Andromeda Alternatives?

[XorAxAx]

. . . . . . . I really miss my Andy. I hope the tech's schedule clears soon.

[Teoman]

In my opinion, the A6 is the closest thing to a be-all end-all analog. Now, I am NOT saying it may sound the best at all times, or that is capable of emulation of the older guys, but it seems to get in the ballpark of just about anything and of course the modulation is as extensive as you'd want to make it.

+1

I can even tolerate a few problematic voices for all other benefits if there is a good offer. It is the analog that you will never get bored.

[carbon111]

The PEK can sound very warm and "alive". Just because it has distortion and feedback parameters dosen't mean they have to be used in every patch

 

Here are some demos I did of the more "analog" side of the Polyevolver Keyboard:

 

http://www.carbon111.com/warmpad.mp3

 

http://www.carbon111.com/fmpad.mp3

 

http://www.carbon111.com/softlead.mp3

 

http://www.carbon111.com/rezpad.mp3

 

I actually find it warmer than the Andy but of course YMMV

[midi]

Believe it or not, I'm thinking of selling my Andy, its one of the original stable one's w the maroon lettering in perfect shape.

Anyone out there interested, pls PM me or directly at midi@cox.net

[Teoman]

The PEK can sound very warm and "alive". Just because it has distortion and feedback parameters dosen't mean they have to be used in every patch Here are some demos I did of the more "analog" side of the Polyevolver Keyboard: http://www.carbon111.com/warmpad.mp3 http://www.carbon111.com/fmpad.mp3 http://www.carbon111.com/softlead.mp3 http://www.carbon111.com/rezpad.mp3 I actually find it warmer than the Andy but of course YMMV

String patches are really warm among the spectrum. PWM tones are giving that warmth coupled with the analog filters I guess.

[cl516]

i can't agree with u guys, i still find the PEK a bit cold even after those patches - although these are probably the warmest i've heard.

now don't get me wrong, warm isn't always the most important.

i had the chance to pick up an MEK this week, and no matter how hard i tried, i just don't dig it. i guess why there are so many synths. i'm sure we can all make good tracks with one or another.

[The Real MC]

There will never be another synth like the Andromeda: a 16-voice real analogue, with a massive modulation matrix, highly sophisticated real-time envelope control, both extensive direct performative control of everything from LFO to oscs to pre-mix to dual filters to postmix, with 3 envelopes, and even "metarouting" with the croutes capability. Not to mention both arpeggiator and sequencer built in, along with real analogue distortion, and reasonable if lower-quality effects. Plus extensive outputs, per voice as well as CV and filter inputs. Just amazing. Plus: it sounds incredible. And the price for all that is ridiculously low. The nearest thing, with a fraction of the functionality, a Sunsyn Code4 (only 4-voice), is going for $3600. This is $1000 less. Unless it's a total hardship, spending the money on an Andromeda is totally worth it. Just make sure you get a good one; there've apparently been some problems lately. Latest news re: next availability is in April. Novamusik is a good source.

 

 

What is rare about the Andromeda is that the team that conceived and built it are analog synth freaks who were determined to put out a monster synth. It was really a labor of love and it shows in its feature set and sound. Sadly few of the original A6 development team remain at Alesis.

[clusterchord]

i like rezpad mp3, cem filter sounds nice there. reminds me a bit of late versions of cem u can find on likes of esq-1 or microwave1, but w slightly peaky resonance.

 

 

but overall everything is pretty cold n dry. especially the "warmpad".

 

the inherent DCO-ish nature of pek osc and whatever imprint the additional ad/da and digi processing leave on headroom n "bigness" of its sound, its always there on the output - i hear it in every single pek sound i've ever heard. not that that's a bad thing in itself, but warm it ain't. no offence.

 

as cl put it, warmth is not everything, i'm thinking when working with pek one should forget its vintage genes, and do new sounds, hybrid sounds that it does best.

[mate_stubb]

If you are going to consider an Xpander, you should consider the Chroma. It rarely gets any love, because of power supply problems and lack of knobbage.

 

But they can be made very reliable, and I can fly around the interface on mine pretty well. A Chroma has to also be included in that category of "almost modular" polysynths. You can even repatch the voice to place the VCFs in various different paths.

[Teoman]

the inherent DCO-ish nature of pek osc and whatever imprint the additional ad/da and digi processing leave on headroom n "bigness" of its sound, its always there on the output - i hear it in every single pek sound i've ever heard. not that that's a bad thing in itself, but warm it ain't. no offence. as cl put it, warmth is not everything, i'm thinking when working with pek one should forget its vintage genes, and do new sounds, hybrid sounds that it does best.

