Come on in and recommend a synthesizer/keyboard!

bridgealantee wrote:
Sorry, wasnt supposed to come off as an insult. Its also just my opinion that you can make reason sound hot, you seem to think not. Guess we just have different ears.

Its all good. You can just never tell who is being a jerk on this forum. LOL.
Mainly because most of you are a bunch of sarcastic ass holes... HAHAHAHAA

JUST GO OUT N FIND A PLACEW WHERE THEY HAVE THESE BOARDS AT N DECIDE 4 YOURSELF.

I didn't see you had a budget, or maybe I overlooked it. I really like the analog keyboards myself, but if you on a budget you can't go wrong with standalone vsts.

For example lets say you have $500 to spend assuming you have a computer (as your posting on this forum).

You can get a Novation sl 49 for ~$200 and SampleMoog ~$300 and have a HUGH collection of vintage synth replicas. They might not have the same warmth as the originals but unless you have played on the originals you won't know... either will you production.

Now for the same $500 you can get a nice used synth .. say a Yamaha Motif 6, you may be a bit limited on the patches included compared to the other suggestion, but it would still be a good buy.

I have both the motif 6 and the Novation/SampleMoog setup and I can tell you that I barley touch the Motif (although I still love it).

MJH wrote:How about the Roland Fantom series? A friend of mine who studies music at university is an animal on the keys and highly recommends a Fantom for anyone looking for a board packed with sounds for production purposes... Anyone else had some experience using a Fantom with their MPC?

Also, to get a bit more specific... Are there any synths that are better for particular Hip-Hop sounds (eg. g-funk, crunk, etc)?

Buying a Fantom is not the best idea when you can get the sonic cell which is the x6 fantom is a module without the weird roland workflow which gets in the way.
Plus if you are using an mpc to write on you wont need the Fantom sequencer or padsor sampler.

IMNICE wrote:I would say get a triton or motif or fantom and a moog. I have a triton, but I resampled all the patches I used most into my 4000 and made KG's. I use the moog the most as far as using another piece of gear.

Cosign. Especially the Moog or checkout the SE1x

Well, I just got myself a Waldorf Micro Q keyboard, and I think it sounds super great! It plays a really (!) deep bass, has a lot of outputs, good filters, some OK effects, and is SUPER solid built (no plastic at all, solid steel house), a good 3 octave keyboard, and it has more than enough polyphony (more than I need actually, 25 voices) It's a bit rare but if you can find one, get it! I just saw one going on ebay for $790 I think. Had to delete all of the techno-presets, because I wanted more basic analog sounding stuff, and wanted to learn to build everything for my self.

I owned the MicroKorg for a while, but never really fell in love with it, it sounds OK, but it's a plastic thing, and the feel of the keyboard and buttons are not the best. Did not care too much for it so I sold it.

Here it is:


Close up of mine:


I have tried the Little Phatty a lot, and like it very much because it sounds good, but it's pretty basic and it's monophonic, so you don't get to play chords on there (without taking multiple takes of course)

You guys with the little phatty, do you find it limiting that the same knob controls the filter as well as resonance and you have to press a button to switch between the two functions? Just wondering. I wanted one really bad when I first saw them but once I realized that it made them less attractive.
Anyone?
Oh, and nice find on that Waldorf, DeckDaddy!
Thanks,
Tim

I believe there are three different modes you can select for the knobs on the Little phatty, it can skip to where the current parameter settings' at and the small led's indicates the settings. I have played with it for a while and did not find it hard or frustrating. It's worse with the microKorg which is jumping all over the place with not very visible settings. My waldorf has a dedicated "peek" button which allow me to peek setting without changing them when adjusting the multi-knobs, a handy feature.

tvent wrote:You guys with the little phatty, do you find it limiting that the same knob controls the filter as well as resonance and you have to press a button to switch between the two functions? Just wondering. I wanted one really bad when I first saw them but once I realized that it made them less attractive.
Anyone?
Oh, and nice find on that Waldorf, DeckDaddy!
Thanks,
Tim

