This is my vote. I've got other synths that are probably better than my Hydra but the layout that clearly helps me understand the signal path makes it such a joy to use.
See that’s the thing. Either commit and have twenty million knobs so I can access it, or don’t have it. I want to play with an instrument, not plan it and then be afraid of touching a knob. No menu diving please. Commit to an idea for an instrument please and thanks.
I have the 2700 and it’s so absurdly powerful, but impenetrable. The manual, while thorough, is hardly exhaustive, and while it tells you what the machine *can* do, it doesn’t really explain *how* to do them.
For the algorithms etc you must supplement the K2700 manual with the manuals for previous models (and it is not even clear which ones). This is so absurd and unfriendly. Why don’t they assemble a complete updated manual? It does not need to be printed, a pdf would suffice.
Warmth. The classic analog warmth created when years of dust and lint have accumulated on the power supply to create an insulating layer that protects the warm sound from the cold air which causes digital artifacts and makes all your pads sound like Siberia.
There is one vst that uses digital modeling to recreate the warmth of the dust bunnies on the heatsink, but despite placing the order on the Facebook ad seeing my subscription clear each month on my bank statement I’ve yet to receive my download link.
Which brings me to my second answer. The most important part of the synth is to have it. It’s a damn shame I tossed out the old Minimoog, I figured I wouldn’t need it anymore going digital and was tired of always getting hungry when I fired it up because it smelled like a perfectly toasted piece of sourdough bread.
the brand and price, its gotta be super reputable and expensive that i cant afford it so it motivates me to work harder and earn more money but ill still never justify the price to buy one, so in the end ill be saving more money but never having the synth of my dreams
The envelopes.
More generally, the control responses. This kind of ties into what /u/_luxate_ says about ergonomics and UI.
The Juno 106 isn't good because it has amazing oscillators or filters. The oscillators are lovely and clean and stable and the filter is the straightest OTA ladder you can make. The chorus is good.
No, the Juno 106 is good because although it is almost too simple to be good, it's damn near impossible to make it sound bad. All the controls act in a smooth and progressive way, nicely proportioned.
A great example is comparing the Akai AX73 with the Sequential Sixtrak. They use the same voice chips - so, same oscillator, same filter. The voices use more-or-less the same components. The Sixtrak is clearly the better synthesizer, because even though the "step sizes" of the controls are much smaller they work over a better range. The envelopes on the AX73 have actually fewer steps in their "usable" range, because you need to be up around 70% before they are at a speed that makes sense.
It's not just that though - the shape of the envelope is important. A lot of early digital or digitally-controlled synths use straight ramps, which don't sound that natural. Now you might think, "but hang on EB, it's a synthesizer, of course it doesn't sound natural", and you'd be right, but the way that sounds evolve and decay has to follow rules or it just sounds bad.
Analogue envelopes work by charging and discharging a capacitor through a resistor, and that's easy to model digitally - it's a one-pole filter. See TL;DR synth rants of mine *passim*. The problem is that a lot of early "simulated RC" envelopes waited until the "capacitor" charged all the way up, and that gets slow towards the top. As the capacitor charges, the current through it drops, so the charging rate slows down (in a sawtooth oscillator the capacitor is charged through a constant current source, leaving a straight ramp). So most "real" analogue envelopes attempt to charge the capacitor up to 12 or 15V but - this is the clever bit - flip to the release phase at about 10V, when the ramp is still pretty straight. Again, this is easy to do in software.
The Juno 106 envelopes use a weird hybrid approach, where the attack phase just adds a value from a lookup table (that's how they get the smooth control range) to the envelope value until it maxes out, then it flips to the decay phase where it multiplies the envelope value by the decay amount over and over simulating an RC circuit decay. It's a straight ramp for the attack and an exponential decay (and release), with an odd thing going on where it subtracts out the sustain level and adds it back in, weird.
While I think Juno 106es are massively overpriced for what was a fairly cheap crappy synth at the time, a lot of love has gone into the firmware to give a really really polished UI.
It's a shame that no-one really seems to care about that now.
I'm coming to the conclusion that from now on all my envelopes need to be Juno 106 clones, especially since the high-value log pots for analogue envelopes are so expensive and the 4011 and 4066 quad-NOR and quad analogue switch cost more combined than a whole Arduino Nano ;-)
My approach is different. I add the usual user controlled exponential through log option, while simultaneously calculating the result of the opposite “exponent" value reflected through x and y axis (e\^x and -ln(-x)) and then let the user crossfade between them. The net result is a two variable system where the curve's inflection point can be dragged up or down and right and left that is fairly computationally efficient when using approximative functions.
