So I went to my local dealer to try out the v-synth, or at least get some info.

Man, I thought it was 1500€ but it's .. 2500€ ! Got some serious saving up ahead !

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Make sure you spend a good deal of time playing with it before you buy it.

I can't reiterate enough that you should make sure you spend an equivalent amount of time with another synth (recommend the virus - A1 is too expensive for beginners) so you can honestly compare the sound quality and ease of programming.

You should also take a CD of samples to load of the V-synth to fiddle with.

You will be initially disappointed with the V-synth if you buy it mainly for VA, until you learn to properly program it (which, in some cases, takes months or not ever).

There is no problem with sound quality. Out of the box it's crystal clear well defined. It's main shortcoming is perhaps it's slightly too digital. Programming the complex, evolving and "analog" sounds can be frustrating but definately achievable (but as said before, it's not necessarily straight forward on the virus as well, but the virus sounds more analog out of the box).

I actually bought my V-synth of Ebay. They usually sell there for not much more than $US1500, which is a far cry from 2500 euros.

New in the USA they sell for $US1950. www.audiomidi.com will ship around the world.

My gut feeling with ebay is that as long as you buy from a major reputable company, you're probably not going to go wrong. Course it still can. This does mean that you'll probably pay $US1500 rather than $US1200, but when you buy from a large store with 4000 feedback, there's a lot more comfort to be had.

Postage to Belgium via Fedex won't be more than about $US200, though you may have import tax to pay too.

The V-synth is automatically voltage switching from 110V-220V-240V AC and has a standard three prong socket, so just plug away without fear (confirmed to me by rolandUK - also a web friend bought his V-synth from the USA and it worked fine in Australia).

Last edited by CandyRaver666 on Jun-17-2004 at 14:23

Oh, I should mention the only problem I've had with the V-synth. It was, in fact, clearly not a problem with the V-synth, but rather my set up.

This may be helpful for anyone having problems with noise on a lap top with any earthed external hardware.

Had a terrible ground level loop which almost drove me insane (see below).

Incessant low level beeps, hums and groans from the V-synth, especially coincidental to my opening any windows, clicking any mouse buttons etc. on the computer. Thought my V-synth was broken at first. Now I know better ...

One of the prices of producing on a lap top I guess.

Ground level loops

quote:

Although some companies now seem to be making more of an effort with built-in laptop audio quality, perhaps due to the number of their customers using laptops to play back audio CDs and DVDs, components will be packed more densely than in a desktop machine, internal shielding may be insufficient to prevent noises passing from one internal device to another and getting into the audio signal path, and you may get further digital noises due to the switching mode power supply, plus others that accompany mouse, drive, or graphic activity. Having experienced soundchip interference problems, many musicians assume that they will be able to cure them by plugging in an external audio interface. Sadly, this doesn't always happen, since you are still relying to some extent on the regulation of the laptop's power supply. The vast majority of laptop power supplies are switched mode devices that have a two-wire mains connection on the input side. This means there's no direct earth connection, so the audio circuitry will be left 'floating'. So, connecting your laptop's audio interface to a properly grounded mixer doesn't create a ground loop (there's still only one ground connection involved), but it's possible that its PSU may still introduce the background noises mentioned earlier. You can confirm this by unplugging the PSU and relying on battery power - if the noises disappear then you are probably suffering from problems directly caused by the PSU and the laptop's grounding design. Even if you could, buying a ‘better' PSU probably won't solve the problem, but sometimes you can reduce or even eradicate it by plugging in a dummy cable to another port on the laptop (such as an unused serial or parallel port), and using the earth connection at the other end of this cable to connect the laptop's metalwork and ground plane to ground elsewhere, so you're not relying on the audio path to do it for you. However, you will have to be careful of creating ground loops if using this technique, and may have to break the earth connection in the audio cable, or make up a special lead with a 100 ohm resistor in series with the earth connection. Very successful in many cases is connecting a passive (transformer) DI (Direct Injection) box between the laptop audio interface and your other audio gear to ensure total isolation, so that no unwanted earth current can flow in the audio ground connection. In this case we're not dealing with a ground loop problem, but the same solution may work. Make sure you use a high quality one, as many of the ‘ground loop eliminators' sold for in-car stereo use have a poor high frequency response and suffer from distortion at low frequencies. Martin Walker (SOS)

Thanks for the tips. I immediately set a date to test both the KC and the V-synth.

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quote:

Originally posted by CandyRaver666 Sure Vert. I am in love with my 01X. It is certainly my most important piece of equipment. For those of you with no idea, read on. ....

Dude, did you plegarise the entire FM article? 'Coz it seems to be word-by-word their review....


J/K

Seriously though, the thing that turned me off of 01x:

1. No Optical pipe connections - sure it has MLAN (whoopie!) and coax (S/PDIF) in/out but I was hoping for ADAT pipe.

2. Only 6 (if you don't count 2 mic pre's) analog inputs and only 4 analog outs!!!! that means that I have to either shell out A/D/A converter that will only hook up through coax (and even then - its no guarantee it will work) or buy 2 01x's to hook up my gear

3. "My first mixer"-sort of quality feel. Take 01v and compare it to this one - it feels like a cheapie toy. No option to mount it in the rack either.

4. Level metering - basic implementation on 01x itself and and slow in the software representation

I'm not nit-picking but for $1300+ I was expecting it to at least match tascam in number of I/O's. Granted that Tascam is the biggest POS out there and their support is awful but still... c'mon - at least they could have made Mic Pre's hi-z/TRS combos.

I'm hoping for the next iteration of 01x... maybe 02x with 2x inputs and 2x what it currently lacks for no more than 1.5x more in price

Then I'd consider it....

