Then again there hasn’t been anything remarkable on the synth front. Micron SE seems to be just a color job, motif XF was a joke of an upgrade and I’m not even interested in looking at the DSI Mopho keyboard. Is it just me or do the Dave Smith synths have a bit of a basement workshop fit and finish? Sorry but its not just about the sound to me. A synth has to look the part. The blofeld keyboard is out of the question as well because as much as it rocks spec wise, my experience with waldorf synths hasn’t been great. I find them frustratingly buggy.

Reaktor 5.5 seems like a worthwhile upgrade but will I ever have the time to use it . I get the sense that native instruments is tightening up the reliability of their line up. I’ll give battery another chance. Maybe 3.1 isn’t as crash prone as 3.0.x.

Looks like Korg dropped the price from $999 to $699 on the Radias-r. Should I bite? That is one fine synth and I’ve had my eyes on its knobs for a loooong time. Hmm maybe not. The time thing again. Maybe I’ll just get a Korg monotron instead and see if all of the noise about analog synths actually hold water. It can’t be bad for $60.

The imminent  os 4 upgrade will offer a mod matrix feature on all Virus TIs. The feature allows you to use an arpeggiator pattern as a source in the modulation matrix. To those of you not familiar with a mod matrix, I would describe it as a non random, tempo synced, sample and hold LFO. In other words, its a sample and hold LFO that allows you to set the wave level at each individual step(up to 32 steps in the viruses case). A few enhancements have been made to the arp editor in Virus control to facilitate this feature. Firstly, The arp has gained an “Arp matrix mode”. In this new mode, the arpeggiator does not trigger new notes after the first step of the pattern while keys are held down. This allows you to play a sustained sound and have for instance, filter cutoff modulated cyclically by the matrix.

This new addition to the Virus Os has made it a bit easier to put of getting a Korg Radias. Now I can wait till I find a truly crack head deal. The virus’ implementation has a long way to go to match the Radias’ 3 independent sequencers and 16 physical knobs but it is a decent start.

In a future point upgrade, it would be cool to be able to set the modulation destination as an attribute on the arp itself, in addition to setting them in the mod matrix. The TI’s LFOs currently work like this so I don’t believe this will be difficult to implement. The reason this would be cool is that, it would make it possible to switch the range of modulation levels to one that makes sense for the destination being modulated. Take a scenario where you want to modulate the index of a wavetable oscillator with the matrix. If the selected wavetable only has 24 waves, does it really make sense to be able to set the modulation level to 127? All together class “NO”. The EXB-Radias expansion available for the Korg m3 workstations, work this way. The modulation step level settings are also presented in a bipolar fashion so it is clear to the user that they are modulating an attribute either up or down relative to the the attributes current value.

Other goodies slated for the release include comb and vowel filters which are available in the effects block rather than the filter block. 6 spice(curry, saffron, chilli, onion, pepper & mint) themed stomp box overdrive effects are also on the menu. I suspect that the colors of the spices they have chosen to name the overdrives after, is a clue to the identities of the stomp boxes the access engineers based their models on.

I’m still happy I chose the Virus Polar even though I still have an outstanding mortgage on it . The new comb filter will fill a void left by by recently departed waldorf blofeld and the vowel filters will bring back to life, the one feature I missed dearly on my E-mu 6400 Ultra sampler.

Not a bad upgrade at all. Bravo chaps!!! The released demos sound good to these ears but have a listen for yourself at Virus OS4.

I’m a musician/photographer/software developer. You shouldn’t need any additional info to diagnose my attention deficit disorder. This blog is to chronicle my quest to escape the ghast mediocrity I currently find myself in.

So lets talk about synthesizers but first, my Kanye moment.

<kanye>My mayonnaise hued trinity of the Virus TI Polar, Waldorf Blofeld, Korg m3( w/ radias exb) is the bestest ever setup. It will be remembered as the setup of a generation. Kurzweil doesn’t like black people.</kanye>.

This isn’t safe sex with your wife, this is a bloody sunday orgy if you ask me. Did I say how hard this collection makes me?

The not so holy trinity is complemented by Logic 8, N.I Komplete, Kore 2, Korg Legacy Bundle, Arturia Analog Factory & Prophet V. As you would imagine, the plugins don’t get much use lately.