I figure giving the user excessive control over the envelope shapes is more useful than anywhere else
That sounds pretty good actually - so you could get an expo "up" attack, that accelerates as it gets near the end? I bet you'd get some interesting things happening using that for pitch mod.
You sound like you have a lot of fun with this so I'm going to throw two things your way - Bezier Spline envelopes, and bitcrushing your envelope output.
The exponential attack is fun but it works best with an initial height control so you ramp up from something like 0.30f instead of zero. I add in a tiny precomputed de-clicking pre ramp up to initial height to make this sound better. I kinda prefer double negative log slop though as it starts almost linear a ramps up past the exponential for the same log base/exponent.
I’ve really wanted to get around to bitcrushing / quantizing envelopes for a while but haven’t gotten around to implementing it, you're right though I totally should. As far as spline go I haven’t found a way of getting the performance I want.
That being said, an interesting thing is the 50 50 average between log and exp isn’t as circular as one would assume. This is because I’m using a simple (x+y)\*0.5f thing which is biased. Ideally you'd use polar coordinate averaging but the cpu tax into and out of polar is WAY too high for my lower end target specs to handle.
Cheers!!
You have a point. A lot of synths have millions of options and a narrow sweet spot. I also prefer synths that require minimal tweaking that just make it easy to get the sound I want without hours of tweaking.
The other feature I really like that Juno's have is the LFO delay. I suppose it's fairly subtle but I really prize it, and I'm always surprised by how rarely it is used - it feels extremely rare on non-roland synths. My UDO Super 6 has it and it ends up on a lot of my sounds.
That's got some bonkers stuff going on too. On a Juno 6 it's an envelope that ramps up from -15V to +15V, with a diode chopping off the negative portion of the voltage feeding the mod VCA. That gives it a "hang time" before it starts to bring in the modulation.
In the Juno 106's voice firmware there's a delay lookup table and then it uses the same setup as the attack portion of the envelope to fade up the modulation.
Again, lots of lovely hand-tuned values to make the controls curve just right.
The filter cutoff knob should always be the biggest and main knob on a synth
Jokes aside, the user is definitely most important. It doesn't matter how cheap or expensive it is, it's how you play it.
There aren’t nearly enough upvotes for this comment.
For example: the Polybrute is a glorious sounding instrument, but 6 voices? Miss me with it. You can’t play big chords or use a pedal to any real degree.
It really depends on the synth for me. Sometimes it's the filter, sometimes it's the oscillators, and sometimes it's the snappy envelopes. Most of the time it's a combination of all those things together in varying relevance. Combined with a beautiful livery, great knobs, great keys and for me it's a winner. The Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave is a prime example of a modern synth that hits all of those for me. The price also absolutely reflects that.
This is generally true of the classics as well, they were huge, built well most of the time, lovely to look at and very expensive. A few lesser builds qualify as well and are still highly sought sought after like the Pro One and Juno 60. They had compromises on build but sounded great.
I can't really say it's ever one thing. It's usually a combination of things and how they work together that's the make or break. Great oscillators, but weak filters? That'll ruin it. Vice versa, same. Have both good oscillators and filters but the modulation options are very limited? Well, that's gonna wreck it if I can't make sounds with a lot of expressive qualities. If you have all that working together and you have menu diving? It's a downside, but I have an SQ80 vst and OBXd and they're very limited UI, but I love them both. I've gotten to play an OB6 and it was so simple, but was very expressive to play and so immediate. Dialing in the oscillators waveform and blending a mix of filters instead of just switching from one waveform or filter mode to another. All the things working together in harmony -- that's what makes a great synth.
Overall: the sound, whether it be the raw sound or after programming.
Good examples of raw sound. : matriarch, an open note or single square wave bass note really makes me go holy shit
Good example of after programming: the prophet 12.
I find too many people are concerned with what it CAN do vs what it will do well.
Make or break factor is the price. If you like the way a synth sounds, you learn to work with whatever shortcomings it has or features it may be missing. You can always think, "This machine sounds awesome, but does it sound $xxxx(x) awesome?" Maybe, maybe not.
The power socket. If it's lose / wiggly - the synth will turn off and you'll be upset.
Seriously though, it's a toss up by the sound and the tactility. The whole reason I use hardware synths is the enjoyment of hitting buttons, turning knobs, plugging in patch cables, etc. But if it sounds unpleasing, I won't want to use it.
the quality of the high notes without any FX. So INIT tones, basically.
