Poisynth Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 Hello to all the MIDI Maniacs out there...this is my first post on this quite interesting forum. I'm very excited to finally take the plunge and "get my hands dirty" with some real sythesizers. Basically my question is "Which kit should I start with?" But I'm sure some background info and maybe a quick personal bio would be helpful.I'm a 25 year old living in Connecticut, USA with little experience playing music but have always been fascinated with the unique synth sounds found in all types of music. The last couple of years I've been making short youtube music videos of various things (check them out on ajmjd.com). The vids are not very good and neither is my music...but I gotta start somewhere. This being my main hobby, I want to get better but I feel as though I should take a detour into the world of synthesizers and hopefully my skills making electronic music increases as I learn.Right now all I have is Reason 3.0 and an M-Audio 49e keyboard (MIDI/USB out and a pitch & mod wheel)...I also use the Rockband drumkit and guitar thru Reason but they are USB only. I have had a blast playing around for over a year now, but I get the feeling as though I'm cheating myself by completely skipping over real analog synthesis. I am great with a computer but I need that hands on feel!So what I'm looking to start with is a fairly cheap & easy kit for $100 or less that I can plug my keyboard into (accepts MIDI in). Being able to connect it to my PC/Reason would be sweet too but not necessary (I'm guessing it would need some kind of MIDI out but a simple audio jack would at least let me record). I am already drooling over the xoxb0x and others but that would be major overkill as my first kit. I already have some soldering experience, not an expert, but probably enough to get me going. So far I came up with the following kits:Malfunctionator - Looks like CV/Gate onlyVoice of Saturn - Looks like CV/Gate onlyVoice of Saturn Sequencer - Same as aboveFatman - A little too pricey for my first kit (but looks sweet!)And of course the Midibox64 and others I saw on the ucapps.de website...but it seems I have to source the parts myself which is something I was trying to avoid on my first kit but that's not gonna stop me if it ends up being the best and cheapest route to go.I understand CV/Gate is like a pre-MIDI setup to send information...am I also correct in thinking there's no easy way to convert a MIDI signal to CV/Gate so that I could use the Voice of Saturn mentioned above with my keyboard? Probably just wishful thinking...but I'm guessing it'd require another module in between or something.In the distant future I hope to create a way to convert MIDI signals to control specific LED's and other things in some kind of cool music visualization setup. I'm all about visualizing music in new ways...sort of like a Winamp visualization but without a computer monitor.PS: Probably the "best" song I've made in Reason is Like, Do It.mp3 using Rockband drumkit...also check out my New England Panorama website if interested...I'm so glad I found this place ;D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/tilted/ Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 Good!Judging by your vids, you seem like a bit of a mental-case, which means you'll fit right in.Of course, standard advice follows:http://www.uCApps.dehttp://wiki.midibox.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 Welcome aboard man. Look, the only thing you're missing out on by being all virtual, is a certain sound (it's not a big difference) and stability/reliablity (which won't make much difference if you're still PC based)...so, I don't think that hardware synthesis is quite what you might think it is ;)Regardless, check out midibox CV, midibox analog toolkit, MB Sequencer and MB SID. Ad read around the forums and wiki and ucapps, as tilted suggested.... You'll find what you need :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poisynth Posted June 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2008 Yes, tilted, I do consider myself to be a bit "out there" ;)I also must agree with stryd in that perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. What I really want to do is tweak sounds by hand rather than use a mouse in the hopes that I learn faster what it is that's changing a sounds characteristics. I basically just don't understand what a lot of the knobs in Reason's synths do. Having a hands on feel is what I think would help me learn.With that said...I guess what would be best for me is a simple controller that will operate the knobs in Reason...perhaps playing with analog might be a bit of over kill at first.So over the last couple days I decided to pick up a new (used) keyboard...an M-Audio Radium 49 (I paid $70 which seemed like a decent price). It's pretty similar to my other keyboard, but this one has 8 knobs & 8 sliders I can play with. ;DI'm pretty excited to play around with Reason's Maelstrom and Subtractor synths...usually I would just load a pre-made patch, but that is not really teaching me anything. I want to be able to start from scratch and come up with my own sounds...all while understanding how I got there and how to do it again.Thanks guys...I'll be sticking around here for awhile ;D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 20, 2008 Report Share Posted June 20, 2008 Sounds like you're on track now mate... Once you've had a play with the radium board, you might feel the need for a more advanced controller, then it's MB64 time :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimo Posted June 20, 2008 Report Share Posted June 20, 2008 hidunno if i am just assuming but is Poisynth as POI+SYNTH?i ask because i ve built a couple of years ago a MIDIBOX-POI , cabling 2 faders with a spring in my POIs setup (i also used glowing POIs) and connecting them to a filter sweep or something like that.As usually i get all excited about things and then drop them aside to get excited with something else.. i may have a vid somewhere...Simone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nILS Posted June 20, 2008 Report Share Posted June 20, 2008 As usually i get all excited about things and then drop them aside to get excited with something else..That's the inner child that midiboxers tend to wear on the outside ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poisynth Posted June 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2008 hidunno if i am just assuming but is Poisynth as POI+SYNTH?i ask because i ve built a couple of years ago a MIDIBOX-POI , cabling 2 faders with a spring in my POIs setup (i also used glowing POIs) and connecting them to a filter sweep or something like that.As usually i get all excited about things and then drop them aside to get excited with something else.. i may have a vid somewhere...SimoneI came up with the name Poisynth a couple months ago by combining poison (not the 80's band :-X ) + synth = Poisynth...I dunno, it just sounded cool or something ;) I also registered poisynth.com in the hopes that one day maybe I'll actually have some *good* music videos to show people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultra Posted June 21, 2008 Report Share Posted June 21, 2008 poison and tesla are coming here to play in august. i can't wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimo Posted June 21, 2008 Report Share Posted June 21, 2008 I also registered poisynth.com in the hopes that one day maybe I'll actually have some *good* music videos to show people.i think you got them already Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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