Feeling the Play of the Panel

In the all-important feel category, none of the knobs on the synths we looked at this month felt positively flimsy, but those on the Yamaha AN1x and the Quasimidi units were definitely a bit looser. (The AN knobs are also pushbuttons ‹ a type of dual function not found in any of this month's other synths.) The knobs on the Clavia Nord Lead 2 are like a rock, with a satisfying amount of resistance and a pleasant rubberized feel. The knobs on the FutureRetro 777 and Access Virus, which appear to have come from the same parts supplier, are also very solid.

All of the synths have a variety of LEDs, some of which flash or blink. I won't try to rate how sensible ‹ or how cool-looking ‹ these are. In the data display department, a not-exactly-generous two-line LCD is the norm. The Korg Z1's large display is by far the most informative, and the Nord's stingy 3-digit LED data readout is at the bottom of the heap.

If more knobs means more playability, then the Waldorf Q rates top marks. Its knobs are the only ones in the roundup that have infinite spin, which means there's never a jump in the sound when you grab a knob and turn it. Working without a manual, though, it took me a little time to find the controls I was looking for. There's no dedicated knob for LFO depth, for instance ‹ neither in the filter section nor in the oscillator section.

Eventually I figured out that the Q uses several different methods of accessing knob functions. Some knobs are dedicated to one purpose. Some switch between two functions depending on whether you've pressed the Shift button (the LED beside the button blinks to let you know it's active). Some entire banks of knobs switch between two modules when you press a selector switch in the bank; the filter knobs, for instance, control both filter 1 and filter 2 (or both), and the switch steps the knobs from one set of controls to the other. On top of which, there's a modulation matrix, in which you patch sources to destinations in the LCD.

The big problem with the Novation Supernova's panel is that the unit is a rackmount. There just about isn't any convenient way to play the knobs in a rack unless you're fond of sore shoulders. Aside from that, the layout makes sense. Two knobs control 25 modulation routings in the oscillators section, but lighted buttons make it easy to see what the knobs are assigned to. The most relevant controls, including five effects level knobs, are right out front.

The Novation Nova puts essentially the same synthesis engine in a tabletop module. This makes it easier to play the knobs, but there aren't quite as many of them. Principally, there's one row of four envelope knobs instead of two rows, and one multi-purpose effect level knob instead of five dedicated ones.

The Z1 doesn't have as many knobs as most of the competition, but it gains points for the fact that five of the knobs are user-programmable and can be assigned to multiple destinations. Not only that, but you can limit the range of each knob's output to a musically useful sweep. Add to those features the X/Y touchpad control surface and the dedicated filter and ADSR knobs, and you have a very respectable front panel.

The Virus has no visible knobs or buttons at all for several features, so at best its panel rates as average. I thought it didn't have any effects until I started poking around in the edit menu. But it has one thing that's rare and useful: a relative value knob mode. In this mode, the knob never jumps to a new value when you grab it and twist. The sonic change is always smooth. There are musical reasons why you might prefer an absolute value mode, though, and the Virus lets you choose ‹ truly excellent. It also has two definable knobs that can do several modulations at once.

The AN1x provides both absolute and relative value modes for its eight knobs. You have to press the knob while turning, though, to take advantage of the latter mode. A set of buttons changes the assignments of the knobs, so you can't just grab one and turn it without worrying about what effect it will have. The cool part is that one whole set of knob assignments is user-programmable. Add to that the left-hand ribbon controller and the Free EG (recordable knob movements) and you've got a very playable panel.

The Roland JP-8080 aims at bringing every single control out to the panel, which is good, but the oscillators' control knobs change function depending on the waveform, so you'll have to read the manual to find out what they do. The choice of sliders rather than knobs for the filter and envelope controls is a bit odd. If you want to see the data value of the knob or slider you're moving as you move it, you have to hold down a button with your other hand; on most of the Euro synths, the LCD jumps briefly to display the value, and then jumps back to where it was before. The latter type of behavior is disorienting at first, but I've come to appreciate the convenience. On the other hand, with the JP you can view a data value without changing it, something that's not possible on the Supernova and Q, for instance.

The Korg Electribe EA-1's knob complement is as skimpy as its synthesis features. It has the basics ‹ filter cutoff, envelope decay, effect depth, and a few other things ‹ but no frills.

