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Time for an upgrade. Suggestions welcomed.


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I have been contemplating upgrading my setup for the last 6 months now and finally have a couple grand put aside for this purpose. My question is simple, what should I spend my money on to give me any added flexibility or a whole new sound experience. Replacing parts of my rig would also give me more than the 2k so any recommendations and reasoning would be greatly appreciated. My current rig is as follows, and no I am not married to any of it as most of the sounds can be sampled and saved if absolutely necessary.

 

Yamaha Motif XF6

Kurzweil K2500X

Ensoniq SD1

Alesis Quadrasynth

Alesis Micron

Access Virus T12

Korg Wavestation A/D

Yamaha A4000

Akai S3000XL

Roland JV2080

 

I've been wondering whether to go for a Waldorf, maybe a Q, or a Novation SuperNova and get rid of the Quadrasynth and the Kurzweil? What are my options?

 

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Not really looking to expand or downsize, more replace some existing equipment with something either newer that changes my sonic landscape or older but better quality or an upgrade. I'm just a jammer although have dabbled over the years with live work but it became too difficult to boil everything down into a couple of pieces of gear for space reasons. I have a system running cubase which I want to keep, so its more wanting to be able to plug something else into the setup than have to rebuild it.

 

Perhaps it is an expansion, but not a very big one, certainly I don't intend to downsize what I currently have. I have saved to have the money, just need to spend it wisely so looking for suggestions that I might not have thought of.

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I think that the Virus covers a lot of ground that the Waldorf and/or the Supernova cover. You might want to consider a Kronos. Even an older 61 or 88 can be had for less than $2k and upgraded for the most part to current specs. I think that would compliment your XF6 and give you nine engines that hook up to your PC/Mac nicely. You also may want to consider a VA of some sort to round things out. Just my opinion. YMMV.

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I had thought of going for a VA synth. I looked at the Sledge because it has the Waldorf engine and it has the knobs that would make it a much more hands-on piece to replace my Quadrasynth. Do you think it would be worth looking into? I have also gone through the DSI synths as I had always wanted another SCI after I got rid of my Pro-One and Six-Track years ago. I hadn't looked at the Kronos because I always thought they were too big and too expensive even though I could theoretically replace half my setup with one :)

 

Thanks for your advice.

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I bought a SCI Pro-One when they first came out, and also had a Six-Track a few years later. I never could afford a Prophet-5. That part of me does indeed lust after several of DSI's instruments, but I also have most of that covered in software too. The observation about the Kronos replacing half your setup is an accurate one. I've had mine for about 4 years now and still have only scratched the surface on what it is capable of. So far, anything I have needed to either create or recreate has been right in front of me. I started off with a Kronos 61 and two years later found someone with a 88 that wanted to swap. I love the RH3 action, but sometimes wish I still had the 61 note version. It was one of the best synth actions I ever played. I do keep an M3-73 above it so that if I want the non-weighted keys I have that option. The action on the M3 is great too.

 

Back to your situation, the Sledge might be a good option. I've never played one so can't help you much there. I still feel your Virus covers those type of sounds enough that you already have that covered. You've got the Roland sounds covered with the JV2080, the Micron is a powerful little VA with a bit of a klutzy interface (I had one for a bit). You've got the Yamaha sound set covered with the XF6. The Kurzweil would be hard to replace, but how deeply invested are you in VAST? If you are in deep, nothing is going to replace that. If not and you're using it mostly as a preset machine, then you'd have most everything else covered nicely with the Kronos (including the Wavestation). You mentioned that you were looking to bring more of your equipment up to current standards. With the Kronos, you could essentially replace the SD1, the Wavestation, the Kurzweil (again, unless you're heavily into VAST programming), the Quadrasynth, and your samplers (unless there are nostalgic reasons for keeping them). I also had a SD1 for several years. That thing was amazing (at that time) and programming as well as sequencing was so easy. I loved it, but again, the sounds are getting kind of old compared to newer stuff. Again, these are my opinions. Your mileage my vary. Good luck!

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So thanks for your recommendation. I am going to look at the Kronos 61. Been going through all the demos on YouTube and it certainly does look impressive. I figured that replacing the Quadrasynth and Micron were probably top of my list and bringing in a Kronos to run my Virus instead of the Alesis would work well. It would also free up a space on my stand to put a Nord G2 or something, which was another I had looked at. Things are becoming clearer.

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So thanks for all the comments and recommendations. Thought I would give an update on stage 1. Sold the Micron and the SD1 and bought a DSI Mopho X4. Next step is to replace the Quadrasynth with a better master controller. Decided I liked the Kurzweil too much to part with it.

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