#45

haan i know was hoping it was obvious sarcasm

#46

Quite like the idea of this synth. Tacky yoof tv promo style aside, I think the promotion is also trying to imply that it’s a tough robust object and the touch keypad is reliable even for quick stabby playing styles. Remains to be seen how true either of these things are…

#47

Thank you for pointing this out. I actually personally know a lot of the engineers at Arturia because of living in the town where they operate. They are very good people and have nothing to do with this mess of a video. Actually they are all a little stunned at what happened with this announcement since it’s 100% marketing bullshit.

15 Likes
#48

The keys and performance features for the price also caught my attention. Not that the video helped me even slightly understand what this thing can do.

I also don’t really care what the thing is called, but that graphic is so ugly… not really something I want to be looking at when I’m making music. Knobs are easy enough to replace if the color is really a bother, but why go though the trouble of giving the thing bad tattoos? Make it grey, make it black, hell, make it TE yellow or red or maroon or whatever.

Marketing team, oof.

Emilie has addressed the MI (non)involvement, and I will respect her wishes to leave it well enough alone.

#49

With the dust having settled on the iffy marketing, and Émilie’s inspiring response is there an appetite for talking about the synth’s design?

I can’t deny I like how the thing seems to sound from the demos. (Then again, I’d probably like any half decently built implementation of Plaits.) But I can’t shake away the thought that the analog filter is eating away at design space (and presumably resources - for the target price point) that would be better spent on modulation and sequencing, maybe even dsp.

My assumption is that as far as selling these like hot cakes goes, the filter is a sound and safe choice. I don’t doubt that they might have gotten the balance right on that score. I’m interested in the less safe choices they could have made to make this the best synth it could have been.

I mean, the Plaits approach rewards modulation in heaps. Which they clearly realize. In terms of design, my head goes, get users to think: modulate those 4 parameters; modulate those 4 parameters; modulate those 4 parameters. And then… modulate the modulators…

From there, not sure how that would ideally have gone, except for 3 things:

  1. the 4 oscilators parameters being hard wired destination slots in the matrix (taking out the filter cutoff, and adding a slot).
  2. The sequencer seems hamstrung with only 4 modulation tracks, and only 2 sequences per preset.

Way less sure, but here’s an idea:

  1. Having taken out the filter, adding a big macro encoder in the middle of the thing that takes a similar approach to the “spice” sequencer function (where you can iterate random mappings) but is operated by (A) turning it or (B) modulating it. And © has a few memory slots per patch for saving the random iterations you like. Assign modulation destinations for it through the matrix, with wave, timber and shape as default.

TL; DR: As a design, is it me, or they could have made a much more potent synth by taking out the filter and adding some more quick and dirty modulation features (and memory slots per patch) in the spirit of the spice function.

PS: Again, hats off to Émilie for being so inspiring on all fronts!

2 Likes
#50

I think one argument for keeping the filter in is that even if you get to a wacky spot with the other parameters, if you modulate the filter cutoff with an envelope, you can tame any sound back into a “typical” synth-lead sound, or at least something interestingly percussive. If we accept that most users of synths don’t understand them on any kind of deep level, the filter seems like a security blanket.

Another argument is that digital oscillators + analog filter is a tried-and-true moneymaker and a source of interesting synths (including MI’s early designs)

7 Likes
#51

From what I’ve heard so far, the filter just seems too mundane to be very interesting. Maybe it’s a response to some people’s complaints about the Steiner-Parker filters in their other synths, but I’d have liked them to go with something Polivoks-like perhaps, or even switched capacitor… something that lives up to the “freak” name.

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#52

I had a vague notion that its a safe choice on both the user friendliness and moneymaking front. The way you put it really helps me get what’s at the core of that. It reinforces my impression that they probably got the balance of features right to have a safe shot at tons of sales for their target market.

Let me try to ask my question a different way.

It looks to me (I’m not super informed, so quite likely wrong) like there are two major design constraints/targets in the picture, and a third implicit one.

  1. Safe shot at meeting their sales goals (given target audience and price point.)

In one of the videos, the rep was explaining a second major design goal they had:

  1. to come up with something that would make the process of arriving at useful, but surprising (“happy accidents”) sound results intuitive, user friendly, and fast.

But in explaining that point, he added mentioned something that I suspect was an implicit design constraint. From memory, he said something like:

  1. “this is not a serious synth”.

It’s like (3) is a bullet they were okay biting for the sake of prioritizing (1) and (2), which makes sense.

