my hardware synths are making a comeback

[dagosto]

After a long hiatus my synth rack and I have reconciled our differences and I am using them nearly everytime I sit down at my DAW. I was wondering if anybody else wanted o share the contents of their rack, or a list of the hardware synths they keep.

The contents of the synth rack:

Roland XV5050 - Kind of a cold sounding unit but there are a lot of moving, late nineties, technoish sound that become useful with the help of effects. Also some nice organs.

Yamaha MU100R - This is the synth I learned to sequence and program with. The Native sound set has some beautiful solo instruments. Of note are the ocarina, synth bass, and clarinet. The ensembles are a little small sounding but the addition of the XG sample set adds those neo-classic sounds.

Yamaha Motif Rack - First gen rack of my favorite PCM synth series ever. It does everything that you could expect from this type of synth well. The motif sounds are warm and punchy. The weak points would have to be the solo acostic instruments in general. For that I actually prefer the MU100R banks.

Emu Vintage Pro - Nice set of sounds, expandable (I still need to get to that), and very nice front panel controls for what is essentially a ROMpler.

Korg Triton Rack - Also first gen I believe. Not my favorite synth as far as sounds go (kinda cold) but the sampler and sequences are fun.

[warmowski]

Gearwire story on Dan's Valentine's day love affair with his synth rack:

http://www.gearwire.com/synth-modules-comeback.html

-r

[dolivas]

I've always have had an aversion to rack synths for some reason. However, lately I havent been using soft synths that much either. It's a lot less taxing to use your own hardware synth and just send the analog audio in (and still have MIDI being recorded on a seperate MIDI track) than to open up a virtual synth and have it limit how many tracks you can have up or how many effects you can use at once. I dunno my keyboard tend to sound very nice going through my mLan as well and like Dan said using a whole bunch of effects or cleaning the sound up a bit is easier and more focused when you're working with hard synths. There's a lot less tendency to just diddle-daddle with a hard synth and get down to business and lay a good track down or set a good sound down.

[craig]

I am still big on softsynths, but I got a Little Phatty TE for Christmas, and that has triggered a significant return to my old hardware-loving self. Unfortunately, a lot of my physical gear departed from me during the softyears.

I still have a Yamaha An1x which is great for pads and other weird, moving sounds (I think the Free EG is still quite unique), and it makes an excellent controller.

Also I have a Korg ER-1. It's fun, but I don't know if I like it. The sound is a bit too identifiable, to me.

-craig