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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!unc!bmh
From: bmh@unc.UUCP (Brad Hemminger)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth
Subject: buying your first synthesizer.
Message-ID: <528@unc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 00:30:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.528
Posted: Tue Jul  2 00:30:17 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 06:34:08 EDT
Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lines: 31


  I spent a few hours yesterday at a local computer music shop.  I was
looking around to see what's available for 1 or 2K.  My interests are
in a synthesizer that I can easily program from an IBM PC (via MIDI).  
Good sound and extra's like a velocity sensitive keyboards are nice but 
not necessary.  Being essentially a layman with respect to synthesizer's,
I would like to here some people's opinions on what's the best you can
do for under 2K (including MIDI card for PC and other necessary hookup
items).  To start the discussion off, I'll expound on the opinions I 
developed from my visit yesterday.  
  If you want to create *really* interesting sounds/music--especially 
in conjunction with a computer--you need the capability of several 
different voices at once.  To accomplish this you need either several
synthesizers or a multi-timbred synthesizer.  The best choice seemed
to be multi-timbred synthesizers.  This ruled out most all the synthesizers
I looked at.  The only ones that fit this catergory were Oberheim's
Matrix 12 (I wish I could blow 4K) and some of the Sequential Ciruits
machines (e.g. Multi-Trak and Six-Trak).  Of the later two the Multi-Trak 
features a larger keyboard and it's also velocity sensitive.  This
was my choice for my price range. 
  Other nice instruments like the AKAI AX80 (nice for the money--$1050)
are polyphonic but not multi-timbred.
  To round out my MIDI system I am considering getting the Roland MPU 401
(the salesman tells me it's becoming the industry standard for the IBM
PC MIDI interface [is this so?]), the corresponding card for the IBM PC,
and TEXTURE, the toolbox music editor by Roger Powell.
  Ok, let's hear some comments comparing my choices with your own!

Oh, the only digital (sampling) synthesizer I saw was the Mirage.  It
looked nice, but I think I would add it on later, rather than get one
as a first synthesizer.  Has anyone seen any others?