I have been planning on purchasing a main poly synthesizer for a few months and been looking at all the new hardware that is to come out this year, and some older releases moog muse, arturia polybrute 12, UDO Super gemini, OBx8, and lastly prophet 10, I've really had my eye on the polybrute 12 ... all of the features look absolutely amazing the raw oscillators seem alittle underwhelming compared to the others I've listed.. but my biggest concern if I did decide to go with arturia is the software... I use alot of V.R releases which means I'd have to install the software manager for the polybrute, which the V.R releases you can't have the software manager installed. Does anyone use the older arturias stuff polybrute, matrixbrute, filterfreak? In conjunction with V.R or any other teams releases? And if you were picking out of the list for your main poly synthesizer. Which would you choose .. you can only pick one and why.

 

You are so all over the map with what you are looking at. You go from a $5000 Moog to a $600 Arturia. You should figure out about how much you really want to spend.

You will end up with a 8 page thread and no closer to buying anything.

 

if you already have soft synth plugins, then why exactly are you looking for hardware poly synth? maybe you want a (not so simple) MIDI controller instead?

 

Personally, what I would do is actually call my Sales Engineer at Sweetwater. The way you have asked this here, will result in nothing but a bunch of people telling you to buy something they already have to self-justify something they are using.

At least a sales person will give you an objective opinion. And they test nearly everything they keep in stock when they are a new model.

 

600 dollars? Try $4,000

 

Because I enjoy hardware and I want to expand the studio.. I figured this would be a more useful discussion then .. where is R2R for the 4,0000 thread

 

Since there is no Arturia Filterfreak I could find I went with one price from Google. But I do not need to try anything. I'm not the one here asking for help spending money. Of course, I would spend 4K on replacing whatever monitors and audio interface you are using. Room treatment. More important stuff.

Now we need accuracy in fantasy land?

 

Got bèarfoot and kali audio monitors and I built my room from the ground up. With treatment.. so I'm at the hardware poly synth stage in my life.. I'm starting to think nobody here uses hardware.. just wait for R2R to drop free stuff then complain because it doesn't sound like the real thing lol.. sorry was trying to make a funny there

 

I've got the 6 voice Polybrute and enjoy it to no end. It's a joy to play and the modulation routing is pretty sweet. I do hear what your saying about the oscillators, though the filters help to beef them up a bit. What puts the new iteration over the top is the new keybed called FullTouch. I'm tempted to get the12 and sell the 6 but I can't afford it right now.

I'm sure you've seen this, but for other's benefit...

 

The 16 voice Rev2 is $100 cheaper than the 6 voice Polybrute. Does that make sense @Lois Lane? I mean about the pricing, not about you upgrading.

 

Last edited: May 17, 2024

One of the reasons that I have the Polybrute is the infrastructure of the instrument and was willing to sacrifice the number of voices for the able and deeper ability of the Mod Matrix combined with the performance touch abilities of the three dimensional Morphe and touch strip for in the moment modulation decisions. When I began thinking about bringing in an analogue synthesizer about three years ago the 8 voice desktop Rev2 was my favorite to play at the music store ("No thanks, I don't need to use your (shitty) headphones thank you, I brought my own"). I was also checking out the Hydrosynth but just never liked it, and when I had the chance and funds I jumped at the Arturia and never looked back.

 

This is good info.. do you feel like it's just too much..like you spend more time creating patches then playing or did you find a good balance with that? Because out of all that I mentioned I'd say the arturia has the most features and depth as far as modulation wouldn't ya say?

 

alright, got ya, sorry if I sounded offensive, didn't mean to,

then I assume you're asking 2 separate things:
1) hardware synth recommendation
2) simultaneous functionality of legit + V.R stuff

2) I would avoid buying "same" hardware synth you can already have in software version, means, I would avoid such problem completely
1) I'd look for something modern and versatile, there's so much stuff to pick from, and sooner or later you'll buy more anyway, ideas:
https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-most-exciting-new-hardware-synths-of-2024

ps: if you want really unique creative sounds, you'll inevitably jump into layering and combining various sounds/synths together

 

Well, Polybrute surely isn't my bread and butter synth, I've got Diva, Zebra, LegendHZ, and even Vital, Surge and Pigments to one degree or other for that kind of thing. Although I have spent a good amount of time just playing the Polybrute especially in the first few months to use in my funny little tunes, where I find myself mostly these days is as more a performance tool to continuously morph into strange misshapened contortions. I'll create a patch with many routings to manipulate them later on. The A/B morphing is an incredible thing, finding sweet spots in between to eventually recycle into their own patches which is a neat parameter and brilliant on Arturia's part. I usually trash the presets that I make to not do the same thing twice if I can help it.

This is one if those morphing pieces that I did with the Polybrute and Moog DFAM (bought prior to their sale) both running on their own clocks.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ye2g...hes.flac?rlkey=tz0doaxa7mntzmbqss70ezpi6&dl=0

 

Salespeople even at Sweetwater have agendas... like what their boss tells them to push due to stocking issues, supplier needs and certain financial incentives.

Really.

 

All salespeople can, of course. Especially if they are working on commission. But I've never had that had that happen and I am on my fourth or fifth one. Spam emails about sales promotions, definitely. But if you call them, they will usually just look up a bunch of stuff for you like specs, comparable models, and if they cannot answer the more detailed questions they will transfer you to tech support. About the same level of assistance as we can now get from ChatGPT. Maybe if you call them up with no clue what you want anyway. They do not hire just random people. They aren't Perfect Circuit or Detroit Modular, but they are pretty close.

 

Last edited: May 17, 2024