Andromeda vs. Voyager

[inverseroom]

Pretty much any poly will do, but if you're looking at that kind of jing, a Poly-Evolver is where its at.

Except the polyphony is like, what, 4 voices? That seemed to be the limit on the one I tried, maybe there was layering going on . . .

Yeah, it is...but even the regular Evolver, with its one voice, can sometimes sound like an entire Kraftwerk album. Remember each voice is 4 oscs, and they're drastically different from one another, and can be separately sequenced.

I never use more than a few voices of synth...it's not like piano, or organ...the effect comes from the complexity of the sounds, not how many notes you've got at your disposal. Even on the Juno-60, I never run out of voices.

In this day & age though, I can imagine 4 voices might be a deal breaker for a lot of people. And of course the price is a deal breaker for me.

For now.

[apropos of nothing]

Pretty much any poly will do, but if you're looking at that kind of jing, a Poly-Evolver is where its at.

Except the polyphony is like, what, 4 voices? That seemed to be the limit on the one I tried, maybe there was layering going on . . .

Yeah, it is...but even the regular Evolver, with its one voice, can sometimes sound like an entire Kraftwerk album. Remember each voice is 4 oscs, and they're drastically different from one another, and can be separately sequenced.

I never use more than a few voices of synth...it's not like piano, or organ...the effect comes from the complexity of the sounds, not how many notes you've got at your disposal. Even on the Juno-60, I never run out of voices.

In this day & age though, I can imagine 4 voices might be a deal breaker for a lot of people. And of course the price is a deal breaker for me.

For now.

I've heard a lot of synths. Analog, digital, hybrids, etc. And a lot of them have things to be said for them. Admittedly, I haven't heard the Andromeda. I've heard a lot both pro- and con-. Seems like the UI is pretty intense on the learning-curve side.

But what I do know is: oscillators are the thing. And the oscs in the Evolver are so lovely.

Polyphony is overrated. My two applications for synths are A) recording and B) playing live. Playing live, I rarely am playing more than four notes on a particular sound. Especially if I have another synth for bass. Recording... I'd rather have awesome oscillators vs. more oscillators which are just so-so. Caveat: I record all my synth parts to digital audio, rather than sequence them -- better feel. So for my needs there, again polyphony doesn't really play in.


I'll say this though. You've got really good taste in looking at analogs rather than the currently crop of ROMplers, on which nothing but the DA has changed or improved in the past ten years, and only marginally for that.

Here's my overall eval (based on experience in the first two cases and what I've read on Analogue Heaven and other sources for the Andromeda).

Moog voyager is the ultimate in phat-bass machines. You simply cannot do better in that regard. It'll also do cool leads, and neat effects. Interface awesome, XYZ pad, killer! Drawback? Monophonic.

Poly-evolver is, I think, the sweetest all-rounder on the market. I've gotten some really nice bass sounds out of the mono I have, and I'm saving my pennies for the poly. The sequencer is the shiz-nit, and I've lost my jones for a modular since I got the dsi mono. Why? Cuz with the seq, the Evolver does about everything I can think of that I'd do with an ARP 2600.

Can't really offer a qualified opinion on the Andromeda, other than saying that even the folks who have one and love it say that the learning curve for making useful sounds on it is about a 95degree grade. And people do love it. Maybe its the stuff fer you.

[pulse_divider]

Polyphony is overrated. .

I completely agree. For some things it's absolutely necessary and it's a lot of fun to play huge pad sounds, but ultimately it's pretty over-rated. I always think it's funny when people post their gear lists and they have half a dozen top-shelf analog polysynths but no monos. I guess you can always put the polys in unison or mono mode, but it never sounds or acts quite the same...

[apropos of nothing]

Polyphony is overrated. .

I completely agree. For some things it's absolutely necessary and it's a lot of fun to play huge pad sounds, but ultimately it's pretty over-rated. I always think it's funny when people post their gear lists and they have half a dozen top-shelf analog polysynths but no monos. I guess you can always put the polys in unison or mono mode, but it never sounds or acts quite the same...

Fer monobass, I run keyboard x through the Moog LPF-101, and usually a little hot-to-trot, which instantly renders whatever it is monstrous, even my Ion.

[pulse_divider]

I think the Ion's actually got a pretty good sound, from what I've heard. I have very limited experience with one (just played it for a while at the music megastore) but I preferred the sound in most of it's range to similar classes of sounds in the Andromeda. Though I disliked the UI on both pretty equally. And I have to admit, the Andy sounded good at the GC; my dislike started when I got home and I heard in a non-Jump/Lucky Man blaring environment.

Great sounds can come out of *any* synth if you find its sweet spots. But there is nothing that touches a discrete monosynth for sheer balls. I can think of very few 70s monos that don't sound amazing.

[percussion boy]

Polyphony is overrated.

Um . . . Kind of depends what you're doing, and what else you've got to work with.

Sometimes my polysynth IS my piano/organ/ensemble, and I need to be able to voice a 5 or 6 note chord on it.

Even if you're only using 3-4 notes at a time on a four voice synth, you have to be real careful to use short release times, or expect notes to disappear unexpectedly when voice stealing kicks in. Sometimes I feel a little weird playing a one-note line on a monosynth, because I want to overlap the notes a little and it won't do that.

And while I'm mouthing off: I've heard the Poly-E, the Voyager, and the Andromeda, and they're three VERY different emotional flavors. I wouldn't make that choice without hearing them all first. With the Andromeda, that would ideally mean spending some time programming it too.

FWIW.