Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP 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?