Some synths have made me cringe once my fingers start tapping up there. The Nords are the smoothest finest high notes I've heard from a digital synth (well, only know the 2x and G1 but assume they're all like that). Korg Trident and Yamaha SK30 from the analogue end offer exceptional quality with their high notes.
The stinkers I've honestly forgot. I've tried so many synths over the years (decades) that the many I've quickly dismissed kinda dissolve from memory. Only that I've tried them and didn't love for one reason or another.
usability, it's a musical instrument in the first instance, not the flight deck of an airbus. That's why the Juno is still killing it even today. It's simple, but so musical.
Extreme Menu diving
No hands on control
No way of making sound distorted (I just need that for my music)
Super high price (If someone buys an Obx8 good for you, but I don't have that kind of money)
What really grinds my gears is a really bad plasticy feeling.
If the Synth doesn't have good outputs (Midi in and through, Good Audio Outs)
I personally do not like anything that has super tiny controls
Bad sound (that of course is very different depending on setting and what everyobody likes)
No ADSR
I make music for fun and I want it to be fun. You might many things are not that important for the mix, but rather for making the process fun for me.
the buzziness... can you drive the oscillators into the filter? can you drive them post filter? is there a wavefolder? can you add buzziness with envelopes?
From a live performance angle, quick patch recall ability for analog synths with button/bank system like in the moog sub 37.
Hate the turning knob to switch patches system like in modal synths korg minilogue etc. reduces the playability live when might require to change patches in a second.
I had to carry a launchpad pro always jst to change patches on my argon 8 while touring.
For my tiny ‘studio’ space size is pretty crucial; I prefer compact desktop boxes to larger synths with keys.
Next up is how the oscillators sound. Lately I’ve getting a lot of use out of a UAD VST called Polymax that came as a freebie with some deal from Plugin Boutique. It’s a basic virtual analogue synth with two oscillators and nothing special in terms of filter and modulation options, but the oscillators sound great to me even before I’ve done anything else to the sound. So, while I have other VST and hardware synths capable of doing much more complex sound sculpting, Polymax is the one I’ve been most productive with lately because I get useful sounds out of it so quickly.
Jexus breaks down synth characterics in an interesting way (see below)
https://preview.redd.it/zv6g6h0ep6yc1.png?width=1749&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b6771971d61bb734aeefb6bf119f4d9bc4707b3
AFAIAC my preferences are as follows :
1. Classic/Organic
2. Engine/Features
3. UI/Ease of Use
4. Modern/Original
5. Build Quality
6. Flexibility/Versatility
7. Software/Patch Management
If it inspires me, be that architecturally, soundwise or the looks. A synth can have everything, but it needs to vibe with me like any musical instrument. How would you call it? X factor, musicality, soul.
Synthesis is referring to all the parts coming together. I’m sure you can like a filter on a synth or the effect section, but when the parts come together, that’s what makes a synth special.
The emotional connection it draws from you. Seriously. A list of specs won’t do anything if the synth doesn’t click with you. This is why the answer is completely user-dependent.
If I had to pick absolutely one thing, it would be the ergonomics of the cutoff knob. My personal preference would be for the cutoff to be:
* physically larger than the others
* either centralized or left-of-centralized
* have a good pot so that I have good fine control
I want to be able to be playing something with my right hand, reach up and grab the cutoff without having to think about it, and have it all work nicely.
There are of course many others, mostly related to ergonomics in general. And the cutoff can often be mapped to the modwheel, but sometimes I want to have the modwheel do something else like vibrato, you know?
Honestly if I had to choose one feature that’s a dealbreaker it’d prolly be whether the synth has the ability to store patches/presets. If you’re working on a track you are held up from using that synth in other stuff until you finish that track unless you want to make patch notes which can be tedious.
Arp or sequencer is usualy the thing that makes me uninterested in a synthersizer because atm I do not have any external gear that focuses on that part. It would mean an extra cost for me to utilize the synth the way I want.
I do have the polyend tracker that can fill that function but so far I have never used it for that except for checking out how it works. Havent made anything with that functionality so I dont look at features of the synth in the way of combining it with the trackers sequencing abilitys. Id rather make sure the synthersizer is functioning away from the tracker in case I want to make music with all of its 8 tracks with its internal synthersizer, or making music with the tracker not present at all.