Because it requires computer production software, we didn't include the Clavia Nord Modular in this round-up ‹ but its panel is noteworthy because each of the 18 knobs is programmable (though limited to a single parameter per knob). The Modular's panel layout can change for each patch, which can be at least as confusing as it is useful.

Full on Filters

Nothing does more to define the quality of an analog synthesizer's sound than its filter. Or filters ‹ most of the instruments we looked at have dual filters. In less expensive synths, one of these may be highpass and the other lowpass, allowing you to do bandpass filtering by routing them in series or notch filtering by routing them in parallel. The choice of series and parallel routing is also becoming common. Higher-end instruments may sport dual multimode filters with a built-in distortion/overdrive stage. Another feature to look for: Does each filter in a dual-filter configuration have its own envelope, or do they have to share a single envelope?

The Polymorph's dual filters (lowpass and highpass) are both resonant, and cranking up the resonance on both yields some really meaty distorted sounds ‹ especially when you add the distortion effect, which has its own cutoff and resonance controls. I also liked the fact that each filter has its own envelope and velocity control. For my taste, the Polymorph has unbeatable fatness, due in no small part to the precision with which you can control the distortion.

The filter section on the Q is well designed. Not only can the dual filters be run in series or parallel, you can pan back and forth between the two routings in real time with a knob. Each oscillator can be routed to either or both filters, and the filters' outputs can be panned separately. Filter modes include a comb filter as well as low/high/band/notch with 12 or 24dB rolloff. A dedicated filter drive knob lets you add some gritty edge and thickness to the sound. The Q's distortion effect didn't impress me as much. The more I played the instrument, though, the more convinced I became that it sounds great with no effects at all.

As much as I like the Z1, I can't help feeling it sounds a tiny bit sterile compared to some of the Euro synths. This quality is hard to put your finger on: When I cranked up the resonance and dialed in a distortion effect plus a flanger with tons of feedback, I got some very rude sounds. Then I added a cross-modulation oscillator, and the grunge went clear over the top. But even then, the Z1 sounded . . . um, how shall I put this? It sounded digital. The distortion is a little more brittle, not quite as fat as on some of the other analog-style synths.

That's not to say the Z1's filters aren't excellent. With two multimode filters in series or parallel, the ability to route either oscillator to either or both, and plenty of modulation routings, how could you go wrong?

The Virus's dual filters are both multimode. Not only can they be run in series or parallel, there's also a filter balance (crossfade) knob, with which you can dial up some expressive sweeps that would be tricky to do on other synths. A variable amount of filter saturation can be added if it's beef you're looking for. On the downside, the filters share a single envelope generator.

In this important sonic category, the JP-8080's filters sound a bit thin. It has only one filter per voice, not two. This is a low/band/highpass type, and like many other analog-modeled filters it has switchable 12/24dB-per-octave rolloff. But there's no filter overdrive, and only one type of distortion, which to be honest sounds somewhat digital, in the effects section. As a result, the JP has to rely more heavily on its oscillators (see below) for fat sounds, and on the delay effect for animation.

The Supernova and Nova are also one-filter synths. Their filter overdrive knob adds a very subtle touch of distortion. The filter modulation inputs are more extensive than on some synths, though; there are dedicated routings to modulate both cutoff and resonance from two LFOs, two envelopes, and the mod wheel. And as on the AN1x, the Novation filters have a switchable 12/18/24dB rolloff slope. The AN's filter section rates as more powerful, though, because it has a dedicated highpass filter in addition to the main multimode filter.

The most limited filter section in this month's roundup belongs to the Electribe-A. That's not surprising, considering it's also the most affordable unit in the bunch. Its lowpass filter gives you control over cutoff and resonance. You'll also find an envelope decay knob, a bidirectional envelope amount knob, and a built-in overdrive circuit, but that's pretty much it in the way of tone-shaping.

Synthesizer Bells and Whistles

One of the emerging trends in the analog synthesizer world is to give you separate effects on each part in multi mode. This added versatility helps you create a full-sounding arrangement on one box, and makes up somewhat for the limited palette of waveforms. The Supernova has independent effects, and the Q has them for parts 1 through 4. The Polymorph has two independent effects processors for each of its four parts, plus distortion and EQ for each part.The JP-8080 has independent effects for each part (but only two parts total).

At the other extreme, the Nord Lead 2 has no effects at all, save an on/off distortion button in the filter section.

