I originally just wanted to call out that Decapitator by Soundtoys is $50, which is a stellar deal for one of the best saturation/distortion plugins out there. Then I thought I could hilight a few other deals and deal pages for you all to enhance your consumerism this season, so here goes.
The arturia deal above is really good. If you want a possible great entry point into euro-rack I’ve heard great things about the Minibrute 2S and it’s down to $450 new. Could be cheaper used but maybe those used units aren’t in your country or you just need a warranty on all your stuff to sleep at night.
Speaking of hardware, reverb has specials on certain listings. It’s very hit or miss (I didn’t see anything that pushed my buttons), but if they have something you want, it could be a great deal.
You into MPE? A seaboard is one of the few things I wouldn’t recommend buying used because they come with some of the best MPE software available - new. Used it’s a crapshoot.
If you’re really into MPE, then you can save $800 on the Osmose until the end of the year. That puts it in Roli Seaboard 49 territory (even with the latter on sale) and gets you an actual synthesizer to go with it - not just software. Of course, this is a product that doesn’t exist yet, so capabilities may change, execution might be poor, production deadlines might slip, etc. TBH, I’d be surprised if I don’t have one on pre-order in the next few days.
So that’s all I’ve got for now, I should be able to sort all my desires through these sales, but if you find other deals feel free to add them in below.
That Osmose looks really nice… I would absolutely love an MPE controller with a synth, probably the only thing that could get me into hardware synths at all lol. But how do you do pitchslides on this thing with the real keys and all? can you only wiggle the pitch on the same key? Or do you use the black surface above the keys?
I will say this, I was looking to possibly spend $5-700 on synth stuffs…
The Deep Mind12d comes to mind. Also the other Behinger stuffs. So you may be able to hit up multiple synths at those prices. Versions, on versions. They’re already cheap, may get cheaper.
Also, Bestservice seems to have some nice deals on Tone2 stuff: Brand no longer available | bestservice.com | EN - I can highly recommend Icarus, v2 is coming soon and it might just feature a few presets by yours truly
As far as I can tell, no pitchslides. It’s all about the three velocity layers, poly-aftertouch, and individual pitch bends. The kicker for me is that it has a dedicated regular midi mode where it just acts like a poly-AT keyboard, which would be tons of fun on my Rev2. Might flip the full Rev2 I have for a module and pocket a few hundred dollars too, if the loss of an octave doesn’t bother me when I get it.
The way I see it, if I get the Osmose then something like the 25-wave seaboard or the block makes a lot of sense as a companion that CAN do slides, has the y-axis sensitivity, and will come with a couple of MPE softsynths that I could play on either the Seaboard or the Osmose down the line. Even on sale, the 49 key seaboard is almost as expensive, can only be played with software, and won’t work nearly as well with my non-mpe synths and software. So loss of glide and y-axis sensitivity is a tradeoff I may be willing to make.
In an ideal world, the Osmose would have some sort of capacitive layer on top of the keys for sensing vertical position on the key and be able to do smooth glides… somehow. And it would be a finished product that I don’t wait at least 6 months for delivery on.
But that’s nowhere near enough about some of the other music deals.
Sure, you don’t need pitchslides for everything and the Osmose also seems ot have something like an additional traditional pitchwheel. But no y-axis sensitivity, that would be a real no-go for me, just because for me it is part of MPE. But of course, you don’t need it all the time and can go a long way with velocity and aftertouch.
I think the seaboard blocks are great and you can connect more than one. But with regard to pitchslides, you can’t slide from one seaboard block to the next one, so the range is limited if you go with the blocks and connect those.
Yeah, 6 months is a long time, and then they write you emails like “so sorry, but there are some additional delays, but maybe you want to order more of our stuff instead of getting the stuff you already ordered delivered?”
Edit:
playing non-MPE instruments with MPE controllers is mostly a matter of settings (switching everything to one channel), at least with the LinnStrument. For playing monophonic melodies, you can even make full use of y-sensitivity and so on for any softsynth… Even if you cna’t change settings, in worst case it’s a matter of manually deleting parts where different notes overlap and lead to “noisy” automation.