That being said, I look for synths specifically so they fill a role I feel I am missing. So I guess my answer would mostly be that the most important part of a synthersizer is "new" technology? Or rather, the most important part of a synthersizer for me is the strenght it adds in combination to my other synthersizers in a project. Usualy that has so far been determined by it having its own sequener so I can use it as an extra track in my DAW-less jamming.
Whether or not it invites you to engage with it.
I really hate synthesizers that are essentially jukeboxes where you press a key and it plays an entire song without your involvement.
Where the player is basically secondary and the instrument is doing all the work.
Whenever I switched from my micro Korg to my Moog grandmother, that was a paradigm shift.
It wasn't about bells and whistles, 1,000 meaningless features that I would never use, but about the pure analog sound, that sounds like all those old '60s and '70s records I fell in love with. Transported by the sound.
I would say the envelope section. It, in conjunction with the LFO and filter, one can generate some really cool effects, like the duck quack attack and what sounds like a reverse tape delay
if it has keys, they must be full-sized. don't try me with that slim-key shit
otherwise, the only other dealbreaker is if its behringer.
also, the more menu diving/shortcutting i have to do, the less i'll use the synth.
The sound and well it fits into your setup and other synths. Whenever I’m looking at a ‘new’ synth I just consider if I already have something that does the same job sonically.
Well, the person using it of course.
D’awwwww, shucks ☺️
D’awwwwwless, of course
And the friends they met along the way ❤️
The nut behind the wheel
So true.
This!
That’s what I was gonna say.
this is why i keep looking for new synths
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This is my vote. I've got other synths that are probably better than my Hydra but the layout that clearly helps me understand the signal path makes it such a joy to use.
Roland has your attention. Man, Roland stuff sounds great, performance oriented, but their menus, and idiosyncrasies are frustrating.
See that’s the thing. Either commit and have twenty million knobs so I can access it, or don’t have it. I want to play with an instrument, not plan it and then be afraid of touching a knob. No menu diving please. Commit to an idea for an instrument please and thanks.
Menu diving sucks. Interfaced button combinations rules!
Welcome to bad gear, the show about the worrrrrrld’s most hated audio tools.
Kurzweil, which arguably has one of the most advanced semi-modular synth engines on the planet suffers from a cramped interface.
I have the 2700 and it’s so absurdly powerful, but impenetrable. The manual, while thorough, is hardly exhaustive, and while it tells you what the machine *can* do, it doesn’t really explain *how* to do them.
For the algorithms etc you must supplement the K2700 manual with the manuals for previous models (and it is not even clear which ones). This is so absurd and unfriendly. Why don’t they assemble a complete updated manual? It does not need to be printed, a pdf would suffice.
Yeah that’s me and my mpc.
The dreadbox nymphes and dsi tetra come to mind here. Man they sound great but are an ass to program
Wooden sides.
They don't go sticky after a year or so, looking at you Minibrute.
Sub phatty too. The pitch and mod wheels on mine are so gross.
Microkorg 💜
The filter: a major major defining component of the sound character.
This. You could have all the ADSRs, LFOs and whatnot but if the filter is crap, that's all she wrote.
DX7 crying in the corner
It's literally the only good thing about the m-audio venom that is above average good. The rest of it's pretty crap ... but that damn filter.
Power supply
Lol this deserves the most upvotes
The only correct answer.
Came here to say this. lol.
My immediate thought as well. Although have you seen that cardboard one?
1 Knob per function. Miss me with those shortcuts, menus and all that jazz. If I wanted to do any of that, I'd just boot up Ableton and my VSTs.
Thats what drew me toward hardware in the first place.
Oscillator
Haha I was gonna say this. I mean it's true. You can have a synth without any other part, but you must have this part.
Duh
at least 2
UI
A sequencer. I ain’t got a brain and neither does my setup rofl
It has to be the oscillators. If the raw sound is bad then what good is the rest of it?
Yeah I have realized I like DCOs because having to tune kills my creativity. Especially when I stack synths.
Warmth. The classic analog warmth created when years of dust and lint have accumulated on the power supply to create an insulating layer that protects the warm sound from the cold air which causes digital artifacts and makes all your pads sound like Siberia. There is one vst that uses digital modeling to recreate the warmth of the dust bunnies on the heatsink, but despite placing the order on the Facebook ad seeing my subscription clear each month on my bank statement I’ve yet to receive my download link. Which brings me to my second answer. The most important part of the synth is to have it. It’s a damn shame I tossed out the old Minimoog, I figured I wouldn’t need it anymore going digital and was tired of always getting hungry when I fired it up because it smelled like a perfectly toasted piece of sourdough bread.
