Electronic Music 411 - Ms20, cs30 or monopoly?

07/20/08 + hello6am

I'm away in shiny new zealand at the moment, but when i return i'd like to do some studio swappery.

I'm looking to get a grand old roland poly - a jupiter, either 6 or 8 if i have the nerve, and a flexible mono. I'll work the polyness out in time, but it,s the mono that i'm chewing over-

I've narrowed it down to the choices in the title, and although i'll try them all first, i'm interested in any opinions you guys have. Especially hands on ones!

I've not tried an ms - just the software emulation. I really like some of the tones i heard, and i sold my cwejman so i wouldn't mind a bit of semi modularness, plus the option of getting an ms50 in future. They're just cool looking, and fun looking, but can i be more original?

I've not tried the cs, but have played on a cs5 which was awesome. Absolutely crazy cool sound, and unusual. The 30 just looks bananas, and although doesn't have patch points, is apparently almost modular in its potential. Sounds like fun to me. Plus step sequencer!

The monopoly i have tried, and i liked it - has a really sweet tone, reminded me of old electro records in the best way, and has some unusual and interesting features. Can't mess with four oscs.

As a sidenote, i have an option to get a cut price moog voyager, but it'll still be the most pricey. And it's less flexible.

What would you choose?

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07/21/08 + slp

certainly dirty and special .. damn keyboard

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07/21/08 + slp

erh i meant my laptop keyboard is damn cause i acc. submit ah

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07/21/08 + zifcak

i agree, the ms10 filter sounds GREAT in a really rough way. i was drooling over it after trying it out and thought "wow, an ms20 must be even better!" but when i finally used one, it actually disappointed me in comparison. the sound of the ms10 was just way rougher. i never got much out of the ms20 patching either. maybe it's just the normalizing scheme that i didn't gel with, but even though you can patch a lot it just seems like there's not much there to patch.

i've also used a mono/poly a bit, and the arpeggiator and 4 oscillators are pretty fun. you can also get some really sick noisy FM sounds from it by abusing the ins and outs.

however, i used a cs30 for a few months, and it blew me away! that would definitely be my first choice. you're right, it has modular-like flexibility with all the envelopes, depth knobs, and switches, etc. the sequencer is amazing fun as well. the filters sound really wet and rubbery. it's not as rough as the ms10, but i think they do distort if you overdrive them. there's just a ton of noisy squidgy stuff you can get, especially with the sequencer.

edited: Jul 21 2008 + RogerRoger

First from my experience, I would say the Voyager is probably going to also sound too clinical for your tastes, although the filter will give you alot of "deep" sounds. It's not as flexible as the Cwejman based on what I've read and your original S1 demo you posted here about two years ago. The most interesting sounds I get from the Voyager have come from the triangle waves, both audible and modulating, using the "feedback trick" with the Left output fed into the Audio In. I guess the VX expander would help, but it still strikes me as it would be alot less modulation flexibility than the S1.

Personally, if I wanted a Yamaha analog, I'd get a CS40m. It strikes a balance of having more personality than the 10,15,30, and is more aggressive than the 60,80. Probably a bad example, but it features prominently in "Busy Child" by the Crystal Method.

When I think MS-20, I immediately think DAF. I keep hearing most of its patchable routings are standard routing on alot of other monosynths though. I think the biggest thing you lose with going for an MS10 (besides the pitch to CV, second osc, and the XOR osc) is that overdriven bandpass thing when both filters have high enough resonance summed, at nearly the same cutoff but not quite self-oscillating, to overdive the VCA. I think that is its sonic fingerprint, personally, at least the original proprietary filter design. I can sort of get this with the diode filters in my Minikorg 700S (thanks jarvis) but I'd have to mod it to get access to resonance as a control and HzV/STrig. The MS20's lowpass is "deeper" sounding imo than any non-modular Moog.

That said, here's an example of the MS10 totally dominating the MS20 in terms of dirty, distorted and expressive: link I once asked the composer and he said a pedal was used with the MS10, but I can't remember which one.

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edited: Jul 22 2008 + oerfil

hello6am said: "
Why change from an ms? What was lacking?"

Well basically the problem was the signals it gives, as most of my other gear is roland and uses the same CV signals as the Doepfer that was a big plus.

The MS-20 was always left out of the CV connectivity.

With the doepfer I get like endless amount of CV modulation sources, I've got the SH-101 that i fitted a input for filter mod(and has cv + gate in), the same with the 303(filter in, cv + gate out), and the future retro also uses the same signals(filter in, cv + gate out).

