dmt@mtgzz.UUCP (d.m.tutelman) (07/17/85)
About a month ago, I posted a request for info on buying a first synthesizer. Having gotten disappointingly few net responses, I concluded that people on net.synth either didn't know or didn't care; if the latter, hit "n" and move on. As you may remember (or may not even care), I was shopping for a synthesizer, primarily for use by my 14-year-old son. We all play piano, but none of us had ever used a synthesizer. I eventually decided on a Roland Juno 106 ($800). It was recommended by a number of local "experts" as being good for beginners, because the analog slide controls give instant feedback on what your adjustments are doing to the sound. Below are the other candidates we considered, and the reasons for not getting them: - Korg DW-6000: a new machine that was our second choice. But its digital waveform generator didn't seem to produce better sound than the straightforward analog. The sounds clearly weren't as full or interesting, and the accuracy of bell and "piano" wasn't enough to make up for it. Without superior sound, the other factors were all against the Korg. (Juno has twice the preset storage, easier controls to set in real-time [say, live performance], fuller string/brass sounds, and at the same price.) (~$800) - Korg Poly-800: Only four octaves. And if we wanted a keypress (rather than slide) parameter setting, the other Korg (DW-6000) is a better choice. (~$650) - Casio: has two new synthesizers, about which a number of people said "don't be scared off by the name; these are real synthesizers." Sorry, it still seemed like a toy. The parameter setting was abysmally slow and non-intuitive (the salesman demoing it couldn't make it do what I was asking for). It's only four octaves long. The advertised 8 voices seem to be only four independent voices in practice. Relatively few presets. And it was selling for 80% of the price of the Juno and the DW-6000 (~$650). - Melodion (Keyboard + Software + Commodore 64): At three voices and a short keyboard, this seemed more for the computer hacker than the musician. (Yes we are computer hackers, but THIS purchase is intended as a musical instrument.) (~$500) - Yamaha DX-7: included for completeness. At more than twice the price, we'll wait until we really need it. (I loved the sound, and some day we may need something like it. But technology moves on, and by then it'll be cheaper or better or both.) (~$1700) Dave Tutelman Physical - AT&T Information Systems Holmdel, NJ 07733 Logical - ...ihnp4!mtuxo!mtgzz!dmt Audible - (201)-834-2895
tre@sdcarl.UUCP (Tom Erbe) (07/25/85)
In article <929@mtgzz.UUCP> dmt@mtgzz.UUCP (d.m.tutelman) writes: > >- Casio: has two new synthesizers, about which a number of people said > "don't be scared off by the name; these are real synthesizers." > Sorry, it still seemed like a toy. The parameter setting was > abysmally slow and non-intuitive (the salesman demoing it > couldn't make it do what I was asking for). It's only four > octaves long. The advertised 8 voices seem to be only four > independent voices in practice. Relatively few presets. > And it was selling for 80% > of the price of the Juno and the DW-6000 (~$650). > You should have shopped around, I got my CZ-101 for 300 dollars or 40% of the price of a Juno or DW-6000. It does have 8 voices, although you can pair the voices up, giving you 4 detunable voices. It is polytambrel (sp?) over MIDI, matched only by the SCI Six-Trak in this feature and has extremely flexible envelope generators (1 to 8 steps, one for the VCA, VCF and VCO). This machine is definately not a toy. -- thomas r. erbe {ucbvax,ihnp4,akgua,hplabs,sdcsvax}!sdcarl!tre