In the long road to de-throning The Beast, which I probably should have done years ago when I lived in a studio apartment of which it was about 1/4th the size, I have pored and pored over choices for a replacement. Many years ago I purchased an Alesis Micron to be a travelling instrument, as it was tiny. Turns out it is tiny, but powerful -- it has the power of a full Ion and a few extras, just less knobs (I had assumed you’d get more of something practical out of it). I found this out as I was researching the Ion as potential replacement due to my appreciation of the timbres the Micron was capable of and wanting more -- turns out all you’d get is more knobs and slightly less functionality.
Of course, replacing a tiny keyboard with a larger, less functional version isn’t exactly moving forward so I ditched that idea immediately. However, it did tell me that I was definitely looking for a knobby, analog synth -- and not just an analog modelling synth like the Micron. It’s definitely got some kick to it, but you might as well go for the real deal. Oddly enough, if I had the money, I would totally buy a different Alesis keyboard -- they’re not really known for their synths, let alone analogs, but they produced one of the most bad-assed instruments of this century, the Andromeda A6. 16 voices of analog bliss and enough knobs to satisfy the perviest twiddler you could imagine. However, they are insanely expensive.
Then I thought about the Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ’08 (heir to the Sequential Circuits line of vintage Prophets). But that is also fairly expensive, though they can be had brand new still. So not right now. They are awesome though, tons of knobs and a sound that’ll make ya drool. 8 voices of polyphony
I thought about the DSI Tetra -- a tiny, 4 voice analog that’s basically half of a Prophet 08, minus the knobs so it’s harder to program unless you get a program to help access all those parameters. Enough knobs for twiddling around during a live performance, but… kinda expensive for such a small package and lack of keyboard/knobs. It would probably cost as much as a Prophet if it were fully sized though.
So I’ve settled on the Mopho keyboard edition. Basically a one voice Prophet 08, except it has per-voice sub-oscillators. Full complement of knobs for parameters (some accessible via shift button, but that keeps the cost down by multitasking knobs). If a Tetra were to be purchased in the future, I could polychain it for a 5 voice polyphonic synth (except it would lack sub-oscillators due to the Tetra not including them). This will keep costs down while giving me full access to knobs for tweakability. Except for the sub-oscillators, all programs transfer up to the Tetra and Prophet, so if they are purchased in the future…. It’s also a totally awesome screamin yellow. A perfect synthesizer for springtime!
If all goes according to plan, I should have it within a couple weeks. So hot!
Tags: alesis, andromeda a6, dave smith instruments, mopho, prophet 08, synthesizers, tetra