Oscillator sync and some form of cross-modulation or FM (in which oscillator 2 modulates oscillator 1 directly) are pretty much the norm. The JP-8080 goes further, though. It has a "feedback" wave that can introduce some odd overtones and a unique "supersaw" wave that can be detuned from itself for spread-out string pads. The Virus has 62 digital-sounding single-cycle waveforms, with which it can do some of the same types of timbres as the PPG and the Waldorf Microwave (though without the wavetable sweeps). The Polymorph also has a palette of digital waveforms, but they don't go as far in the direction of bell-like overtones as the Virus does.

Another increasingly common feature: an audio input. This allows you to process any sound through the analog filter and possibly the effects as well, while chopping up the sound by gating the filter from MIDI or the synth's own sequencer. Of the instruments we looked at this month, only the Z1, the AN1x, and the Nord Lead, which are the oldest of the bunch, lack audio inputs.

The JP-8080's audio input has some features you won't find anywhere else. Instead of straight vocoding, you can choose a vocal morphing mode in which the vocal input modulates the parameters of your choice. Envelopes can be triggered by external audio for gating and drum reinforcement effects.

If you're looking for the ultimate in special synthesis tools, the Nord Modular is the instrument for you. Both the price and the learning curve are steep, but a given patch can have as many oscillators, filters, envelopes, or LFOs as you might need. We didn't include the Modular in this month's chart because its features are so far-reaching they don't really lend themselves to a chart layout.

When shopping for an analog synth, be sure to ask whether the LFO(s) can sync to MIDI clock, or to the internal sequencer/arpeggiator. __With LFO sync, you can program sweeps that will keep time with the note pattern.

Analog Synthesizer Basics: Sequencers & Arpaggiators

The old-style analog sequencer is a very different beast from the sequencer in a typical workstation synth. Today's "analog" sequencers are always implemented digitally, but that doesn't mean much except that lots of fascinating features can be added that would have been difficult or impossible to patch together with a true analog sequencer.

A typical analog sequencer has 16 steps, or perhaps a multiple of 16 (32 or 64), suitable for playing a bar or two of sixteenth-notes in 4/4. Most often, all of the steps will be the same length, but you may have the option of programming a rest for one or more steps to create a less monotonous rhythm. The sequencer will quite likely be monophonic, but will have several "rows" of control outputs, allowing you to control several parameters at once ‹ pitch, filter cutoff, and so on.

One way to use the sequencer is to let it cycle while you play the knobs in the synthesis section, adding filter resonance, tightening up the envelopes, and so on. Another method is to use the sequencer's own knobs and switches to alter the pattern during playback. Some sequencers make the latter process easier, while others hide most of the controls in the LCD menus, where they're hard to get at in real time.

The old-style arpeggiator has also undergone extensive facelifting in the past few years. Polyphonic arpeggiators with programmable note patterns and complex rhythms are becoming more common. One difference between a sequencer and an arpeggiator is that an arpeggiator will transpose and alter the voicing of its playback based on the notes you're holding on the keyboard. Arpeggiators tend not to include any realtime controls, however, and usually play only notes; they don't tend to give you independent control over other synthesis parameters.

As you might expect from its "classic" voice architecture, the Nord's arpeggiator lacks some of the innovative features found on other instruments. It goes up, it comes back down. You can latch it, crank the clock knob in real time, and a few other things, but it doesn't even have an "in the order played" direction. The fun part is that you can have four arpeggiators going at once, one on each of the instrument's four multitimbral parts. They won't sync to one another, but they'll all sync to MIDI clock (though Clavia uses an odd type of free-run/retrigger "sync" that may not behave quite the way you expect).

The arpeggiator on the Q gives you up to 16 programmable steps, which cycle through as if they were a sequence while following the notes you play on the keyboard. Lots of complex patterns can be set up, but the multi-page user interface isn't really designed to let you change the patterns during playback. You can adjust the swing percentage of individual steps as well as glide and gate time. Steps can be skipped to create rests, or can be defined in unusual ways, such as playing the whole arpeggio as a chord rather than a single note. As in most of these instruments, you can store a different arpeggiator pattern with each patch.

The Q is destined to have a step sequencer as well, but on the unit we were shipped, the sequencer was mostly inactive. We're told it will have up to 32 steps with note, gate time, filter, glide, velocity, and an assignable MIDI controller amount for each step. These values look to be controllable in real time from a row of eight knobs (which do double duty as the envelope knobs). Word is, there will be 100 user sequences.