Actually, it doesn't drift like an Andy, but I don't think osc.s sound dead either. Pitch modulation by LFO or noise is always there. Effects and dstortion is really harsh, but once switched off it sounds good. As far as the vintage genes go, ''at least for me'' it does the job. It is not as lush and unpredictable as the P-5, but still has some resemblance. I say resemblance, because analog oscillators are not CEMs. From time to time, I compare similar patches between P5 and PER, it is definitely analog but with VA smoothness. Warmth, organicness, etc are a bit subjective but I'm sure if you demo its strings by person, you may think a bit different. Anyway, personel tastes differ of course.

[NYCCane]

im gonna get flamed for this but for my taste, the PEK is one of my least favorite sounding synths of the past 10 years.....in fact, it's sound turns me off immediately, no matter the patch.

[realtrance]

You know, not to end this conversation, or with the expectation that it would do so, but after playing many different kinds of synths, over many years, and after having heard almost a lifetime's worth of electronic music, from the '50's onward, I am convinced of one thing:

You can get marvelous sounds, of any sort, from ANY synth. Truly, the debate ultimately all seems quite arbitrary to me, if you know your stuff.

The only difference is how much work you really need to put in to get what you think sounds great on a synth. There are plenty of one-finger instamatic joy-machines out there, whose "sound" is primarily due to the programming, not any particular quirk of the architecture or jpegs of the square waves looking just like a Minimoog's.

If you pay attention over time, you keep seeing synths that were ridiculed at their release -- the JP-8000, the Ensoniq Fizmo, the Roland SH-32, the Korg Karma, etc. etc. etc. -- getting commented on years later as having this "really distinctive sound" and being "better than I thought" and all the rest of the crap. This proves the arbitrariness of these debates to me more than all the rest.

There's a certain level at which people wanting to justify the expense of buying this or that instrument HAVE to -- whether from a seller's or buyer's standpoint -- make exaggerated claims, to get attention, and gather interest. But really, and I'm saying this with a completely straight face: a better synthesist will get a better sound out of an AN1x than a worse synthesist out of a classic Moog Modular. And even more importantly, a better synthesist will get a great sound out of either, if they've spent any time familiarizing themselves with the instrument.

People diss the A6 because its architecture isn't instamatic, and its original patches, masterful as they are, don't sound JUST like Stevie Wonder's bass-lines on Innervision. Well guffaw. Or they marvel at the Jomox because they hear an mp3 of a patch they like, like wow. Or they krap out on a Karma 'cause they notice a nicely captured riff in one of the combis is a total cliche, well surprise, and all the patches have the bass EQ turned up to +6, well surprise, that's better than dedicating an extra 256MB of RAM to the price of the thing just so's it can store the original long bass waves in their original form, which, if you know anything about sampled waveforms, guess what, isn't necessary and doesn't matter.

Ok rant over, it's always fun to have the debate anyways, I enjoy it as much as the next guy.

[NYCCane]

You know, not to end this conversation, or with the expectation that it would do so, but after playing many different kinds of synths, over many years, and after having heard almost a lifetime's worth of electronic music, from the '50's onward, I am convinced of one thing: You can get marvelous sounds, of any sort, from ANY synth. Truly, the debate ultimately all seems quite arbitrary to me, if you know your stuff. The only difference is how much work you really need to put in to get what you think sounds great on a synth. There are plenty of one-finger instamatic joy-machines out there, whose "sound" is primarily due to the programming, not any particular quirk of the architecture or jpegs of the square waves looking just like a Minimoog's. If you pay attention over time, you keep seeing synths that were ridiculed at their release -- the JP-8000, the Ensoniq Fizmo, the Roland SH-32, the Korg Karma, etc. etc. etc. -- getting commented on years later as having this "really distinctive sound" and being "better than I thought" and all the rest of the crap. This proves the arbitrariness of these debates to me more than all the rest. There's a certain level at which people wanting to justify the expense of buying this or that instrument HAVE to -- whether from a seller's or buyer's standpoint -- make exaggerated claims, to get attention, and gather interest. But really, and I'm saying this with a completely straight face: a better synthesist will get a better sound out of an AN1x than a worse synthesist out of a classic Moog Modular. And even more importantly, a better synthesist will get a great sound out of either, if they've spent any time familiarizing themselves with the instrument. People diss the A6 because its architecture isn't instamatic, and its original patches, masterful as they are, don't sound JUST like Stevie Wonder's bass-lines on Innervision. Well guffaw. Or they marvel at the Jomox because they hear an mp3 of a patch they like, like wow. Or they krap out on a Karma 'cause they notice a nicely captured riff in one of the combis is a total cliche, well surprise, and all the patches have the bass EQ turned up to +6, well surprise, that's better than dedicating an extra 256MB of RAM to the price of the thing just so's it can store the original long bass waves in their original form, which, if you know anything about sampled waveforms, guess what, isn't necessary and doesn't matter. Ok rant over, it's always fun to have the debate anyways, I enjoy it as much as the next guy.

