BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

We all know that we have our love for Synths in common. But are there some of you who have had bad experiences with them, wanting to warn others? Spill it here.

I'll go first: NEVER EVER BUY A SIEL SYNTHESIZER, IT WILL FAIL THE MOMENT YOU TOUCH IT.

There, that's better,

now you:-)

uh, well, Programming a Yamaha DX is pretty near impossible unless you've built the thing.
Also, don't rely on the Korg ES-1's SmartCard capability. It's kinda crap.

The Only synth that i have had problems with was a Roland JD-800 it was forever altering the parameters of patches by itself,not just a tweak here or there but completely screwing up patch settings so you couldn't recognise the patch..So sold it after 6 months,great synth otherwise.Had it reset(OS by a Roland servie engineer) and any midi corrupting data flushed,but went the same after a couple of weeks...I would buy one again so long as it didnt have the same problem

I tend to stick with Korg,there reliable as hell,have owned around 28 Korg devices in my time and never had any problems,with any of them(apart from the Wavestation Backlight fading but sorted this out myself)

I think with anything its Luck if anything stays reliableand of course Korg probably have dodgy machines as much as any other manufacturer ,but i would buy Korg ten times over anything else....Never had a bad experience with anything...

No bad experiences here, yet.

jarrekid wrote:uh, well, Programming a Yamaha DX is pretty near impossible unless you've built the thing.
Also, don't rely on the Korg ES-1's SmartCard capability. It's kinda crap.

I was going to say a DX, probably the DX7 / 9 / 100 / 21 - just don.t really like those early FM synh sounds unless highly effected. We used 'Propheteer' off a DX100 for a track once but in order to give it some welly we banged it through a guitar phase distortion pedal and added a shed load of plate reverb. Sounded great for a lead sound then.

Have a listen: http://download.yousendit.com/2D1AFCB370DEF236

a 2 min ext

marnix wrote:We all know that we have our love for Synths in common. But are there some of you who have had bad experiences with them, wanting to warn others? Spill it here.

I'll go first: NEVER EVER BUY A SIEL SYNTHESIZER, IT WILL FAIL THE MOMENT YOU TOUCH IT.

Hm, i have a Cruise and it works perfectly. The sliders are the only things on this machine, which needs a lot of maintenance (crackling because of dust), but that´s normal for a synth of this age.

Biggest crap: Casio CZ-Series and my favourite hate-Synth Number 1: Korg´s electronic birthday-card Poly-800.

Greetings

Stef

PHASEREFFECT wrote:Biggest crap: Casio CZ-Series and my favourite hate-Synth Number 1: Korg´s electronic birthday-card Poly-800.

I would buy a CZ. Seems good for some odd electronic beeps. Agree about the Poly800 though...

GeeJee wrote:

PHASEREFFECT wrote:Biggest crap: Casio CZ-Series and my favourite hate-Synth Number 1: Korg´s electronic birthday-card Poly-800.

I would buy a CZ. Seems good for some odd electronic beeps. Agree about the Poly800 though...

If we talk abut CZ-1 and 3000: There are some good patches and they´re also capable of making some non-standard sounds, but the programming interface is so complex and illogically, that it simply makes no fun to work with. Sure, one can also program them by software like MidiQuest/SoundQuest, but i won´t turn on every time the computer, only to make a new sound. And i don´t have any place for devices like a Drehbank. Same goes to the Poly-800, it simply takes too long to get out a useful sound from this thing. The best usage for a Poly-800 are Basslines. If you can get one for €50 or less, then buy it, but don´t pay more. Better save €100/150 for a DW8000.

Greetings
Stef

I hadn't any special experiences with hardware synths, that's why I can't say anything here. Maybe if I decided to buy a hardware, I should avoid Yamaha DX synths because of very hard and complex programming. But I like the challenge

Regards,
Mike

Years ago I had a CZ 5000 but I sold it to a guy in Spain... but I also never have had any bad experiences with that machine!

WTF? DX-synths are hella fun to program, I love 'em!

Feffeli wrote:WTF? DX-synths are hella fun to program, I love 'em!

seems to be good but a MIDI-programmer should be good, like the PG1000 for the D50
did someone made a video when programming a sound on a DX ?

marnix wrote:I'll go first: NEVER EVER BUY A SIEL SYNTHESIZER, IT WILL FAIL THE MOMENT YOU TOUCH IT. There, that's better, now you:-)

Hehe .. I also have the same experience. Bought a SIEL Cruise once, the biggest mistake I ever made. The Sliders on the thing are like made out of soft plastic. It has a real cheap feel... (No offence to you Phasereffect).

I agree to a part about the CZ from Casio. There sure is a lot of noise on those outputs, it gives the synth a cheap feel. But it might be usefull for various bleeps and bloops

The later E-mu´s at least look like childrens toys. I am suprised that JMJ uses one of those. I guess the blame for that is on the Creative takeover of E-mu.

Quasimidi stuff also gives me the chills....

this should raise a few eyebrows for some of you. this is a listing of my first midi rig.

1.Casio CZ-101
2.Korg EX-800 (Its The rack version of the korg poly 800
3.Roland tr-505 drum machine
4.Apple 2E computer with passports master tracks pro
5.kenwood dual cassette

This set up is jurrasic comparied to whats being used now. This rig was used when i was is high school and can be used today. This rig was also used when i was in the navy. I hope this helps

Never buy a synthiziser someone have crashed by a car.

Love Leelene