Discussion
I need help from the electronic music hive mind!
What are the electronic instruments you've played over the years that are DEAD SIMPLE to use? Meaning, a person with no experience could walk up to it and quickly and intuitively move some knobs around, poke around a bit, and start exploring the instrument?
Samplers, synths, drum machines, and recording tech suggestions are all welcome. Boost if your followers would know about this pleeease! <3
@dotsonapage @BorrisInABox good idea...love those!
@alisynthesis It's not self contained, but people seem to be drawn to my MIDIKalimba MIDI controller.
Of course, it got the most attention when I had it controlling not just a synth, but a MIDI->DMX converter and a bank of colored lights as well.
@voiceofunreason that's a very cool idea!!
@alisynthesis old TR style drum machine, no menuing, quick to figure it.
I literally walked up to the Juno 6 in 1983 and started playing it, having never touched a polysynth in my life, and its control layout being quite different to either of the monosynths I'd touched.
The effect was noted by someone watching me who commented something about me seeming transformed but *I* had the headphones and didn't catch all of it. It worked!
Yet somehow I'm still finding out more, having actually had one for ~35 years now.
@electropict that's awesome. I had a similar experience (much later) with the Waldorf Iridium. I don't still own one, but I wish I did. Very cool and unusual interface!
@alisynthesis This is literally exactly how I got into synthesizers, with the Realistic Concertmate MG-1. To this day I don't think I've ever seen a manual.
@ben oh man those were great. I think they might be pricey now though?
@alisynthesis Yep.
They originally cost, if memory serves, $695 at Radio Shack. I bought mine at a yard sale for $50ish. I then sold it, in like 1993, for $150 or so. They show up on eBay for $500-700ish now.
They are basically a Moog Prodigy with an organ/string section.
@ben yeah, I had one for awhile in the early 00s. It was great.
@alisynthesis I don’t now if this is simple enough but Akai mpk mini has built in speaker and battery. Has keyboard and drum pad
@alisynthesis props to the Minibrute and Microbrute for being solid dead simple fun to use analog synths that kicked off an era of budget synths.
@alisynthesis Lots of great suggestions on here, Ill add the Novation Bass Station II. It has nicely outlined sections for the components and is a bunch of fun to use. Monophonic and analog, so it doesnt get too deep. Also relatively inexpensive.
@starlily ah, a classic! I've almost bought one so many times for myself. :)
@alisynthesis I've always enjoyed the drum brute/ drum brute impact. It's very easy to learn and very fun to play in a jam
@alisynthesis Otamatone maybe.
Kinda like a thermin-junior.
@evilstevie yes, I was just checking those out! Given the price, one or two of those is a no-brainer, even if it's only because teens might find them fun.
Simple to understand, or simple to get sound out of while glossing over what you don't understand?
if the former then you can't beat a very simple modular, ie 1 VCO, 1 VCF, 1 VCA and a EG. almost anything easier to start on than that is hiding something which then makes it harder to understand.
it could be prepatched to a standard signal flow. then when they unplug something and it stops working that's a clue.
also a theremin is super simple to understand what it does and how to use it even though it's hard to play and the underlying tech is a bit subtle the UI is super transparent (literally)
TAL noisemaker is a pretty straightforward plugin synth with not much hidden, and free.
there's loads of other hardware and software monosynths that don't hide very much.
it might depend if labeling of controls and a few simple instructions are allowed.
EDIT wrote this before seeing that you are not teaching synthesis, from which I infer that understanding is not a goal, in which case I don't know - though theremin still stands.
@xenogon yes, I'm basically trying to get people who don't necessarily know how to use a synthesizer to explore sound. There will be lots of other non-electronic sound sources too, but I think having some electronic sounds would be fun, although I recognize that it can be hard and intimidating.
These are good suggestions, thank you!
@alisynthesis Roland TR-8S drum machine is pretty intuitive. There's some really deep menu-divey stuff but you can do loads without worrying much about that.
@benofbrown oh, that's a fun idea for a drum machine.
Novation Circuit was the easiest and most fun make-music-now box I've ever played with. More and more I regret selling it.
@venya I've always wanted to try one!
@alisynthesis maybe the modal craft? it’s a wavetabler, which might not be my first teaching choice as far as synthesis techniques, but from a ‘turn knobs to change sound’ perspective, i feel like that part could be figured out later down the line; can largely treat it as a virtual analog. for a tiny synth, it’s got dedicated knobs for the filter cut/res and for the adsr eg, which is stuff i think is important to grasp early & not have to fuss around with to learn.
@alisynthesis i think if someone wanted to learn fm, the reface dx is one of the more accessible ways to learn that… but i don’t know that fm is ever going to be a great starting point, i do think subtractive is probably the easiest way to sort of get a handle on the basics of, like, what synthesis is
@brhfl@digipres.club @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com I admit that my first ‘paid for’ synth [1] was a Yamaha CX5M, which is why I’m so fully at home with FM, but I wouldn’t call it simple or easy by a long chalk!
[1] as opposed to built it myself, which was a portion of the Digisound 80 modular, built into a different case style, then ran out of money
@u0421793 @brhfl I think the Reface series is so cool. I will probably use the organ one for this, as I think people will intuitively get it immediately. I use a Reface CP almost every day...as big as my synth studio is, it's an all-time fave. I could get a Nord Electro (and have done before), but I kinda don't see the point!
@alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com I’m honestly not sure there is. At least nothing modern and available as new. I grew up with 60/70s synths in the 60/70s, with much time enjoyably spent on complicated stuff.
Now I’m in my mid 60s I really haven’t got the patience for depth in a thing, I don’t like hidden features, I can’t remember stuff that was there last time but isn’t now, and can’t tolerate buttons that say one thing but most of the time do something else (looking at you Roland SH4d), and most of all, I’m not amused by obligate depthy menus.
What would light up my eyes and prick up my ears would be a good synth that is truly one knob per function, has no shift modes, no alternate situations, no daft secret-handshake user-interfaces that I can’t remember next time I use it many months later (looking at you, Novation Circuit).
What I’ve always relied on in a synth back in the 70s/80s/90s was to be able to look at the panel, see the knob settings, know what kind of sound it was going to make (which I could), and not be surprised when I pressed a note on it and got roughly that sound. You simply can’t do that these days. That’s what’s lacking today.
Even in the 70s, a straightforward synth could fox users - the amount of ARP 2600s or ARP Odysseys (2800) that got sent back as faulty because it wouldn’t shut up, because the user turned the ‘Initial Gain’ slider up from zero.
Of all the synths I’ve ever had, the most foolproof, most user-friendly, most ‘makes a sound no matter what you set the knobs and switches to’ synth is the old Roland SH-09 I had. But even the SH-101-like modern issues have a load of extra complexity in the shape of sequencers, arpeggiators, that sort of thing.
@u0421793 this is a helpful perspective, thank you! My tendency is to go as close to knob-per-function as possible for this purpose. I'm very experienced, and I tend to like those best myself. They keep me from getting turned around!
Install Fedizen
Get the full app experience
@alisynthesis @BorrisInABox it's a bit pricey for a starter instrument but the Suzuki Omnichord is pretty simple to pick up and play. There are some cheaper variations and software emulators out now so you can get an idea of what it can do. https://www.omnichord-heaven.com/
Omnichord Heaven