My budget this year is quite limited, aiming to spend between £0 and £150, but most of the budget will go to ssd hard drives so I might just stick to some iOS plugins
that is a no brainer price for anyone interested in a Minibrute 2/2S imo. I adore my 2S to pieces; it’s my favorite monosynth right now, and is an amazing pairing to a smallish Eurorack with the RackBrute system.
I probably won’t spend anything near that. I want a few semi modular to pair with my DFAM. I was looking at the Crave which is cheap and other Behinger stuffs. A Deep Mind 6 or 12 is peaking my interest too though…
If I had an iPad I would think about some type of effect thingy.
Most major retailers are taking $100 of the Moog Grandmother, DFAM, Mother 32, Minitaur, and Sub Phatty. I don’t usually see those going for much less on the used market, so this is a good deal on new ones.
also @bbb I love the filters on the K-2, want one pretty bad but I need to wait and see if I get one for christmas or not, so I’m sitting that out for now. Hopefully a few find their way to the used market in the meantime.
Bleh… Cycling74 is discounting basically everything but the Max 7 to 8 upgrade -_- I guess they’re pushing their subscription model. Meh. But hey, the rest is on sale if anyone is interested, including Ableton crossgrade.
Annual sale, I’ve been looking forward to it as I found I was getting a much better sound using samples than drum machines lately. Tried to be smart and just buy a few drum machines I wanted, but it was more than doing this.
I bought this collection sometime last year during a big sale for a comparable price, unzipped 2 of the packs for use in a track and forgot I had the rest until the other day, I unzipped a few more and was impressed with what all was there. Great assortment of multisampled synth sounds and percussion. Well worth the $40.
I can’t really think of a better companion than a MiniBrute 2S. Mine spends most of its time being patched into DFAM. You have a crazy powerful sequencer that provides you with 4 lanes of whatever that provide independent step length and time divisions. So on the DFAM you can sequence triggers, velocity, VCO1, VCO2 and are no longer a slave to the DFAMs 8 steps. However, you can still use the sequencer for other things and can do freaky things with it since you can patch into start/stop and advance. It opens up the DFAM into all sorts of crazy polyrythms. Plus, you have 2 syncable LFOs. One full blown ADSR envelope and another envelope that’s only AD, but is also loopable, so you can turn it into yet another LFO with more control over its shape. Plus, 2 attenuators, so you can control the range of your modulations better.
If you’re going to have more semi-modular gear, then it’s really a no brainer because it just provides so much value. GC was blowing them out for $300 a few weeks back. If you’re patient, you can probably catch one for that on the used market.
Then out of the Behringer range, I’d grab a Neutron for sure. You can easily stay in that 500-600 range and between the 3 of those, you have a lot of interpatching possibilities.
The Whole Samples From Mars Collection has got some really usable stuff in it for sure. It is a little dry for my taste, but I don’t always want Gold Baby dirt and grime on everything lol.
Minibrute 2S is my favorite monosynth atm and I don’t ever see myself getting rid of it. I like everything about it other than the (lol…) Brute Factor which i never use. I’ve seen people complain about the filter, mainly how it “doesn’t sound like a real Steiner-Parker” and I don’t care. I like how the filter sounds. It has character and sounds great in use. Pulse 2 filter was so boring to me. Don’t get me started on how great of an idea the RackBrute thing was; The 2 adds so many basic building blocks to a eurorack for the price, even before all the insane blow outs and discounts. If I had known GC was blowing these out for $300 I would have seriously considered a second one o.O
@aSSerbik I hadn’t really thought about the 2s. I have looked at all of the Behinger offerings and I like the neutron and the K2. model D too but I don’t think it is as much semi modular. Plus I kind of like keeping all the patches to the right.
Though I didn’t pull the trigger. I’m waiting on my company bonus/week of vacation paid out to possibly get one. Oh, and I have 30 hours of sick pay getting paid out as well, so I can’t wait.
Hell, mother32 is even an option, to keep it in the family.
