Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Is 2012 the start of the Analog Synthesizer Renaissance?


This has been on my mind for a few weeks, and I've wanted to post on it.  With all the recent announcements of newer and cheaper analog synths like the Waldorf Pulse 2, Moog Minitaur, and Arturia MiniBrute, analog synths are once again widely available and musicians have a diverse selection.  Korg also notably released a Facebook mini-survey asking what users liked most about the Monotribe (Korg, if it isn't obvious, it's the fact that it's cheap, great sounding analog equipment!)  This definitely hints that more is planned from the analog realm for them.  Before this year, there wasn't quite as great of a selection.  Not to discredit the Dave Smith Mopho and Moog Little Phatty, but those synths pretty much gave two options: a cheap, few knob module, or an expensive (albeit more affordable than, say, a Voyager) proper mono keyboard, at least until the Mopho Keyboard was released.  While these are both outstanding pieces of hardware, the lack of variety was a bit of a downer considering every music company had a signature analog synth 20 years ago.  Anyone new to the synth world would have to put down quite a bundle to properly learn analog synthesis, or take a gamble on a retro keyboard from a shady eBayer that may not last.