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Re: inexpensive synth

mark francombe schrieb:
> Oh I dont know.. It looks pretty cool to me...  all the things you 
> have mention Rainer are my FAVE synths.. but this thing looks like it 
> could do it all.. and did you see???  its cheap.. the Virus is still a 
> pretty pricy synth...
I have to admit, I don't have any experience with or knowledge of 
details of the Virus. The only thing I know is that a) a lot of people 
used/use them, b) according to ebay, a Virus A can be had for below $499.
> I think what you missed is that they have sampled shit loads of synths 
> AND given it a really modern filter section with bit reductions and 
> distortions and stuff..
Yes, I missed that, both in the product description and in the manual. 
Both are not very precise about this...like for the oscillators:
"You get 41 oscillator waves and 53 drum sounds sampled from the most 
awesome vintage keyboards of the past four decades"
Ok, that's hardly "shit loads"...then, in the manual, it talks about 
oscillator waves in "tables" - can it do wavetables? We don't know.

I'd hardly see the filter section as impressive, and the same is true 
for the effects.
> The only think I HATE HATE HATE the look of is those silly 4 knobs... 
> how insanely irritating... with a synth like that you gonna need at 
> least 10! Or else, whats the point??? Its nice to see a synth with 
> modern sounds IN HARDWARE though...
It depends on what you do with it. The Korg Prophecy has 4 knobs, too, 
and it works fine. And the mighty Oberheim XPander had 6, and what fun 
you can have with those! The problem here seems that it's lacking a 
proper modulation matrix.
> Still no hardware granulation synth AFAIK..
How many grains do you need? The Kurzweils can do a fairly fun job, if 
used properly...

Summarizing: I need to note again that I, too, didn't hear that synth so 
this is all just talk based on the specs and manual. However, what I 
fail to see is why this synth would exactly be a very good bang for the 
buck - and I'm wondering what the target market is. For a synth freak, 
any of my suggestions would be better value for your money, imo. And for 
a beginner that needs a cheap first synth, I'd rather go with an E-mu 
short/longboard (but this may also have to do with the fact that back in 
its day, I was deeply fond of E-mu's Proteus).

          Rainer

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