later my purchase would push the next iteration out quicker for everybody else
I have a modular case with a Livewire Vulcan with the Intellijel expansion, and a Cwejman VCA-MX. The Vulcan is a dual LFO with with lots of shapes and options. The Cwejman is a VCA that allows voltage control of volume and panning. I can sit for hours playing around with audio rate modulations of every synth parameter and stereo panning.
I’ll get it back someday 