I love my An1X. But recently I have been having lustful thoughts
about the new Voyager and the synthesizers.com modulars.
Why? Well, I find all the VA's (including the beloved AN) to sound
quite plastic sometimes. I kinda like that sound, but I would also
like to have more breathing and interaction. I have done a bunch of
tricks with free eg and mod routings to make my sound more expansive,
but even with my best efforts, there is a feeling of smallness and
compactness sometimes.
Secondly, I am getting just a bit tired of midi and it's 128 steps. I
can hear the difference between using a low rez (ribbon, mod wheel)
and a high rez (pitch wheel) controller on the same parameter. This
is true on a number of parameters, not just filter cut-off. Even LFO
modulation of pitch sounds smoother to me on a free running analog
oscillator.
I'll stay with the AN for now. But I am tempted to look for an
analog, or a digital with smoothing functions, at some point. I hope
Yammie come up with a "son of AN", because I love the basic
architecture. It does do a lot of semi-modular sounds without getting
too complex. I would like them to open up the architecture just a tad.
Oh well,
Jerry
> Now, I'll grant you that the Serge probably sounds better than the
Yamaha -- maybe even twice as good, although I doubt it -- but I
could buy a band-new AN1x (at the 1998 street price of around
$1200US), a Nord Lead 2, and a Virus KB, and still have change back
from my $6K. And I guarantee that the Serge won't sound better than
those three put together!
>
> Oh, well -- I guess I'm not really a Rado/Bruno Magli/Bentley kind
of guy, anyway ... ;^)