[sdiy] EMS SYNTHI 100

[Richard Wentk]

On 24 Feb 2009, at 20:37, David G. Dixon wrote:

>>> There's a reason people are still buying and building analog
>>> synthesizers,
>>> and I suspect that it has very little to do with how "powerful"
>>> they are
>>> relative to soft synths.
>>
>> For something like this, I suspect the real reasons are consumer
>> status-symbol posturing and nostalgia.
>
> Abhsolutely I agree, particularly about the nostalgia part.  I  
> think a big
> selling point of modulars is the fact that many of us drooled over  
> pictures
> of them when we were little but couldn't have them.  Now we can.

Or not. :)

But otherwise, yes indeed.

> However, having said that, I know that I have more fun twiddling  
> the knobs
> on my little Sound Lab Mini Synth than I ever had with any soft synth
> program (except Reason: that's some serious fun!).  It really has  
> to do with
> having physical knobs to twiddle (and assigning functions to  
> sliders on a
> MIDI keyboard controller is not the same!).

I'll agree I don't like assignable controllers. The lack of proper  
labelling is an issue. Almost, most of them are cheap plastic crap,  
which doesn't help.

Touch controllers are coming soon which will put all of that fun back.

The iPhone has some nice little apps which can be linked up to  
softsynths via OSC to create virtual control surfaces. I've run a  
mini 32-step sequencer from my iPhone, flipping between the slider  
pages and some virtual knobs for parameter control. Even though it's  
a tiny area, it's a lot of fun.

Once the technology gets bigger you'll have all of that touch control  
back, in something much less rigid than fixed knobs and sliders could  
offer.

Richard