Budget synth for basslines?

I'm looking to get myself a synth, mainly to create basslines, to pair up with my MPC1000 & S950. I don't want to spend a huge amount, around the £300 mark. Synths are 100% new to me so any pointers would be awesome.
Just stumbled across this little bundle at my local music store https://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/korg-vo ... undle.html
Does anyone have any experience with these?

Thanks guys!

Volca's are fun to play with but not very versatile. For 300,- a secondhand Bassstation 2 might be good, a lot of possibilities, nice sound and also useful as a midicontroller keyboard.

Peep the 2nd hand market for a mopho desktop or bass station2

da microbrute got some beastly bass tones

Save another 50 quid and get the Bass Station 2.

yamaha tx81z rack unit from the 80s.
should be able to get one for around $100 or less. great for bass sounds (and much more). plus it has a "fingered portamento" setting which makes bass lines come alive.

terry towelling wrote:yamaha tx81z rack unit from the 80s.
should be able to get one for around $100 or less. great for bass sounds (and much more). plus it has a "fingered portamento" setting which makes bass lines come alive.

This is well worth a look for the price, and it's one of the only synths I own. Basically a DX7 in rack form. Wouldn't be my go-to for bass in all honesty simply because it's a bum 'ole to program. Then again you can get an editor for it I believe. Seen these sneaking up in price lately on UK eBay, one was going for £85!!!

Bit out your budget but the MS20 mini could be worth the extra £50 or so, but I don't have any experience with it. What type of music are you making by the way? That could dictate which direction you go.

Comes to 386 GBP so it's a little over your budget...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/studio-electron ... 2c9aaa482e

I know, people always recommend what they have, but i'm very impressed with the bass sounds i get from this.

EDIT: Only ships to US, so nevermind.

minitaur or mopho

you have a lot of choice for £300. but you could probably spend a lot less and get something great.

really to cover all the basses(pun verry much intened) you want something analog AND something fm.

the original basstation racks come up incredibly cheap sometimes, i got one for 100€ here in italy. not as nice as the bassstation 2 but still very useful. it can be a bit moogy or a reasonably 303ish. and it has a cv gate interface just incase you have any old analog hanging arround.external audio input for the filter.

does the s950 have the same sine wave test program as the S1000? thats pretty dammed useful. listen to pretty much any classic drum and bass and thats what the monster sub bass is.

the yamaha fm synths are pretty legendary for bass. and being pigs to program. but they are really cheap.

i'm on the lookout for one of the smaller ones like the tx81z, tx7 or fb01

the tx81z is a much better option because you can edit on the front panel, the tx7 and fb01 are presets or sysex only so you are tied to a computer(as opposed to tied to the user manual like the tx81z)

here i see them all go for under 100€

The TX81Z is awesome. Huge range of sound, and can get some big basses. It's got some really good presets, but if you put the few hours into really getting familiar with the interface, you can quite easily get whatever sound you want stemming off of presets.

Signing on the MicroBrute & MS20.

The MicroBrute is really a steal at it's price, especially if synths are new to you. Can't get lost in the interface and the more time you spend with it, the wider the palette. Being able to mix all of your oscillators into the same voice is pretty bad ass. The semi-modular patch is so-so... not really a make/break point. Capable of MUCH more than bass but I use(d) mine a lot for this exact purpose.

The MS20/mini is a different beast all together. It can be a simple square-wave machine or it can be a cockpit into the colorful nether-realm of synthology. Can do bass no problem but this thing is ridiculous... you WILL get lost (read - sight seeing) in the interface. If you don't, then you should get something else.

The Volca Bass is pretty sweet too. I enjoyed playing mine with a keyboard or programming it from an MPC (over internal sequencing) but sold mine because. It's great for what it does - simple bass. You can even get some acidic/303'ish stuff out of it, the filter was pretty nice. For $150... you can't beat it. I found my bass sounding very "samey" within a few weeks with it, but I think that is the nature of the Volca-beasts.

sciguy wrote:The TX81Z is awesome.... got some really good presets

its got one good preset

but yes it can be programmed to do a lot of cool stuff.
not really fun to program unless yer getting paid to do it or you really like incremental programming over lots of very similar parameters that you only find in fm synthesis.

for 'budget' i would just go with what you can find in your budget and learn to tweak it.

Roland jv-880