Well, I have to say the meeting we had last Sunday was quite good. Where most meetings it ended up being Darren and I and someone else, we had 6 people attend, and it stretched out to 3 and a half hours long.
A lot was discussed. I would be hard pressed to put together minutes. However, here is the gist of it for people that want to know:
-Musical education
-mid 80's Korg synthesizers
-kaos pads and how much they do (or don't) suck
-loopers and live performance
-really massive effect racks
-a gig that 3/6 people attended or played in the night before
-feasibility of pursuing the idea of making the group into a 'society' (or even how cool it would be to have a seal)
-the future of the gathering, most importantly the idea of having a show and tell or a large scale jam
-paia synthesizers
There was a lot more, but I was without pen and paper, and was much more interested in participating than simply documenting it.
A side note, if anyone is a fan of the evolver synthesizers (I know I am), Dave Smith Instruments just announced a very new 8 voice all analogue version of the evolver called the Prophet 8. It looks beautiful, and I am sure it will sound amazing. The only three things that I did not like from the evolver was 1-too much digital stuff 2-no arpegiator 3-modulations are too sophisticated. It looks like 2 out of three of these issues has been rectified (this news is enough to cause my GAS to jump straight through the roof into bad-credit land).
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Hey hey from Victoria. I have seen a pic of the new prohet and it looks sweet! I have a mek, it has an arp and yes the modulations are complex. Been busy designing a modular I intend to build. Anyone going to the synth meet in Renton?
George
hey George.
that meet in Renton looks like fun & a great way to educate oneself on gear first hand, that u'd not get a chance to try out otherwise. but, unfortunately i'm without a passport & have no plans on getting a new one right now. good luck though, i hope u go & possibly take some pics to post here??? any chance u'll send us more info. in the future on the mod. u are building.... mines still in the planning/wondering stage but i'f collected some components for it & i'm pretty close to ordering some Blacet gack to start out with.
Jason... nice post, i was thinking of doing one myself for the same reasons u did!! that was a good meeting & i had much fun. on the sub-topic of 80's Korgs... last night i opened up my other P6 to have another look at that board for battery damage that previously i couldn't find & sure enough on closer inspection, i found some. this means that i wont use this one for parts & i'll be able to fix it also. therefore i'll soon have 2 reconditioned P6's... one for sale & one for my own use!!! yippy :-)!! as for the DSI news, i've been watching it all week & i'm definitely as excited as anyone else!!! i've wondered about the MEK & Poly for sometime now, but i don't need another monosynth & the Poly seems kinda pricey for 4 voices?? but this new one looks amazing & the price seems like it'll be right in line!!!
the one thing i've been wondering about though is this, won't this new Prophet make the Poly somewhat irrelevant/pointless?? therefore might they not be cutting into their own sales??
Darren
I wouldn't say so. Some people don't want the digital parts of the polyevolver, which is why they made an all analogue one. However, the digital parts (wavetables, high pass filters and the distortion/fm sections) are an important part of what makes the evolver an evolver. It is a great amalgamation of the technologies, however overkill for a lot of people. This new one has just as many oscillators as the poly, only spread across more voices and none of them digital. Ironic that it seems to cost less. Maybe they sacrificed in timbrality or something else...
Another thing I am stoked about is the fact that this is going to drive down the prices of the polyevolvers.
I doubt that they plan to supplant the polyevolver as their flagship with this. If that was what they wanted, they probably would have released it with more fanfare during messe or namm (and released teaser pictures last year like with the boomchick).
Yup. Its been confirmed more or less. Its not multitimbral, and only allows a keyboard split. I don't mind that personally. It seems kind of like a smaller polyevolver...
Have to say, the red and black looks sexy as hell. I am definately buying one of these as soon as I finish paying off my moog.
You guys might want to re-consider the trip to Renton, you only need picture ID to cross the border.
"The next Pacific Northwest Synthesizer Meeting:
(Is this the fourth year or the fifth year?)
September 29, 2007
10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Renton Technical College
Building C, Room 111
3000 NE 4th St
Renton, WA 98056
A new economical modular synthesizer may be announced and demonstrated.
The now happily married Jim Patchell may come up again from SB. (We gotta do some serious string pulling.)
Too bad we can't talk Cynthia into visiting the Pacific Northwet with modules.
Bulgarian Pizza will be served at Noon as usual. (Please contribute $$)
James hair will be the color of Carbon111 this year.
I will post additional information on my website soon. The old information gets you on the right track.
Please RSVP with requirements.
Take care,
John
www.sound-photo.com
www.antenna-farm.com"
I would be happy to share some of my modular musings with you all. perhaps in a new thread
George
Taxis.
how do u feel this'll drive down the prices of Poly Evolvers??
do u mean the new ones or the used market??
the whole thing seems kinda weird to me in that in this day & age digital stuff is usually cheaper & probably somewhat easier to make than analog?? we have an all analog Pro8 @ roughly $2000(??) US with it's 8 voices, compared to the Poly - digi/ana. with it's 4 voices @ roughly $2400 US??? this is not to say that the Poly is lacking or weak, after all it's one of a kind i suppose??
still, i'm definitely interested in this Pro8 as u are. so far the only negative comment i found to my liking was the position of the 2 wheels. i'd prefer them just to the left of the keyboard in the traditional position. this could also allow them to spread out the panel layout of the knobs etc. a little wider across the cp.
Darren
I don't know if this would be cheaper. Due to the cross feedback options, the amount of quality DA converters could be quite expensive. Seeing as the pro8 oscillators are DCO (like the evolvers), it could very well mean that the price of the digital components with the converters would be more than the price of the individual oscilators.
And what I mean with the price, is there will be a lot of DSI enthusiasts who will be willing to sell their evolvers at a loss just to have an all analogue one. This means cheaper used poly evolvers.
Taxis.... i hope u are spot on with your last para. i'm thinking: buy a brand new Pro8 sometime this fall, then after that, buy a decent used Poly Evolver someday down the road. at a greatly reduced price of course!!
anyone need a cheap Korg Poly800, Polysix, Roland rs-101 & a MXR analog delay pedal??? i need to start saving :-)
And as usual I missed another meeting..
are we going to keep the meetings on sundays? I think I'll try to save the whole second weekend instead of only one of the days.. :(
anyway, my two cents on the pricing.. something that you have not consider is the firmware.. the evolver has a lot of processing that the prophet doesn't... and this has to show up somehow on the prices.. anyone who has tried to implement some digital filtering or modulation in firmware for a stand-alone (ie. not pc based) instrument knows that it's not as easy as it seems... and there's also the customs ICs build to avoid extra circuitry... and wavetables are most of the times a proprietary feature... just look at korg's specific waveforms in earlier synths..
in all the analog version, even when it has a digital portion to control the oscillators should be cheaper, but don't expect some price drop in the order of the thousands ;)
RPM.
sorry u missed out. as for the sept. meeting, i'm not sure if it'll be the 2nd Sat. or Sun.???
we did it on Sun. 'cause a few people couldn't make it on the Sat., that's all.
so... hte next meeting will happen on which ever day is best for most people?? sort of a mob rules guideline i guess?
my suggestion would be to put your two cents in the week before & we'll take it from their.
d.
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