The Quasimidi Sirius has both an arpeggiator and a seven-track song/pattern sequencer. The arpeggiator is pretty basic, though it will do rests and chords. The sequencer is much more powerful. It has buttons for realtime track muting and triggering of fills, and up to 100 user patterns can be recorded. Four of the tracks are dedicated to percussion, so the Sirius is not just an analog-style synth, it's capable of some fairly complete-sounding productions.

The AN1x has both an arpeggiator with a supply of preset rhythms and a 16-step sequencer. Each patch can store its own sequence, and the eight knobs can be used to adjust pitch, velocity, and gate time for individual steps while the sequence plays. Changing the knob assignments (or even seeing what they are) necessitates using the switch matrix on the right side of the panel ‹ definitely less fun than the backlit buttons on the Polymorph and Sirius.

Figuring out how the Supernova's arpeggiator works was not easy. The manual is dreadful, and the only phone contact I had was in the U.K., which meant it was closed for the evening whenever I was at the office in California. Eventually I stumbled onto the fact that the arpeggiator patterns are edited under the Global menu rather than under the arpeggiator edit menu itself. The arpeggiator turns out to be quite cool. User-programmable patterns of up to 64 steps are supported, and both monophonic and polyphonic arpeggiation. A number of memory slots are provided in which to store each type. For each step in a mono arpeggio, you can choose which of the notes being held on the keyboard will be played, and as you add notes they're alternated into the pattern in an interesting way. What's more, in multi mode you can use eight independent arpeggiators at once for some truly wild patterns.

The Polymorph sequencer utterly failed the idiot test: I found the stop/start button, but the relationships between the bank of eight knobs and the sounds I was hearing remained obscure until I cracked the manual. Within seconds I was listening to some seriously groovy four-part sequences, and discovering some truly deep interactive possibilities. Each Polymorph sequence has four tracks, one for each of the four multitimbral parts, and each track supports four "lines" of information, one for pitch and three for assignable synth parameters (filter cutoff, etc.). Individual lines can be less than 16 steps, and can cycle independently, so you can create loops where the filter accent pattern cycles across bar lines.

The Sirius sequencer has lots of buttons for realtime control. Its seven tracks (four percussion, three synth) are built up out of ROMand user motifs ‹ a multi-level architecture that takes some getting used to. While knob movements can be overdubbed into sequencer patterns, trying to layer more than one knob into a given track can result in some seriously garbled output (which you might even like).

The Electribe's 64-step sequencer can record realtime knob sweeps. The sequencer has a separate track for each of the instrument's two monophonic voices, but each track can play only one type of knob data at a time: If you overdub a filter sweep track, the envelope decay track will go away. With 256 patterns that can be chained into songs, though, this sequencer still has a fair amount of music power.

The Z1 has a polyphonic programmable arpeggiator with up to 36 steps per pattern. The gate time and velocity can be programmed for each step, along with a few other things. It doesn't have as many features as the newer arpeggiators in the Supernova and Q, but with 15 user memories to work with you can do a lot with it, especially in multi mode.

The arpeggiator on the Virus ranks far below those on the other instruments. It has only the minimum of features, and no controls on the front panel at all ‹ not even an on/off button. If you want the clock assigned to a knob, you have to put it on one of the two programmable knobs when programming the patch.

The JP-8080 has a few dozen rhythm-oriented arpeggio patterns (all preset) tucked away in memory. Frankly, most of them seem kind of gimmicky to me, but a few are catchy enough to fit into a dance track. It also has a couple of buffers (called Motion Control) in which you can record complex multi-knob moves for looped playback in sync with the arpeggiator.

But there's more to the story: The JP's RPS (Realtime Phrase Sequence) system lets you record your own phrases and trigger them from a keyboard with one finger. RPS is off in its own world; it's not a step sequencer. But it will do things like polyphonic realtime input, which a step sequencer won't do.

The Nord Modular's palette of software modules includes four different 16-step sequencers. While these lack the interactive possibilities found on the Polymorph and Q sequencers, they're capable of some exotic effects.

The 777 does a good job of stringing together 16-step monophonic sequence patterns into songs, and it does Roland TB-303-style accents and glide, but it's short on interactive features ‹ other than the knobs, of course.