So..I'm keen to get more hands on with my music and move out of the box and into hardware.

I've been looking at the Bass Station II or the Roland SH101, tbh right now the original SH-101 is out of my price range but i have seen the SH-01A but it seems very small so I'm more swayed towards the Bass Station II as a first hardware synth.

I'm keen to hear people's thoughts or recommendations, ideally what I get will need to also act as a midi controller which I am aware most if not all do. Size is also a constraint, it'll need not be any bigger than 1000mm x 36 mm which is the size of my keyboard pullout tray and also 100mm high. The tray can hold up to 40kg

 

ROLAND every time. Period.

SH-01A or JU-06A.

Roland SE02 would be favourite, but it's mono but sounds amazing.

Consider a Roland TR6S too, very powerful, cheap as chips.

 

Ultra-flat MIDI keyboard with a powerful synth engine: ESI XSynth

• dimensions: 387mm x 148mm x 27mm, weight: 634g

www.esi-audio.com/products/xsynth/

 

I have both Novation and Roland synths and if I had to choose again, I think it would either be a Novation *Nova for the synth engine or a Behringer DeepMind for hands-on control. Both work well for monophonic and polyphonic sounds. The DeepMind would fit in your tray perfectly if you remove its feet.

 

Novation MiniNova - 399 €
Maße (B x H x T): 560 x 75 x 250 mm
https://www.thomann.de/de/novation_mininova.htm

Behringer MS-1 MKII Grey = 249 €
Behringer DeepMind 12D = 490 €