Looking at the few demos they released, what sticks out to me is that they seem to have done a decent job at (2), but I doubt they did a great one: the process of arriving at “happy accidents” from scratch doesn’t seem all that intuitive and fast.

Let’s put my question this way:

  • On paper + based on the info we have, how great a job at (2) do you folks think they did?

  • Do you think there might have been room to give themselves a different safety valve as far as sales go? (E.g. let’s make this a product that becomes “serious” - and a go to staple - because of how great it is at (2)? Perhaps, as part of that, by making this as valuable a controller and sequencer in arriving at happy accidents with external synths as possible?)

1 Like
#53

It sounds like your point number 2 really hits home that the competition this synth is aiming at is the Microkorg (hence the name, even), which is similarly not a “serious” synth but packs serious value for the price, at the cost of a somewhat arcane user interface (and digital everything, ofc)

1 Like
#54

I wonder what makes something a serious synth or not? Seems to me to be a very subjective and arbitrary judgement…

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#55

(edit: This was part of a 90’s Lee Jeans ad campaign, and I remember a full Super Greg website with it. I didn’t realize until searching for it just now, after the Arturia video reminded me of it, that it is Sasha Baron Cohen.)

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#56

I was at NAMM and got to play this thing in person. I wasn’t really impressed. About 50% of my experience was “why isn’t this making any noise at all?”. Once I did sort that out, I wasn’t very impressed with the sounds I was getting, and the keys didn’t feel super responsive. On top of that, it is quite light and cheap feeling, and the demo unit I tried didn’t sit perfectly flat on the table.

It’s likely this won’t be representative of the product as a whole once it’s released but it certainly tossed a huge bucket of water on any sort of enthusiasm I had about it.

1 Like
#57

I tested it twice at NAMM, once early on Friday and once mid-Saturday. I had the same experience mid-Saturday. I noticed that people had edited and re-saved most of the presets (probably by accident) with frustrating settings like sequences with lots of gates off or super-long envelopes, etc. I can verify that on Friday, the instrument was extremely responsive and the presets were much more logical.

Overall, I quite like the synth. The Paraphonic mode was fun, and the filter pairs well with the tone of the oscillators. The Arturia osc modes aren’t spoken about as much as the Plaits models, but they sit well next to them (I didn’t feel like they were two hugely different designs crammed together). I didn’t dive into the sequencer, but I tooled around with the arp. I like that the controls for that are on the keyboard instead of above it. Having USB Power, MPE-over-USB, and CV outputs are all great bonuses.

My only hardware complaint is that the orange knobs are encoders and aren’t as responsive and immediate as the Plaits hardware that I’m so used to. It definitely felt frustrating turning the encoders a lot to make large changes to the sounds. I remember them being encoders, so I imagine that they still have room to tweak the delta behavior to make it cleaner (Elektron did a great job with this on their new boxes compared to their old ones, for example).

3 Likes
#58

My experience with it was mostly on Friday, and loading some of the factory presets was the only way it seemed to work much. YMMV I guess, we’ll see what kind of stuff the demo community comes up with once these things get sent out.

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#59

There is something of the dichotomy you describe in the videos: such responsive and diverse factory presets; yet the arturia reps are having a hard time getting out of static, simplistic territory on the fly.

Is the mod matrix fast to navigate?

#60

i think the “serious synth” remark is telling of the design intent but also needs unpacking. okay this is clearly an affordable “fun” shiny synth to i guess jam out on and for a lot of musicians looking for something cheap and maybe “weird” (hence the naming) it’s probably a fine purchase.

do i want this? no. but i think i could find efficacy with it and very likely, after a bit of learning and practice, get somewhere novel and creatively useful. an instrument is as serious as its player

it’s not great that arturia is clearly condescending to their audience tho

5 Likes
#61

Has anyone tried one of these yet? Mainly interested in the CV out… If the keyboard is decent, I was thinking it could be an interesting (+ cheaper than buchla lem218, future retro 512 etc) touch capacitive keyboard controller for eurorack.

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#62

Stimming did a decent review on the freak, touching on the keyboard a bit being tactile and very fast to play. Some good overall feedback on the unit imho.

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#63

nice, thanks :slight_smile: yeah looks pretty responsive in the unit… will reserve judgement until I see any evidence of it controlling external gear…

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#64

We probably have to wait a couple more weeks until there are some proper techie style reviews of it, e.g when all the unboxing and preset browsing vids have been flushed out. :slight_smile:

1 Like