There is a way to assign parameters in the same block to different knobs. So you could(with a bit of menu diving) assign your cutoff and resonance to separate knobs. That being said I never do. I might assign the mod wheel to the filter and then tweak the knob and the mod wheel for a similar effect. Amazing sounding synth though, can fit in in any track and a delight to plug some cans into and just wank for an hour.

tvent wrote:You guys with the little phatty, do you find it limiting that the same knob controls the filter as well as resonance and you have to press a button to switch between the two functions? Just wondering. I wanted one really bad when I first saw them but once I realized that it made them less attractive.
Anyone?
Oh, and nice find on that Waldorf, DeckDaddy!
Thanks,
Tim

The Little Phatty is one of most intuitive synths out here. To me it's easier to dial great patches on the Phatty than on the Voyager. Just hit a button and it changes the knobs function. I highly recommend investing in a Little Phatty. Get the Stage II though. The Arpeggiator makes this one of the most powerful synths on the market. You can sync the Moog LP Stage II Arpeggiator to the MPC's MIDI clock!!

bridgealantee wrote:Amazing sounding synth though, can fit in in any track and a delight to plug some cans into and just wank for an hour.

Hope you're not recording your wanking straight away

"Like most analogue synths, the LP's pitch takes time to settle after power-up, so you should allow at least 40 minutes between turning it on and performing your final pre-gig tune-up."

"When it comes to tuning, there's good news and not-so-good news. On the plus side, the LP's global tuning is basically stable and its oscillators don't drift — if you tune them precisely together, they stay that way. However, there's no internal tuning reference or read-out, which means that if you want to be sure the LP is at concert pitch, it must be tuned to an external tuning source. The absence of an A = 440Hz tuning tone makes life a bit complicated; if you're planning to use the instrument on stage, your options are either to tune the LP to another keyboard which you know is in tune (most digital workstations have a tuning read-out) or buy yourself a decent tuner."

from the SOS article http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov06/articles/phatty.htm

I'm ready to deal with that tho', I must have an analog Moog sometime.

deck daddy wrote:Well, I just got myself a Waldorf Micro Q keyboard, and I think it sounds super great!

Great find! I had the rack version but had to sell up when I went all software but I loved that synth!

ghostlywhitemachines wrote:

deck daddy wrote:Well, I just got myself a Waldorf Micro Q keyboard, and I think it sounds super great!

Great find! I had the rack version but had to sell up when I went all software but I loved that synth!

I am not trying to hate at all, but why would you sell previous equipment to go all software? Not meant condescending I am just wondering... so do you us an MPC?

objektivone wrote:

ghostlywhitemachines wrote:

deck daddy wrote:Well, I just got myself a Waldorf Micro Q keyboard, and I think it sounds super great!

Great find! I had the rack version but had to sell up when I went all software but I loved that synth!

I am not trying to hate at all, but why would you sell previous equipment to go all software? Not meant condescending I am just wondering... so do you us an MPC?

Have had a 2000XL and a 500 and various rack synths and samplers in the past but my "studio" is now restricted to my powerbook, keyboard controller and ableton live / logic since my old creative space is now a nursery. Could have held onto the hardware but needed the cash to buy my mac and logic! No regrets though. So no MPC here, but I can't keep away from this forum!

ghostlywhitemachines wrote:Have had a 2000XL and a 500 and various rack synths and samplers in the past but my "studio" is now restricted to my powerbook, keyboard controller and ableton live / logic since my old creative space is now a nursery. Could have held onto the hardware but needed the cash to buy my mac and logic! No regrets though. So no MPC here, but I can't keep away from this forum!

That makes a lot of sense. I hope I never have to give up my studio for a nursery... but I probably will. LOL.
Thanks I was just wondering, because I was confused why someone would do that unless they had space limitations.
I thought maybe there was something really cool I didn't know about.