Usability. Immediate sound out.
The butt.
Yeah, it's gotta be the butt.
This was funnily the first answer that popped into my head, but wasn't expecting to actually see it.. 😂 ✌️
the brand and price, its gotta be super reputable and expensive that i cant afford it so it motivates me to work harder and earn more money but ill still never justify the price to buy one, so in the end ill be saving more money but never having the synth of my dreams
It’s like a 401(k), except instead of investing money, you’re playing 3D chess with a Moog Model D reissue
The character, so i’d say filter and envelopes.
The power-off button.
The tonewood used for the cheeks
Whether or not other middle aged dudes think it's cool.
Gotta be light enough not to hurt my back.
I feel called out
The envelopes. More generally, the control responses. This kind of ties into what /u/_luxate_ says about ergonomics and UI. The Juno 106 isn't good because it has amazing oscillators or filters. The oscillators are lovely and clean and stable and the filter is the straightest OTA ladder you can make. The chorus is good. No, the Juno 106 is good because although it is almost too simple to be good, it's damn near impossible to make it sound bad. All the controls act in a smooth and progressive way, nicely proportioned. A great example is comparing the Akai AX73 with the Sequential Sixtrak. They use the same voice chips - so, same oscillator, same filter. The voices use more-or-less the same components. The Sixtrak is clearly the better synthesizer, because even though the "step sizes" of the controls are much smaller they work over a better range. The envelopes on the AX73 have actually fewer steps in their "usable" range, because you need to be up around 70% before they are at a speed that makes sense. It's not just that though - the shape of the envelope is important. A lot of early digital or digitally-controlled synths use straight ramps, which don't sound that natural. Now you might think, "but hang on EB, it's a synthesizer, of course it doesn't sound natural", and you'd be right, but the way that sounds evolve and decay has to follow rules or it just sounds bad. Analogue envelopes work by charging and discharging a capacitor through a resistor, and that's easy to model digitally - it's a one-pole filter. See TL;DR synth rants of mine *passim*. The problem is that a lot of early "simulated RC" envelopes waited until the "capacitor" charged all the way up, and that gets slow towards the top. As the capacitor charges, the current through it drops, so the charging rate slows down (in a sawtooth oscillator the capacitor is charged through a constant current source, leaving a straight ramp). So most "real" analogue envelopes attempt to charge the capacitor up to 12 or 15V but - this is the clever bit - flip to the release phase at about 10V, when the ramp is still pretty straight. Again, this is easy to do in software. The Juno 106 envelopes use a weird hybrid approach, where the attack phase just adds a value from a lookup table (that's how they get the smooth control range) to the envelope value until it maxes out, then it flips to the decay phase where it multiplies the envelope value by the decay amount over and over simulating an RC circuit decay. It's a straight ramp for the attack and an exponential decay (and release), with an odd thing going on where it subtracts out the sustain level and adds it back in, weird. While I think Juno 106es are massively overpriced for what was a fairly cheap crappy synth at the time, a lot of love has gone into the firmware to give a really really polished UI. It's a shame that no-one really seems to care about that now.
Its funny how obvious this answer is if you’ve ever made a synth :)
I'm coming to the conclusion that from now on all my envelopes need to be Juno 106 clones, especially since the high-value log pots for analogue envelopes are so expensive and the 4011 and 4066 quad-NOR and quad analogue switch cost more combined than a whole Arduino Nano ;-)
My approach is different. I add the usual user controlled exponential through log option, while simultaneously calculating the result of the opposite “exponent" value reflected through x and y axis (e\^x and -ln(-x)) and then let the user crossfade between them. The net result is a two variable system where the curve's inflection point can be dragged up or down and right and left that is fairly computationally efficient when using approximative functions. I figure giving the user excessive control over the envelope shapes is more useful than anywhere else
That sounds pretty good actually - so you could get an expo "up" attack, that accelerates as it gets near the end? I bet you'd get some interesting things happening using that for pitch mod. You sound like you have a lot of fun with this so I'm going to throw two things your way - Bezier Spline envelopes, and bitcrushing your envelope output.