i understand the argument of a good programmer sounds better on a bad synth than a bad programmer on a moog modular etc.....however that is irrelevent....since we as individuals are using these synths, and that same person would be programming those synths, then logic tells us that the better synth will sound better from the same programmer......yes if you know what u are doing on an AN1x you can get a great p-funk moog sound.....but if u know what you are doing on a minimoog, you won't get a great p-funk sound, but THE p-funk sound.....and it will {censored} on the AN1x.....nothing comes close, not even my beloved SE-1 can touch the mini....so the point is that not all synths are made equal.....you just need to mix and match to find the right combo for the sounds you want....so if you like minimoog sounds and want the best possible sound, GET A MINI.....if you want the best detuned saws for trance, get a JP-8000 or Virus TI....etc etc. Synths are used for different things, but no synth is used for everything.

[John B NYC]

i'd like to add, discussing who has the unfortunately i have no demo for xpander/m12 pad.. unless marino or John NYC come thru.. ? princess Leia: "Help Me , Obie Matrix 12... your my only hope..."

 

 

Id love to, but i just moved and I dont have much of anything hooked up, or much room for anything, as for the orginal demo I accidently deleted the whole folder on my site =

[carbon111]

but overall everything is pretty cold n dry. especially the "warmpad".

Well, see, thats sort of the problem. Warm is one of those words like "fat"...what does it mean? To me it means a bit of harmonic distortion and some intermodulation.

These kinds of discussions end up like discussions of religion or politics. With people shouting across a river of semantics

I personally find the Andromeda rather "icy" and "distant" though those aren't perjorative terms in my book. I've played on a friend's Andy a bit but it just dosen't grab me like the PEK does. Its by no means a bad synth at all, in fact I like it quite a bit but in a very different way than the PEK.

Another synth that people have brought up is the Sunsyn...I think its extremely "warm", but it sounds nothing like the Andy or PEK to me...

[MarkShovel2]

I picked up both an OB-Xa and OB-8 page 2/midi this past year.

Unfortunately, I passed on a mint used A6 for $1700. The ribbon controller was totaly awesome.

I am sceptical if an A6 will still be functional in 20 years. I've got Roland gear that is from around 1980 that still kicks ass.

Mark

[ElectricPuppy]

Then you're lucky (or I'm unlucky): 3 of the 4 Roland pieces I have are malfunctioning in some manner: The Juno 106 has bad voice chips, the SDE-2500 delay occassionally trashes the signal, and the S760 has a bad LCD (second one, even). It seriously makes me think twice about buying Roland again.

[realtrance]

See NYCCane if you have to use that kind of language to try to make a point about a difference in the sound between two instruments... you've already lost whatever argument you've tried to make.

Not to mention the fact that you're making that statement about a minimoog bass sound vs. an AN1x bass sound entirely out of the context of in what kind of music, in what kind of situation (live performance? recording? mixed how? with which instruments? on what kind of music?), not to mention what kind of player.

I just don't buy it, not for one minute. I've got original Parliament Funkadelic LPs, which I can play on high-end audio equipment, and hear exactly what's recorded there. I also remember, distantly, the P-funk live concerts I went to, what, thirty years ago, almost. Do you?

We tend to glorify the past, particularly if we haven't been part of it, because that's an easier thing to do than wrestling with the realities of the present.

I'd dare to suggest that the realities of the present are that a lil' ol recent $500 plastic Roland SH-201 will outdo everything a minimoog can offer, and then some, in the right hands, for example. And be easier to use in both a recorded mix and live onstage. You could have someone fronting in a band with a wooden mockup of a mini and someone under them, hidden, playing that lil' ol' SH-201, and guess what, the audience would go home raving about "how wonderful the Minimoog sound is, how impossible it is to replicate."