Your most unused synth?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

There is a Japanese word : Tsundoku that means , The art of buying more books than you can read . I wonder if there is a word for the art of buying more synths than you can use ( or afford) . Maybe it’s called GAS.

So what is your most unused synth that you have but you don’t want to sell it (or you can’t) . The one that sits quietly somewhere in your studio and you don’t use it anymore. But is nice to look at it or just have it.

I don’t have so many synths and I’m new to this . For me is my Korg ms2000b. And the next one will be the Typhon . Also Td3 I would like to use it more , but I always forget how to program it.

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#2

Volca Modular

Previously FS1r

I’m of the Umberto Eco school on Tsundoku for books.

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#3

Bastl Kastle.

The smaller they are the less guilt I feel about having them laying around unused

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#4

Roland SH-1, mostly because it is so big for what it does and the PWM doesn’t work that well any more… but I should dig it out at some point because it does sound so very good.

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#5

Haha nice!

As Eco says do they define us ?

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#6

The Roland TB-3.
It’s collecting dust on my shelf because I find it unusable and useless.

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#7

Modal Skulpt. It died for no apparent reason right after the warranty ran out. It’s now an expensive paper weight.

Other than that, my original Uno Synth. I use it pretty often, but my Digitone is my most used synth with my Uno Synth Pro as a distant second.

It’s a pretty small operation over here.

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#8

Kawai K1 II.

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#9

A stylophone.

Closely followed by a Chimera BC16 which I can’t be bothered to make a PSU adaptor for.

(The BC16 can be battery powered, or takes 5v from a normally unused pin on the MIDI IN socket. My eyesight’s rubbish so I feel great anxiety at the idea of soldering a bespoke cable. I have a 2.1mm barrel socket in a shopping cart open in another tab that I can’t bring myself to pay for…)

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#10

Casio VL-1.
But the recent arrival of the Strega is going to rectify the situation.

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#11

Not counting the synths on deck for selling soon (dx7iifd, Casio cz5000, ensoniq esqm, etc) it would either be the original korg monotron or the ensoniq sq1+. Both are great and I do use them from time to time but;
The monotron is so small I forget I have it. If I set it down in a weird spot it’s like it vanishes.
The sq1+ is great too but I don’t have the space to have it set up permanently so I have to move other gear to use it. If I were to get an a-frame stand or something like that I would probably use it a lot more. Underrated synth.

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#12

Polyend medusa, I have a love hate relationship with it. I love it’s features, I hate using it.

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#13

I have a few, but the reason is I got something better/more useful. And those few will be sold.

For example, Bass Station II because I have the Analog Four MK2. The BSII is still awesome, though.

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#14

I had a VL1 as a kid. Then I lost it don’t know where . I wish I still have it. Maybe would be nice for circuit bending.

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#15

Analog Four mk2. It’s great on paper, but I don’t like the character at all.

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#16

MicroFreak, my first synth, has keyboard misfires with the not-actually-grounded outlets in my office/studio. I still sample it onto Digitakt on occasion, or put it thru Syntakt FX section, but it never sticks for long in a setup outside of getting sampled. It might get some more play with the 5.0 update, especially for the snappier envelopes and the paraphonic sample playback…

#17

my volcas are packed away but i genuinely believe they are nice pieces of gear and can have legitimate use in a small setup with digi boxes (especially as an analog voice when paired with the dt and/or dn)

i bought the keys when it was first released and it’s technically my first analog synth. it has weathered a decade of dust collection/beer spills from my lurid youth and its pots are scratchy (i take much better care of my gear now)

i picked up the fm not really knowing what it actually was until my mind was subsequently blown a few years later when i discovered a video by oscillator sink discussing sound design by implementing his web editor for it

this is what exposed me to the harmonic series- it was similar to a hallucinogenic revelation and is what got me into synthesis for real

the fm and beats don’t really get any use now that i have the dt / dn but it’s not worth the effort of trying to sell them- i will probably gift them to someone who will hopefully also find them to be a gateway

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#18

What a synth man ! Don’t sell it

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#19

Right now probably the Matriarch. (I usually sell things I find I am not using after a number of months). Part of that is me not yet sure if I really want to tip over the edge into euro land. Possibly not.

It has a spot on a shelf and I can fire it up and use it - but while the oscillators sound nice the filter isn’t that nice and I feel like a few samples might get me where I want to go just as easily.

I’ve recently moved the DT/DN to a shelf, but it is too soon to tell if they will sit unused or get pulled back out. Their former space is still open.

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#20

The Digitone. I used to use it all the time, but a few things in my workflow changed in the last few years, the main one being that I bought an M8. It has a pretty robust fm synth built in, which makes it easy to integrate into a composition. Also, when it comes to program-heavy workflows, I get overwhelmed if I have to program more than one instrument at a time, and the M8 continues to appeal to me more than the Digitone, at least for making songs. I should say though, I haven’t updated my Digitone in a while, so I haven’t tried its new song mode. I think I’m gonna do that soon and I try to make a whole composition on it. If I’m not feeling the workflow, then I’ll probably sell it.

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