By kja
Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:11 pm
I'm really curious as well, how well this flavor pro can compare with say, a Isla 2400 for example.. because price wise, it shouldn't.
It's a similar sound effect... so while it might get in the ballpark, it's not going to recreate "that sound" perfectly.
How much you care is going to vary from person to person and effect to effect.
For me... most of the flavor pro settings are very good facsimiles, and it does open up a lot of sound design possibilities that were much harder (or impossible) to do with multiple effects.
Does Flavor Pro replace recording to tape, sampling off of vinyl, an S1200, S950... or other stuff? No... but it also does a solid job of being a compelling alternative without needing more gear, hassling with maintaining mostly older gear, or having to fiddle with various finicky gear.
I've been digging into Mini D over the last day as well... and I have to say for me it is a compelling instrument. Is it an exact replica of a Moog... not at all, but if you like the Moog workflow and understand the signal path, it is an incredibly easy plugin to work on. Sure, the filters don't operate exactly the same, and some of the variances of analogue feedback don't translate over from this digital plugin, but I'd still argue that the plugin is really good. It's not going to replace my Moog Voyager, but Mini D stands on its own as delivering a very solid and compelling sound in my mind.
At the very least, I'm super excited to see that Akai is taking the long term support of this hardware seriously, and I really hope they are able to use the revenue that they get for the plugins to extend the life of this product line over the next five to ten years. Even if they drop new revisions of the hardware to support more concurrent plugins, more ram for expansions/sampling... I think all of this is a sign that Akai's gamble for going back to hardware/standalone is paying off for the business and the consumer.
