Razmo's Gear Rant Thread...

[o2]

@Razmo

Im a little curious what you think of pulse 2?
Have had my thoughts on it but since I don't live in a town
With a musicstore I haven't been able to play around with it.

Cheers
o2

[Razmo]

@Razmo

Im a little curious what you think of pulse 2?
Have had my thoughts on it but since I don't live in a town
With a musicstore I haven't been able to play around with it.

Cheers
o2

Well... I like it a lot actualy. The Pulse 1 has been one of my favourite analog monosynths ever, if not the one I like the most. But in the end it's up to the listener I guess... some people don't like it's sound, others do.

But the Pulse 2 does not sound exactly like the Pulse 1... I find the Pulse 1 has more fatness, but it's also a lot more "dirty" in it's sound... sounding more vintage than the Pulse 2... though still, the Pulse 2 can sound almost exactly like the Pulse 1 on some presets.

The main difference is that the Pulse 2 sounds more clean... probably because of the newer components etc... but the Filter has a much wilder and sharper resonance then the Pulse 1, which is what I think sets them apart... many would probably prefer the resonance of the Pulse 2 because many who did not like the Pulse 1 did not like it because they did not like the resonance of it.

So for me to compare the two soundwise is impossible... the Pulse 2 has paraphonic modes that the Pulse 1 does not, have multimode filter and just basicaly is much more flexible. Besides that it has an internal connector for a future FX board, and the additional distortion modes also sets it appart.

To me there is no doubt... I need them both. I would use both for the same tasks... bass, leads etc... it can do it all, and it sounds rather good compared to the competition IMO. I'm not a user of it's interface, as I remote control it, so I cannot talk about the user interface really... but it's like the Blofeld a lot, and it's the same concept as on the original Pulse 1 ... only difference is that it's encoders, and not knobs... I personaly do not like encoders.

If you have specific questions about it, just ask them... I'll try to give my view on it.

[Chris Abbott]

I bet if you play the same melody and the same patch on each of them at the same time, the slight variations in sound would make it sound really great.

[Razmo]

It would certainly involve some phase cancellation that's for sure, because I measued the MIDI latency of both, and one has 4MS, the other 5-6MS ... but yes.. the small differences would certainly give it character.

Unfortunately, there is quite a big difference on some presets mostly because of the resonance, but also the Cross Modulation that the original Pulse also had... it sounds different to my ears.

Besides... the Pulse 2 can take any SysEx data that the Pulse 1 did, so you can send it patch dumps directly from a Pulse 1.... but as I stated, not all patches sound alike, and some really sound rather different... usualy if you omit the use of resonance or the Crossmod, you'd probably have to do A/B testing to hear the difference, but once you do, the difference is clear enough.

As a general rule, I'd say that the Pulse 1 sounds much more fat and creamy... side by side the Pulse 2 may sound a bit thin in comparrison... but then again... the Pulse 1 is considered the "poor man's moog", so the Pulse 2 is in NO WAY thin sounding compared to all the alternatives out there right now... not the least.

[Razmo]

Recently sold my MOOG SLim Phatty, Vermona M.A.R.S. and Shruthi-1... also sold the Pulse 2 that I won (or rather the old one, and kept the new that I won)...

Why?... I wanted this:



I've had the four voice Tetra from DSI before, but always felt it ran out of voices with too complex presets... so this one might do it instead... unfortunately, the Prophet '08 does not have feedback and two sub oscillators as the Tetra, but I'll live.

Looking forward to getting this home early next week.

[Analog-X64]

I somehow missed the early video post. Congrats on wining the contest. That was a great video, very creative.

@O2: Dude!! where have you been?

[Razmo]

Thanx ANX ... actualy the Pulse 2 has already been sold... or rather the old one I had was sold. Decided to keep the one I won... somehow it just sound a little bit better... probably the placebo effect

[o2]

@Razmo
Thank you for the info Razmo, i will for sure try that machine. And on the plus side even Before ive tried it is the price. Not that expensive

@Analog-X64
Ive Always been here Reading the forum. Just not Writing so much

[Razmo]

@Razmo
Thank you for the info Razmo, i will for sure try that machine. And on the plus side even Before ive tried it is the price. Not that expensive

@Analog-X64
Ive Always been here Reading the forum. Just not Writing so much

Yes... the pricepoint is absolutely fantastic, compared to both sound quality and specs... just as with the Blofeld. Only bitching I have against the Pulse 2 is the design... I'd have liked it to be rackmountable somehow, but well... I'll live.

