Any Andromeda owners here?

[Over The Edge]

Have you guys compared the A6 to another
polyphonic analog synth?




FL
www.franklucas.net

[Spacehog]

The A6 is the synth I dream about (on the rare occasions I dream about synths)... having played a couple in stores, and heard the amazing sounds that Tom Brislin got out of his on the Yes Symphonic tour, it's definitely on my wishlist... along with a Karma, a CX-3 (or maybe a Roland VR760) and probably a Novation KS5 or similar. They'd complement my PK-6 and VK-6 nicely :)

Martin

[Tusker]

I don't have one. I paid off my Steinway a couple of years ago and swore off new gear for awhile. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm not buying new gear this next year either.

There's a couple of other analog polys out right now. The omega 8 is supposedly bigger sounding with less mod routings (tonal flexibility). I haven't heard one but I've used the SE1 and they seem to have made it our of the same componentry. Omega 8 is discrete. Discrete seems to be bigger sounding, typically.

I wouldn't compare Andromeda to a VA. She sounds smoother, and deeper than most. She doesn't snarl quite as well as many of them. If you want snarl factor to compete with a guitarists, you'd do better going the distortion route or the nord lead route. Andromeda has her own personality and seems very capable of the lush poly sounds you might associate with Tony Banks in the Wind and Wuthering era. Or even a little closer to (though not exatly like) the Oberheim 4 voice pads that Lyle Mays used.

One thing about Andromeda is that she has more tonal range than almost any other true analog poly. So she becomes a simplified modular, in a way. This is factor of having some 91 mod destinations, selectable envelope shapes, and the usual bells and whistles (FM, ring mod, sync, etc.) She has more tonal range than most basic VA's. Something like Ion is easier to do with the VA's though, where you have 17 filter types. To get that amount of variation in hardware, mean buying components for each.

If you go to www. midiwall.com, you'll find the archives for the A6 community. And how to post your questions there. Andromeda is probably one of the best analog poly's out there to some, but she is not for everyone.

Cheers,

Jerry

[Over The Edge]

Oh, I can get my Andromeda to snarl...pretty nasty too!
It's as harsh and brittle as I want it to be and pretty warm
and smooth the others.

The 72 knobs and the rest of the control panel in addition
to the sounds is what sold me on it.

I also have a Minimoog and A^ comes very close to the
insturment its filters were modeled after.


FL
www.franklucas.net

[Over The Edge]

One thing you should never do is take
an A6 to a wedding gig as your main axe.
The acoustic pianos suck.

But I was excited when I first got it and
couldn't wait to try it out.


FL
www.franklucas.net

[synthguy]

I wish I had one. And yeah the Andromeda can "snarl." As Jerry says it has a slightly different flavor from other analogs, but in a way that's a very good thing, as it sits between the warm gutsy Moog sound and the lighter Oberheim and Arp sound, as it has a filter designed to sound like a beefy Moog Modular filter, and another designed after the lighter but still juicy Oberheim. You can use both at once in a patch. The Omega 8 Voice is a wonderful instrument, but it's also over $4000 US most places! Yeow. The Andromeda is almost half that, has 16 voices, a nice big control panel, great Alesis effects and a big ribbon like the Kurzweil. And as Jerry says it has ways of routing the synthesizer parameters like envelopes and LFOs like a modular for some very intricate sounds some synths can't do. And it hhas that lush, creamy, deep real analog sound. I'm giving some thought to getting one next year, even tho the Alesis Ion and Nord Modular would cost a little less and be a little more powerful, because... man, real analog just has a character a computer can't entirely capture.

[Jerry]

Hey Frank. No offense. No question Andromeda can snarl. :D

In fact one of my favorite sounds is an Andromeda snarl that BT does in the song "Madskillz". Your basic resonant 4 pole filter sweeping the frequency, the proco rat inspired distortion unit turning it into pure aggression.

I like that sound so much I made a patch called Madskillz for my An1x. It's not quite as smooth but it's close.

What I meant was that the oscillator section is a little less endowed in the highs than most VA's. One of the attractions of the moog oscillators are the slight rounding in the waveforms. Additionally if you rely on 24db LPF you are going to naturally have more of a midrangy throaty roar than a nord lead shriek. Of course you could bring some hpf, boost the highs with eq, etc. Though it seems kinda silly to try to make an analogue sound like an imitation analog. :roll:

Each synth has it's own character. Variety is fun.

Cheers,

Jerry

[Over The Edge]

Hey Jerry,

No offense taken at all. The A6 oscillators are modeled after the
Memorymoog's and the OB-8's. It may sound a little less endowed
to you in the highs but there are definitely many ways to
compensate for that which would mimic the end results you
get out of your VA programming. In fact I've achieved some
FM'ish sounds just tweaking the HPF's and it seems to do that
very, very well. I actually, at one point thought about getting
a Memorymoog but the A6 is more stable, has a good midi
implementation, more polyphony, nice effects, a powerful
arpeggiator, huge memory for user presets and has an unbelieveably intuitiveinterface.

I also happen to believe that I have a synth which in due time
could become a collectors item as well.

FL
www.franklucas.net

[Jerry]

Hey Jerry,

The A6 oscillators are modeled after the
Memorymoog's and the OB-8's.

Actually Frank you are mixing up the oscillators and the filters. Both oscillators are modelled after the 921 Moog modular oscillator (from the Moog 55). The filters are modelled after the (24db) Moog Modular Filter (904) and the (12db) Oberheim SEM (Synthesizer Expander Module) filter.

These are discrete components placed on a motherboard. Not inside a chip.

The best heard examples of this componentry are Keith Emerson for the Moog Modularand Lyle Mays/Pat Metheny for the Oberheim. Lyle used an Oberheim 4 voice and and Oberheim 8 voice for thick pads and flutey leads in a number of their early songs. The 4 and 8 voice Oberheims are made from SEM's stacked together.

Not so with the Memorymoog and the OB8. Memorymoog and the OB8 both used chips by Curtis (CEM). Why does that matter?

They weren't discrete components like the Modular and the 4 Voice. Compromises were made in going from Modular to Memorymoog and from SEM to OB8. It was the price of polyphony. The Curtis chips did add their own harshness at times.

In building the Andromeda, Alesis modelled their ASIC chips after discrete components for their richness not the compromise polyphonic components that followed them. 8)

It may sound a little less endowed
to you in the highs but there are definitely many ways to
compensate for that which would mimic the end results you
get out of your VA programming. In fact I've achieved some
FM'ish sounds just tweaking the HPF's and it seems to do that
very, very well.

Cool. \m/ \m/ :D

I actually, at one point thought about getting
a Memorymoog but the A6 is more stable, has a good midi
implementation, more polyphony, nice effects, a powerful
arpeggiator, huge memory for user presets and has an unbelieveably intuitiveinterface.


Mike Caloroso used to gig his Memorymoog for it's huge brass, pads and strings, but he's rebuilt his patches on the A6 and is gigging with it instead.

Best,

Jerry