In the next couple of days, I’ll be posting pretty extensive reviews of all 3 synths. My good friend refers to the blofeld as a poor man’s Virus but I think the little German kitten has some tricks up her sleeve that would melt the T.I snow. I guess a Virus, Blofeld, Radias shootout is in order so prepare for some white on white crime.

Read my reviews knowing that my perspective has been shaped by past dalliances with …

ALESIS:

• Micron – Gr8 sounding but the Blofeld covered a lot of the same ground.
• QS6 – This had a Wurly that I really loved. I traded this in towards a Nord Lead

CLAVIA

• Nord Lead – This synth was the San Grail to me for quite a long time. I remember walking into Turnkey’s in London during the Chronic/Doggystyle era and being blown away because I could play those Dr Dre synth leads. Plus the nord looks sexy as hell. When I finally got one years later, I didn’t do much with it. I was disappointed by the lack of effects and strangely enough, I didn’t really program it much. Must have been the first synth I sold on eBay. I remember dropping it of to the guy that won the auction at an Ikea parking lot. Hmm what did I do with the money? Dime bars, dime bars, lindenberry sauce over meat balls biatch.

KORG

• Triton Classic/Extreme w/MOSS – Classic -> Extreme -> M3
• Z1 – Replaced with MOSS, I miss some features but I generally don’t care for physical modelling
• MS-2000 – Loved it but I wasn’t much of a programmer when I had it so let it go.

E-MU

• E6400 Ultra – This is the first sampler/synth that got me programming. Loved the Z filter and the simple modulation matrix. Who uses hardware samplers any more? Replaced by Kontakt 3. Kontakt doesn’t have a replacement for all the Z filters but makes up for it with a lot more.
• Proteus 2000 - I went gaga for this when it first came out. EP Roller, Wormy Lead, Guitar sound D’angelo and Sean Paul used. It was also the first synth I used that had an audition feature. I didn’t really program it.
• ESI-4000 -Another cool sampler. For me, the E-mu samplers always played Mac to Akais PC.
• MP7 Command Station – Cool sequencer with a gang of knobs. Great combo with the 6400 but there is something about emu presets that make them grow old so fast.

YAMAHA

• Motif ES-Not the most intuitive interface but the best sounding rompler I’ve owned. Synth architecture was nothing to sniff at though but I never really programmed it. At one point, it was cheaper to buy the AN200 & DX200 loopfactory groove boxes than it was to buy the PLG expansion boards so I bought the pair ad transplanted the PLG boards to the Motif. The boards sounded great but the interface was not happening
• A4000 – Another great sampler but with a quirky program/zone/sample hierarchy. Great efx really cool interface with some intuitive shortcuts.
• Rmx-1 – This unit was the bomb. So simple with flash memory and so immediate. Brilliant combo with the E6400. I sampled a single note of the Subsonic bass patch from this bad boy and I still use it today in Kontakt.
• RS7000 – A combination of the Rmx-1 and the Motif. Not too shabby. Dope grid record mode(Head banger, head banger. EPMD).
• FB01, TX81Z – Yamaha FM crap boxes. Decent bass but definitely a crack head move on my part to pick those up. Great for those early 90′s swing beat sounds though.
• PSR *** – I don’t remember the exact model number but it had a built in sequencer, drum pads and an orange lcd. Got this from the music store on Cold Habour lane in Brixton way back in the day. The dudes in there were so old school. They referred to sound modules as “expanders”. Thats the same store that had the Alesis SR16 in the window.

ROLAND

• VP-9000 – Interesting unit but I’m not really into loops plus the way I trigger my samples when I do hip-hop doesn’t really require time stretching. That is one of the few limitations that yields creative results I think.
• MV-8000 – Wonderful beatbox. Head and shoulders above MPC 1k, 2k, 2500. Wonderful feeling pads, very quick workflow with nothing more than a couple of button presses away.

In the end, what matters is the music and this journey through programming, is really just another way to find a distinct voice. I’ve been procrastinating for a decade partly because I only wanted to be a producer rather than an an artist but now I feel like I have a great album or 2 within me .

I’ll keep you posted on that as well. The alias is Alternegro and the working title is Chupacabra’s Revenge.