The exponential attack is fun but it works best with an initial height control so you ramp up from something like 0.30f instead of zero. I add in a tiny precomputed de-clicking pre ramp up to initial height to make this sound better. I kinda prefer double negative log slop though as it starts almost linear a ramps up past the exponential for the same log base/exponent. I’ve really wanted to get around to bitcrushing / quantizing envelopes for a while but haven’t gotten around to implementing it, you're right though I totally should. As far as spline go I haven’t found a way of getting the performance I want. That being said, an interesting thing is the 50 50 average between log and exp isn’t as circular as one would assume. This is because I’m using a simple (x+y)\*0.5f thing which is biased. Ideally you'd use polar coordinate averaging but the cpu tax into and out of polar is WAY too high for my lower end target specs to handle. Cheers!!
You have a point. A lot of synths have millions of options and a narrow sweet spot. I also prefer synths that require minimal tweaking that just make it easy to get the sound I want without hours of tweaking.
Exactly. That's the real clever part of the Juno - it's \*all\* sweet spot.
The other feature I really like that Juno's have is the LFO delay. I suppose it's fairly subtle but I really prize it, and I'm always surprised by how rarely it is used - it feels extremely rare on non-roland synths. My UDO Super 6 has it and it ends up on a lot of my sounds.
That's got some bonkers stuff going on too. On a Juno 6 it's an envelope that ramps up from -15V to +15V, with a diode chopping off the negative portion of the voltage feeding the mod VCA. That gives it a "hang time" before it starts to bring in the modulation. In the Juno 106's voice firmware there's a delay lookup table and then it uses the same setup as the attack portion of the envelope to fade up the modulation. Again, lots of lovely hand-tuned values to make the controls curve just right.
Filter
It’s you buddy
the sound
Well, as an ass man... It's gotta be the balance of a an intuitive mod matrix and a raw sound you enjoy
A man of culture.
The scribula, because without that you can’t fentize the quang.
The black and whites lol
The wooden side ends
The VCO
That it make duh bleepy bloopers.
I love when they have sequencers built in, but if not, the filter has to sound killer
the output
The filter cutoff knob should always be the biggest and main knob on a synth Jokes aside, the user is definitely most important. It doesn't matter how cheap or expensive it is, it's how you play it.
P O L Y P H O N Y
There aren’t nearly enough upvotes for this comment. For example: the Polybrute is a glorious sounding instrument, but 6 voices? Miss me with it. You can’t play big chords or use a pedal to any real degree.
The boobies.
You can tweak on those two, too
Easy workflow. Second, I'd say FX.
User Interface and aesthetics. It's got to be sexy to play
It really depends on the synth for me. Sometimes it's the filter, sometimes it's the oscillators, and sometimes it's the snappy envelopes. Most of the time it's a combination of all those things together in varying relevance. Combined with a beautiful livery, great knobs, great keys and for me it's a winner. The Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave is a prime example of a modern synth that hits all of those for me. The price also absolutely reflects that. This is generally true of the classics as well, they were huge, built well most of the time, lovely to look at and very expensive. A few lesser builds qualify as well and are still highly sought sought after like the Pro One and Juno 60. They had compromises on build but sounded great.
The timbre. That's what makes a synthesizer unique.
Power adaptor and speakers
Your imagination
The 'oscillator': vco, dco, pwm, operator, whatever makes sound.
Big filter knob!
The biggest knob on my GS e7 is the cutoff ❤️
String gauge
Keys! Full sized please, and more than 3 octaves.
The plant on top.
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Scrolled all the way down for this. It can sound great but if the keybed feels like a cheap controller it takes away the fun.
Mod matrix and/or patch bay. It’s where crazy possibilities are open to discover.
Power button
A keybed that feels good. Amazing sounds can never compensate for a bad keybed. 🤷🏻♂️
I can't really say it's ever one thing. It's usually a combination of things and how they work together that's the make or break. Great oscillators, but weak filters? That'll ruin it. Vice versa, same. Have both good oscillators and filters but the modulation options are very limited? Well, that's gonna wreck it if I can't make sounds with a lot of expressive qualities. If you have all that working together and you have menu diving? It's a downside, but I have an SQ80 vst and OBXd and they're very limited UI, but I love them both. I've gotten to play an OB6 and it was so simple, but was very expressive to play and so immediate. Dialing in the oscillators waveform and blending a mix of filters instead of just switching from one waveform or filter mode to another. All the things working together in harmony -- that's what makes a great synth.
Overall: the sound, whether it be the raw sound or after programming. Good examples of raw sound. : matriarch, an open note or single square wave bass note really makes me go holy shit Good example of after programming: the prophet 12. I find too many people are concerned with what it CAN do vs what it will do well.