BTW, not to bash v-synth or anything but sadly that box has absolute "0" vintage value. When I buy my synths, one of the main categories I look at is the "vintage value" - e.g. does the box have a personality / distinction? Take somethink like Triton or Vsynth or any other sample-based synth... Can you tell them apart in the mix? Now consider the same Virus - you can tell virus in the mix, can't you? I know I can.

To me, VSynth is nothing more than sampler with keyboard and some FX combined with Kaoss Pad... Dunno... maybe if you're doing live electronica but how many of us do that? Until then, I can do most of the v-synth stuff with nothing more than Kontakt, Kaoss pad, routed through some external SP (if you need some extra spice).

But overall, you get A+ for the effort and depth of your reviews mate.



P.S. Just picked up Virus Indigo Redback in as-new shape for $1060

thought you'd like to know

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Proud member of the "Filthy Zionist" coalition

I thought I was sort of bashing the V-synth ?


With the 01X limited input, yeah, 8 analog ins does limit your real time usage. It means that MIDI playback can be limited.

But don't we just all record to audio anyway in SX ?


EDIT :

General - If you don't have one, you really should consider a digital mixer for putting together your tracks

To Meh :
-Don't you already have a kC Meh ?
-You really should try the V-synth Meh, seeing you've already got all the basic synths. Sit in the store with it for an hour - take some of your favourite samples in and mangle them.
-I didn't actually read the FM review. Couldn't get to it at the time. If you've got a link, post it please. Interested to see what they say.
-You still having fun with your a6 ?

Last edited by CandyRaver666 on Jun-22-2004 at 23:50

quote:

Originally posted by CandyRaver666 I thought I was sort of bashing the V-synth ? With the 01X limited input, yeah, 8 analog ins does limit your real time usage. It means that MIDI playback can be limited. But don't we just all record to audio anyway in SX ?

I was referring to 8 analog ins. In reality you have a total of 8 analog inputs - with 2 being MIC pre's. This is basically reducing it down to 6. That's my main gripe because I'd rather shell out extra $800 for an extra set of 8 inputs than buy a separate a/d/a converter. Something decent like apogee starts in $1500's! In terms of MIDI, I could care less, as I (as most other semi-pros) don't use mixer's midi ins, I use separate midi interface (Edirol UM 880 user).

And what's the deal with 4 analog outs (well, actually 2 analog outs if you don't count send/return)? The main issue is that 01x appears to be entry-level item at higher than average price. Not everyone is able to afford a ProTools 32 buss digital mixer (with all associated nightmares).

quote:

EDIT : General - If you don't have one, you really should consider a digital mixer for putting together your tracks

For now, that's the only missing item on my list. I've used Korg MikroKontrol for DAW control surface and it stinks. No automation, very short throw faders and pain in the ass to work with. That would be a definite decent entry-level multipurpose swiss army type of gear for someone starting out. For my taste it was too primitive.

So, that still remains a definite "must get" item on my list. I may just get a Control Surface like HUI or something, just so I don't have to arse around with mouse/kbd.

quote:

To Meh : -Don't you already have a kC Meh ?

Yup... its sitting right next to RedBack and boy am I having fun running them two at the same time! (I also have 2 electron machinedrums now as well plus 2 HD interfaces ).

BTW, I am running OS 5.0 on kC and 6.5 on Redback and maybe my ears are lying but I definitely hear a substantial sound difference on the same patches between the two. So, if you own a virus, definitely upgrade to the latest OS.

I may sell my kC soon although I love having two of them. Who knows... if money gets tight, I might just do that but for now I love the massiveness of running 2 Virus Multis at the same time.

quote:

-You really should try the V-synth Meh, seeing you've already got all the basic synths. Sit in the store with it for an hour - take some of your favourite samples in and mangle them.

I had vsynth for about a week on loan from my buddy. He then sold it on e-bay for about 600 less than what he paid. I must be honest that I was totally unimpressed. Sure, COSM is great and some of the things you can do with it are also pretty decent but for the money you might as well get the NI Kontakt, VP9000 or VariOS (if you're dying for COSM) with KP2 and external FX - and you got yourself a VSynth. Here's my take on it: Say 2 years from now when computers become cheaper than dirt and decent MIDI controller is able to controll all the knob and other parameters for the app without any latency, what would be something like VSynth worth? If you want to know, just take a look at what Korg Tritons are going for nowdays (not the Studios). Whenever the box is nothing more than a hardware sampler, its not going to be worth much when you can do the same thing with a pc and controller for fraction of the original cost. As much as I tried to love the vsynth - I couldn't. I'd rather spend that kind of cash on Jupiter 8 (provided I can find one). I like the looks and feel of it but I wouldn't spend that kind of money on it. If I found one for about 500, then I'd get it - otherwise it's definitely on the very last page of my gear wishlist.

quote:

-I didn't actually read the FM review. Couldn't get to it at the time. If you've got a link, post it please. Interested to see what they say. -You still having fun with your a6 ?

Hm... the 01x review is not available on their website, though I do have the article in a hardcopy. I just don't feel like retyping 4 pages of stuff. I may scan it, if I get the scanner to work.

A6 is definitely my favorite synth right now. If I were to get rid of the Virus, that's what I'd use as my master synth. My only concern is for my monitors. Some of those basses are just merciless. My monitors clip all the time when I try to run baseline from Andromeda. I also need to get a fresh set of sounds made, I'm totally sick of all the presets and just need to get around to backing it all up and loading init banks to mess with. I'm too busy re-wiring my rig since I just got the Motu 828 MK II.

Oh, here's a question for you: I got and RME Audiolink 96 (Multiface) and Motu 828 MKII. Which one do you think I should make master and which one slave? Also, do u by chance know which one is better (in terms of A/D/A converters)?

Thanks!

Later!

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Proud member of the "Filthy Zionist" coalition