u/mccalli

So, I went to see the The Musical Box, covering 1976-1980. Obviously that's prime Tony Banks territory, so as a synth fan I was watching carefully. Excellent group, very good show, drumming, guitarists and singer great...but we're in /r/synthesizers so it's the synth bit I want to make the observations on.

They leaned heavily on the ARP Quadra, Prophet 5, I think an ARP 2600 and one other small (and old) Yamaha I couldn't identify. A piano too. But it's not the kit that struck me - watching it live, it was the playing style.

No effects. All dry, nothing like the normal reverb/delay-drenched stuff that's common today. Apart from the Mellotron obviously, mostly played monophonically. Vast majority played legato with noticeable portamento transitions between the notes. Even with the Prophet it was more fluty-type sounds than what I would associate as being the Prophet's signature sounds (slightly clavichord-sounding poly). Most poly-type usage was background usage, such as chords from the Mellotron. Whenever the synth had to shine on its own it was 90% pure monophonic.

No mod wheel usage. Very little (I want to say none but can't be 100% sure) pitch bend usage. Played more like an organ than a synth soloist.

Just an interesting data point, because I feel that's all quite different to how a contemporary synth soloist would write. Obviously they were emulating Banks' style and given his organ training this kind of makes sense to me. It was really interesting to watch live though.

I absolutely love the Juno-X. Very hands on and easy to work with. But…I’m considering the Fantom for a couple of reasons and interested to read opinions.

First, the step LFOs look like a very interesting playing tool to me, an addition to the pure arps. Second, ACB vs Zencore - I’m not a detractor of Zencore by any means but there’s no denying that ACB can get a bit more oomph.

The workstation features too, although since I also have an MPC I’m not sure which ultimately would end up as my main arranger there.

Question I have though is how hands on actually is to for sound design? The Juno has a lot more physical controls, obviously those controls are geared to Juno engines. Let’s say I started from an Init patch on the ACB 106 - how easy is it to tweak the sounds from the physical controls without much menu diving or touch-screen? Let’s take a simple example - init, add sub, filter a little down, add delay, add a pitch LFO for a vibrato style effect with a delayed start.

That level of patch editing - how much would be hands on vs screen usage?

And last - while the ACB models would be something I can’t have access to right now, the JP-800 is the same Zencore one that the Juno-X can access too, right?

My main usage would be live-style play, jams, that kind of thing. So I’m interested in its live tweak ability vs the Juno.

Thanks.

Considering a fairly large switch in my kit, and a 61 key MPC might be the centre of it if it exists. The 61 key seemed to end production early and not be available for a while - do we think that's a dead line now, or is there speculation of a G2 61 on its way?

The new 37 looks fine, but I'd prefer a bigger integrated keyboard if I could get one (I'm aware I could just plug in a midi controller, as I'm doing now with a One+).

Friend of mine recently converted - he's saying he's seeing some Wayland freezes and the graphical crash. It's an older Ryzen 9 running a 2080, using bazzite-nvidia.

I use the open Nvidia version and have had excellent stability - was wondering if rebasing between the two for comparison might cause issues.

Is there an adapter that can take audio and midi, convert it to USB and send it in Aria Link format? Something with a DAC and either a 5 pin DIN or USB MIDI of its own?

Alternatively, is there a an adapter that takes class compliant stuff over USB and turns it into Aria Link-compatible signals?

Context: As is tradition, I've run out of inputs on my mixer. It's an MX-1, so has four Aira Link ports. One is currently unused, I was wondering if I could get an adapter to get my non-Aria gear connected to it.