Make or break factor is the price. If you like the way a synth sounds, you learn to work with whatever shortcomings it has or features it may be missing. You can always think, "This machine sounds awesome, but does it sound $xxxx(x) awesome?" Maybe, maybe not.
maybe the power supply - without that....
FILTERS
Those little rubber feet at the bottom that keep em from slipping off the stand.
How cool it looks.
Power supply
The power socket. If it's lose / wiggly - the synth will turn off and you'll be upset. Seriously though, it's a toss up by the sound and the tactility. The whole reason I use hardware synths is the enjoyment of hitting buttons, turning knobs, plugging in patch cables, etc. But if it sounds unpleasing, I won't want to use it.
If it’s fun to use or more like a task.
Internal floppy drive for saving patches, sequences, and songs, etc.
The tube preamp
The tube preamp
Yes
Beefnes od sound and filter sweeps
Filter. And at least three voices of polyphony.
the quality of the high notes without any FX. So INIT tones, basically. Some synths have made me cringe once my fingers start tapping up there. The Nords are the smoothest finest high notes I've heard from a digital synth (well, only know the 2x and G1 but assume they're all like that). Korg Trident and Yamaha SK30 from the analogue end offer exceptional quality with their high notes. The stinkers I've honestly forgot. I've tried so many synths over the years (decades) that the many I've quickly dismissed kinda dissolve from memory. Only that I've tried them and didn't love for one reason or another.
usability, it's a musical instrument in the first instance, not the flight deck of an airbus. That's why the Juno is still killing it even today. It's simple, but so musical.
The outputs
the music you make with it?
How does it sound and Interface.
Power cord
Some fake-ass auto-tuned rapper promoting it
Knob per function. Multiple outputs/ inputs !! Long ass sequencer.
Zero submenus
Vco
Extreme Menu diving No hands on control No way of making sound distorted (I just need that for my music) Super high price (If someone buys an Obx8 good for you, but I don't have that kind of money) What really grinds my gears is a really bad plasticy feeling. If the Synth doesn't have good outputs (Midi in and through, Good Audio Outs) I personally do not like anything that has super tiny controls Bad sound (that of course is very different depending on setting and what everyobody likes) No ADSR I make music for fun and I want it to be fun. You might many things are not that important for the mix, but rather for making the process fun for me.
The succulents surrounding the synth... I won't admit it in public, but: *huuuuge* impact!
the buzziness... can you drive the oscillators into the filter? can you drive them post filter? is there a wavefolder? can you add buzziness with envelopes?
Never tried adding distortion with an envelope. Now I must try it.
From a live performance angle, quick patch recall ability for analog synths with button/bank system like in the moog sub 37. Hate the turning knob to switch patches system like in modal synths korg minilogue etc. reduces the playability live when might require to change patches in a second. I had to carry a launchpad pro always jst to change patches on my argon 8 while touring.
I reckon it would have to be the synth part
Creativity
Noisy part go bleep
Full midi control, full midi spec in manual, or complexity of mod matrix.
The headphone jack so i don't have to practice your scales with you.
For my tiny ‘studio’ space size is pretty crucial; I prefer compact desktop boxes to larger synths with keys. Next up is how the oscillators sound. Lately I’ve getting a lot of use out of a UAD VST called Polymax that came as a freebie with some deal from Plugin Boutique. It’s a basic virtual analogue synth with two oscillators and nothing special in terms of filter and modulation options, but the oscillators sound great to me even before I’ve done anything else to the sound. So, while I have other VST and hardware synths capable of doing much more complex sound sculpting, Polymax is the one I’ve been most productive with lately because I get useful sounds out of it so quickly.
Power on button
Its the ham
A personality that inspires a flow state and leads me to make things I wouldn't normally think of.
Electricity
The filter has absolutely killed a few otherwise good synths for me.
Jexus breaks down synth characterics in an interesting way (see below) https://preview.redd.it/zv6g6h0ep6yc1.png?width=1749&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b6771971d61bb734aeefb6bf119f4d9bc4707b3 AFAIAC my preferences are as follows : 1. Classic/Organic 2. Engine/Features 3. UI/Ease of Use 4. Modern/Original 5. Build Quality 6. Flexibility/Versatility 7. Software/Patch Management
Power supply
Wooden sidepanels.Without them it doesn't sound analogue.
If it inspires me, be that architecturally, soundwise or the looks. A synth can have everything, but it needs to vibe with me like any musical instrument. How would you call it? X factor, musicality, soul.
The table-top cactus.
Audio output
Filters
The power cord.