[Razmo]

Recently sold my KORG Radias synth... it was simply too complex for my liking... I seem to go along better with synths that have less than 3.000 parameters

And of course the money I got from selling it, was definitely withering away in my pocket, so I hurried and got this before they vanished:

100_9236b.jpg (202.78 KiB) Viewed 62000 times

It's a very fine analog/digital drum machine, that I think sounds very good. In fact, I've been trying several drummachines over the years, but all have been either to inflexible, too bad MIDI spec'ed or other small irritating things has been wrong... I think I finaly found the perfect analog drummachine for me here... it's rackmountable, it's 100% controllable via MIDI, and it sounds extremely nice. Biggest problem now is to find a submixer for the 10 individual outputs

...just love these 1 Unit rackmount machines... wish all synths was made in 1U racks

[Commie_User]

Splendid. Any chance of a listen?

And what's your view on such hardware now computers and romplers have dominated? Especially with my new screen bank, I see no reason not to stack up the junk shop PCs and let the likes of NI Battery do the talking.

I think that's a bit different from the more regular samples you shun.

[Razmo]

I definitely do not shun samples... drum-samples, if that's what you mean. That is what I bought the KORG ESX-1 for, as it's generaly a sample-groovebox... I want that one to do everything the JoMoX AiRBase99 cannot do... I tend to collect niche instruments, so none can do it all, but does what they do very well and complement each other.

Personaly I will not compare an analog drummachine to VST's because I don't find that digital has yet accomplished the same sound as analog. The AiRBase99 is part analog, and part digital/hybrid. Kick, Snare, Toms and Hihats is made using analog circuitry... Hihat, Clap, Rim, Crash and Ride is made with 8bit samples, but are still controlled with analog VCA's (hybrid like).

Just sampling the AiRBase99 won't cut it... the analog parts make every hit a little bit different, and velocity makes the drumsounds dynamic and responsive, and that's where all the charm is.

I like both analog and digital percussion in any way possible... I also plan on getting the newer Nord Drum 2 which is digital drum synthesis, but I have a limit; I do not use softsynths in any way... not that I could not, but I have to limit myself somewhere, so I chose to only use hardware... digital or analog, as long as it's unique.

About the AirBase99... there is no doubt it was concieved to sound like a Roland TR-909... the sound is close, but it does a lot more. I'll put up a demo of it when I've made one... currently I'm doing an editor for it in SoundDiver.

[Commie_User]

Well, it's just that you said that samples don't fool an enthusiast in any way. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9492#p93209


To an extent you're right, though. Drum packs don't give it all to you, in terms of sound and play, but they're handy in other ways, such as getting extra features for the money. Real sets also have the 'feel', but taken in the context of your having an accurate monitoring experience of what you're trying for, you do make up for the loss of dexterity or flavour in the mixing chair.

[Razmo]

Well, it's just that you said that samples don't fool an enthusiast in any way. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9492#p93209


To an extent you're right, though. Drum packs don't give it all to you, in terms of sound and play, but they're handy in other ways, such as getting extra features for the money. Real sets also have the 'feel', but taken in the context of your having an accurate monitoring experience of what you're trying for, you do make up for the loss of dexterity or flavour in the mixing chair.

I agree... in my own case, I tend to use samples for the stuff that cannot be done with the analog drummachine... why use samples of an analog drummachine that compromises, if you can just use the real deal? ... in fact that's what I intend to do... analog percussion done by analog drummachines, and then fill up the ESX-1 with samples of accoustic drumsounds and other percussive samples that I cannot do with the AiRBase99.

Another nice aspect of the analog drummachine is, that you do not need to speculate on what samples to put in... you tweak the machine's parameters to make the drums suit your needs in a particular project instead of browsing a lot of samples until you find what you need.

Now I know Battery as a VST, and it IS a nice piece of software, with lots of things to tweak, but I just don't use software... I only use hardware, and there are not many hardware samplers tht lend themselves to tweaking drumsamples like in Battery for example... The only intuitive one I've come accross is the KORG ESX-1 which do hae hands-on control parameters to do just this.

So it's not that samples are boring, or sterile... they don't need to be, but they often are if not tweaked in some way, making them static to listen to... you have to compensate for that... with analog drums it just comes naturaly... or any digital drum synthesis for that matter.

[Commie_User]

But then again, it can also depend on how you play those drum modules. Do you have pads or are they programmed by key?

Take a listen to this doodle I made, playing drumpler with harmonium on top. Would your racks suit as well with live playing as they do with the electro stuff you love?