demagogue on 21/8/2021 at 02:35
I was just looking at that. Looks pretty cool for what it is. I already liked the Prophet 5, and I was imagining this'd be fun if you wanted to sit on a sofa and put it in your lap to do some sound design & play around with it. Like a Minilogue except it's a Prophet.
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I guess in my synthing news, my workstation keyboard (Yamaha MOX8) is giving out, so I've been researching what I should replace it with. It should have a lot of already-good-sounding presets, the piano voices alone have to be good, 88 weighted keys, would love aftertouch if possible, good to bring anywhere and perform with & also record with, good number of controls, sliders would be great, not too heavy, not too expensive, not really for sound design & hard core modulation (I have other things for that and anyway want to get a Summit for that eventually) but I'd be ecstatic if it had that potential also... It's actually a pretty narrow range of keyboards that'd work.
So I started with looking at the successors to the MOX8, which has been good to me, which is the MODX (Montage series-lite), then looking at what other models people consider in its same market, and ... long story short, after a lot of research, I think I'm going with the Kurzweil PC4, which checks all of those boxes and then some. I'd never played with a Kurzweil before. It's never been on my radar. But all of the demos and comparison videos really sell it.
Jason Moyer on 21/8/2021 at 03:03
Seems like a good choice, feature-wise. No idea how modern Kurzweil stuff stands up now sound-wise, in the 90's they had the best pianos by far but I think almost anything by Yamaha/Korg/Roland/Casio/Clavia has good acoustic/electric/synth piano sounds nowadays. I've always been curious about VAST synthesis but have never had any hands-on with it, and the clonewheel/FM stuff in the PC4 seems nice. 2 gigs of user sample space seems good too. I'd say go for it.
demagogue on 21/8/2021 at 11:10
Yeah, consensus opinion seems to be the piano is top notch, the other patches are variable but don't stand out (especially compared to Yamaha's) ... but there's more modulation you can do up front to them, and they can sound better, and you're using the modulation itself as part of the instrument, which makes up for it for people that use it like that, which is one thing I always felt was missing from my MOX8. Like it made it ridiculously hard and fiddly to just dynamically toy with a filter cutoff and res, which is like synth 101 stuff.
Funny story. I had to get a new power supply for my MOX8 today so I went to literally Yamaha instrument's international HQ in Ginza (which I correctly guessed out of any place anywhere was bound to have the power supply off the shelf I could take home). While I was there I wanted to at least test the MODX8 out to see how it felt, played, and sounded. So I went to the 3rd floor, the floor that's supposed to be entirely dedicated to pianos & keyboards, but aside from the pianos they had like 5 shit-tier keyboards.
So I asked at their counter if they had a MODX around, and they said they didn't know it and asked what that was. And I was like, it's like your best selling keyboard. You're the keyboard dept., how do you not know it? (It's the same name in Japanese & English, so I don't think that was the issue.) Then I was like, it's like a mini-Montage, and then she asked me what a Montage was. I swear.
Anyway, they just had those 4 or 5 crap keyboards in any event, so no testing today. Pianos were legit, although they were all really dark sounding. I asked her to show me the one with the brightest sound, and it sounded like it was under a thick blanket. I don't know where I'm going with this story anymore. Just a weird day at Yamaha HQ.
faetal on 25/8/2021 at 13:07
[video=youtube_share;1t1Sh0BX8-U]https://youtu.be/1t1Sh0BX8-U[/video]
That Take 5 does indeed sound rather tasty.
Suspect this will end up being to live music polys what the Moog Sub / Subsequent 37 is to live music monos.
Jason Moyer on 25/8/2021 at 14:10
I wish the thing had come out like 5 years ago. Non-remake, great core sound (it uses a new SSI vco chip and the SSI chip used in the rev1/2 filter on the P5rev4), more than enough modulation, basic onboard effects that can presumably be modulated as part of the synth engine, insanely affordable price point, a great UX, etc. And it's compact. I highly suspect the Prophet 6 is going to be discontinued soon because I don't see how it can share a market with this and the new P5.
Thankfully I'm "loaning" all of my Behringer stuff other than the VP-330 clone to a kid at work who doesn't have any keyboards so I'll have some room for it. Will look good on a 2-tier stand under my Pro 3 SE.
Jason Moyer on 27/8/2021 at 00:46
[video=youtube;FZ-sVujDlS8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ-sVujDlS8[/video]
Aja on 27/8/2021 at 20:25
I was at a music store for an unrelated reason, and I tried a bunch of the synths they had displayed. The Matriarch sounded good but was confusing -- I still don't know what paraphony is. Novation Summit had a nice form factor but maybe almost too many controls; none of the presets really grabbed me, but I'm sure it can get really deep. Digitakt was also confusing but I kinda liked it. I wouldn't mind getting one on loan for a few months to figure out of the workflow is workable. I liked the clicky switches, too. Yamaha Reface CP sounded very good but isn't really doing itself any favours with the tiny keyboard (some great players can totally make it work, though). Finally I tried a Prophet 5, and although I didn't love everything about it (no octave switches; chromatic tuning?) it was far and away the most inspiring. If the Take 5 can get that sound, it'd be very tempting. I actually like that it has a screen; that makes any added features a lot more understandable, and I do like naming my presets. And while I've always been a defender of minikeys, I think I'm ready for a full-size keyboard.
faetal on 28/8/2021 at 09:49
This Mark Doty rant might clear things about paraphony:
(
https://youtu.be/ZeuOlqjxPuA)
TLDR: Most people's understanding of polyphony is that when you hit a key, its amplification and filter follows the envelope assigned, and if you hit subsequent keys while another key is being played, they will also go through the envelope cycle. With paraphony, the first key triggers the envelope and any subsequent key played at the same time, will join the amplifier and filter at whichever stage of the envelope it was already at. So you can play different notes, but it doesn't have the same articulation as what most would call true polyphonic.
Aja on 29/8/2021 at 02:26
Ha I’ve actually watched that rant before. I couldn’t remember what he said. Makes sense, though. I find the concept isn’t especially desirable, though. I’d rather have a Grandmother.