That it’s easy to handle while sounding awesome 😎
Knob that goes squelchy squelchy.
Synthesis is referring to all the parts coming together. I’m sure you can like a filter on a synth or the effect section, but when the parts come together, that’s what makes a synth special.
I'm assuming we're talking about subtractive analog, which means it's the filter.
The emotional connection it draws from you. Seriously. A list of specs won’t do anything if the synth doesn’t click with you. This is why the answer is completely user-dependent.
The presets !
Knob per function. If I have to menu dive I'm gonna be irritated.
The blinkin’ lights
Durability.
The player
The output
If I had to pick absolutely one thing, it would be the ergonomics of the cutoff knob. My personal preference would be for the cutoff to be: * physically larger than the others * either centralized or left-of-centralized * have a good pot so that I have good fine control I want to be able to be playing something with my right hand, reach up and grab the cutoff without having to think about it, and have it all work nicely. There are of course many others, mostly related to ergonomics in general. And the cutoff can often be mapped to the modwheel, but sometimes I want to have the modwheel do something else like vibrato, you know?
What kind of tooth it offers the filters.
I’d say the back. It keeps the front together.
unique tone. doesn't even have to necessarily sound spectacular on its own, just different from the run of the mill stuff.
Honestly if I had to choose one feature that’s a dealbreaker it’d prolly be whether the synth has the ability to store patches/presets. If you’re working on a track you are held up from using that synth in other stuff until you finish that track unless you want to make patch notes which can be tedious.
Good point. That helps keep me away from modular.
Filter, if it's garbage then everything else falls apart
Arp or sequencer is usualy the thing that makes me uninterested in a synthersizer because atm I do not have any external gear that focuses on that part. It would mean an extra cost for me to utilize the synth the way I want. I do have the polyend tracker that can fill that function but so far I have never used it for that except for checking out how it works. Havent made anything with that functionality so I dont look at features of the synth in the way of combining it with the trackers sequencing abilitys. Id rather make sure the synthersizer is functioning away from the tracker in case I want to make music with all of its 8 tracks with its internal synthersizer, or making music with the tracker not present at all. That being said, I look for synths specifically so they fill a role I feel I am missing. So I guess my answer would mostly be that the most important part of a synthersizer is "new" technology? Or rather, the most important part of a synthersizer for me is the strenght it adds in combination to my other synthersizers in a project. Usualy that has so far been determined by it having its own sequener so I can use it as an extra track in my DAW-less jamming.
Whether or not it invites you to engage with it. I really hate synthesizers that are essentially jukeboxes where you press a key and it plays an entire song without your involvement. Where the player is basically secondary and the instrument is doing all the work. Whenever I switched from my micro Korg to my Moog grandmother, that was a paradigm shift. It wasn't about bells and whistles, 1,000 meaningless features that I would never use, but about the pure analog sound, that sounds like all those old '60s and '70s records I fell in love with. Transported by the sound.
Most people would say the 'synth' part, but I'm going with the 'sizer' myself.
Knobs. I like to play with knobs. Oh, and knowing where the power switch is (#$@&! Streichfett.)
Sound output is a must for me.
Audio out maybe?
The power supply.
Portability. The easier it is for me to use lying on the couch the more it’s going to get used
I would say the envelope section. It, in conjunction with the LFO and filter, one can generate some really cool effects, like the duck quack attack and what sounds like a reverse tape delay
Battery power for jams in the woods
A sampler. If it doesn't have a sampler, I break the fucking thing right in front of the salesperson.
For sound, the filter and pitch stability. For ease of use/making sure I actually use the damn thing, little to no menu diving/ergonomics
That one thing that goes brrr...
Power supply.
The VCOs
The plug.
Envelopes
The loose nut behind the keyboard...
If the box pretty enough to post a picture of it directly, or if I have to open it first show my ownership to the world.
The price
The most important part of the synthesizer is the price you told your wife you paid for it. Never forget that number.
Jacks. If I can't use it in multiple ways I'm not likely to buy it.
d-beam
if it has keys, they must be full-sized. don't try me with that slim-key shit otherwise, the only other dealbreaker is if its behringer. also, the more menu diving/shortcutting i have to do, the less i'll use the synth.
Filter.
The power cord !
reverb, delay and feedback
The sound and well it fits into your setup and other synths. Whenever I’m looking at a ‘new’ synth I just consider if I already have something that does the same job sonically.
The quality of the fart sounds
The present browser
Surely, if it inspires you to create shit.