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07/22/08 + slp

speakin of dirty analog monosynths, the mfb Kraftzwerg / synth2 requires a mention...
link
i have a synth2. its the most guitar-y synth i ever played on. specially trough some pedals or an amp...it sounds just like a guitar!
well, not really, but in some way it does. probably has to do with that its not very 'high-end', but sort of mid-y and hard to tune.
great for basses and drones etc.. not so great for percussive sounds (synth2 that is, i think the kraftzwerg has different envs , might be better for that , but i havent tried it yet)

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07/22/08 + hello6am

yeah the voyager is definitely not going to be the right thing, although I've played with it a lot and I do love the sound. But its just too limited a sound I think. I want less synths, that have a character that inspires me, but can do a wide range of sounds. cs30 certainly seems most flexible, but short of a few samples found online...I'm going to have to try it to know if its for me. anyone in the uk got one...?

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07/22/08 + RogerRoger

Pardon the off-topic, but I'm sort of pissed at my Voyager right now anyway: It does this annoying thing where if the filter cutoff is lower than around 4khz(staying in that range no matter what modulates it) and the Amp attack is anything at all resembling a sharp attack, about 25% of the time a new note fires I get a loud POP!!! You're sort of forced to shelf off all the highs in post above this lower range, but then you lose some subtle harmoincs.

Ok, back to CS30...

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07/22/08 + zifcak

RogerRoger said: "Pardon the off-topic, but I'm sort of pissed at my Voyager right now anyway: It does this annoying thing where if the filter cutoff is lower than around 4khz(staying in that range no matter what modulates it) and the Amp attack is anything at all resembling a sharp attack, about 25% of the time a new note fires I get a loud POP!!! You're sort of forced to shelf off all the highs in post above this lower range, but then you lose some subtle harmoincs.

Ok, back to CS30..."

is there a way to sync the oscillator to the note-on message? if so try that out. i'm guessing the oscillator is mid-cycle sometimes when the amplitude jumps up and you hear a sharp harmonic. if this is the case, resetting the oscillator to 0 at note-on should fix it. maybe you don't hear it when the filter is open because there are more high harmonics present to mask it?

edited: Jul 22 2008 + RogerRoger

zifcak said: "is there a way to sync the oscillator to the note-on message? if so try that out. i'm guessing the oscillator is mid-cycle sometimes when the amplitude jumps up and you hear a sharp harmonic. if this is the case, resetting the oscillator to 0 at note-on should fix it. maybe you don't hear it when the filter is open because there are more high harmonics present to mask it?"

All 3 Oscillators are free-running afaik, although the LFO is syncable, so one wonders. Yeah, looking at the waveform in an editor confirms the mid-cycle theory, showing that it sharply comes up for a few ms, then arches out at a different angle. Lower filtered bass sounds are closer to sinusoidal, which explains the volume of the pop. I don't think there's a DC offset or it would do it on every new note. Only other theory I have is the internal Gate is latent by a few ms from the actual VCA envelope to the amp, cutting off the beginning of the attack shape.
The thing that gets me is my SCI Pro~One does not have this problem, and its enevelopes are actually snappier! I'm pretty sure its 2 oscs are also free-running. Not to mention all other Voyagers I've messed with did not appear to have this problem at this severity. Like I said though, nothing I can't fix with a post LP filter/shelf.

And again, hello6am, I apologise for hijacking your thread!!! Especially just to whine.

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07/22/08 + minisystem

i like my MS-20. it is a great synth. this thread reminds me that i need to use it more.

i also really like my CS-15. it is also really great. mine is quite dirty and gritty. i wouldn't describe it as vanilla.

i had a mono/poly. only analogue synth i ever sold. i just didn't get along with it for the same reason as jarvis - the 4 oscillator thing was just weird, especially the pseudo-polyphony. it sounded good but i never loved it.

how about a roland system-100 101/102? those are super fun. and nicely semi-modular.

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07/22/08 + jarvis

in retrospect, i was kind of forced to use my cs15 for bass in a band setting. in that respect it had some balls but not much character and perhaps that's what left the lasting 'vanilla' memory in my head. outside of that it was pretty sweet as far as routing goes (2 envelopes each with +/- curves was great). the filter was pretty rubbery too iirc.

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07/22/08 + sohcahtoa

To me the characteristic CS-15 sound is the weird nasaly leads and basses you can get by using two different filter types in parallel and sweeping them both with the brilliance slider. I haven't really heard many other machines make that sound in the same way. I have a CS-15 and an MS-10 and the MS-10 is definitely the one with more character when it comes to the usual (one oscillator) synth sounds. The CS-15 sounds a bit refined...stable...while the MS-10 seems like it's just barely keeping itself from exploding. I always thought the CS-30 looked like a good time, but if I had money to blow it would be on a Mono/Poly.

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07/22/08 + hello6am

Yeah, i'm even more torn after looking at a few vids of the ms50 on yout. Jesus christ! That thing sounds fat as tits!

Pricey to get a 20 and 50 though. But you'd have as much flexibility as the cs30 and you'd have the 50's ripping osc and filter.

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