This synth will blow your mind and hurt your feelings all at once. It is the perfect semblance of digital and analog technology, and it sounds just like 1986 to me. Its joystick lets you mix between 4 digital waveforms at once, and even record that as a motion attached to an envelope. On its release, Sequential promised "...a Prophet AND a PPG" and it really delivers. It is bright and chilly, yet you can really hear the crunch of those 12-bit waves going into the CEM 3379 chips. It has the world's best patch randomizer and will make sounds you wouldn't think to, because you're not a machine. Speaking of, this is THE sound of NIN's Pretty Hate Machine.
In the 1970's, Moog introduced the first Taurus pedals. Designed to allow guitarists to accompany themselves in the bass frequencies with their feet, this was made famous by Rush in their song Tom Sawyer. The foot pedal synth was simple: two sawtooth waves with a filter and a simple decay. The low sounds and frequencies it produced were known to rattle subwoofers unlike anything before it or since. It could easily destroy sound systems with its range of tones.
SOUND GUYS HATE THIS! WHILE FOOT FETISHISTS' DELIGHT!!
Fast forward 30 years and Moog reissued it with modern features like presets, MIDI and CV, and tuning stability, all while preserving the famous "presets" and exact circuitry. It must be heard to be believed, and when you hear it, you'll feel it!
CAUTION: PLEASE WEAR A DIAPER WHILE USING THIS BASS SYNTH
Germany 1980's: First, there was the PPG. Then, the PPG 2.2. Then came the Waldorf Microwave...
all of which were the result of the question: "What if you had digitally scanned wavetables through analog filters?" Then that spawned the Wave, Microwave II, then the Microwave XT...
20 years later in 2021, Waldorf released the M, which is a desktop synth with digital wavetable scanning through newly minted SSI 2144 filters (formerly SSM and CEM), to bring a modern spin on their first synths from the 1980's.
The result sounds crystalline, crispy, rough, gritty, and gives everything you'd expect from the masters of "digital into analog" circuitry. Its everything we wanted from the original Microwave/PPG/Wave in a convenient desktop unit with knob-per-function.
Give the gift of a synth rental, so that you don't have to buy it for them for their Birthday, Christmas, or "I'm sorry I cheated" gift!
