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Greatest and most affordable, all-around general 80's synth?


rlm297

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FWIW: 80's synths are dying. I see them all the time - somebody got a great deal (they thought) only to find out the batteries in the synth died and leaked acid all over the internal boards, the batteries in those ROM/RAM cards are suffering the same fate, even transistors and simple parts are becoming obsolete. Old synths are liabilities.



This is part of what keeps me from picking up a cheap old synth to use as backup (and another controller) in a casual band situation (I use an older macbook with softsynths). All of my own old synths had their problems, and that was long ago, so it would be a risk, exactly what I don't need in an emergency backup :D

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FWIW: 80's synths are dying.

 

 

oh i agree.. it seems a couple years ago all i was getting was lies and fixer uppers. considering that and my anti clutter sentiments i decided to go with a euro modular. i dont need the exact sound per se and i figure with the right modules and filters i can patch up almost any sound that would be close enough..

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FWIW: 80's synths are dying. I see them all the time - somebody got a great deal (they thought) only to find out the batteries in the synth died and leaked acid all over the internal boards, the batteries in those ROM/RAM cards are suffering the same fate, even transistors and simple parts are becoming obsolete. Old synths are liabilities.

 

 

As far as batteries are concerned : are replacements easily sourced ?

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DX7 is a good recommendation as a complete package. Very affordable as well.

 

Pros:

1. Extremely diverse sound palette

2. Capable of interesting transients

3. Sounds great without external effects

4. Can sound like the 1980's or 2050's - the person at the controls decides

5. Can do two (or more) layers of independent synthesis lines (like the CS80)

6. Great feeling, solid keyboard

7. Can be played expressively

8. Ultra fast/very slow envelopes

9. Can do very convincing emulations of accoustic instruments

 

Cons:

1. Requires some time to get used to the FM synthesis

2. Monotimbral

3. Takes time to programme one parametre at a time

4. Limited MIDI implementation

5. Only one LFO (you can get more LFOs through advanced FM tricks)

6. No filter (you can get many kinds of filtered sounds, see #5)

7. No internal effects (you can get reverb, chorus, phaser, distortion, fuzz, etc, see #5)

8. No backlit LCD display

9. Surprisingly heavy for its size.

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