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Not only could your your Mother have had something like an 0_Coast... your Grandma could have too! Please keep the thread on topic!
JK obviously! Glad you’re well! Incidentally, I reading ANALOG DAYS which is all about starting Moog... there was a chapter on Buchla.

Pretend I said the first part in this guy’s voice.

Sweet collaboration between some cool people. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1pGfsYFRIF/

From the above... I found out this week I went to High School with the guy who designs these synths!!! He was a bit older. So happy to see someone out there who is successful in making synths that were not your Mom's!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ82z30OCq4[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ82z30OCq4

From the above, of from the above. Felix of Tuesday Night Machines made a DIY AE Modular Module of the Stargazer... small world.
Here is the Insta Post... can't seem to embed the image https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz1TcL-oDkW/.

EDIT: Screw it. Took a screen shot and uploaded it to imgur

I'm so confused about what category of synth I need - maybe I can get some comments. I'm a noise/drone musician, with a tabletop setup of sampler and various feedback loops stompboxes, etc.

One of my sound sources is starting to fail, and needs to be replaced: a fairly simple Etsy type "stepping" oscillator box with a filter and LFO (I think I said that right) and a bunch of toggles and pushbuttons which activate the step mode (gives me octaves etc). It's not powerful in features but simple and easy to use, and the pushbuttons and toggles are playable live. But after like 8 years of use, the oscillators drift, making it hard to use live. I need some other type of synth, drone box or even keyboard. But I'm not even sure what format this hardware should be.

Likes: playability (for live performance), not too deep, repeatability (or at least predictability). I already have a lot of randomness (feedback loops) and a lot of fixed elements (sampler). I need something I can play, which isn't totally random or totally preprogrammed.

Don't care about: rad tones (I have stompboxes if needed, so boring-sounding units can still work), arpeggiators, drum sounds, MIDI

I can't tell if I should get a JMT type drone box, some type of Arturia Brute synth (I am not a keyboardist but I see the usefulness of a calibrated pitch generator now) or maybe some type of keyboard-less synth unit like Dreadbox, Stargazer etc (I have zero knowledge of this category, and when I look at these units I don't really understand them... yet). I don't want anything really large or expensive. Less than $500 is good and less than $300 is even better. But I'll consider expensive ideas too.

I am kind of leaning towards a JMT type drone box (I see that Grendel pedal in B/S/T) which is probably the closest direct replacement for the failing unit I have now, and the quickest transition. But I wonder if I should try to grow into something else. I don't play keyboards (not since childhood) but theoretically I could re-learn enough for my current needs. Maybe.

Pics of the failing unit, this is really cool and was only like $110 on Ebay (from "Bent-It" who doesn't seem to be around any more). Kind of a steal, I sniped it. It's unrepairable, the insides were gooped.

I made lots of edits and added more info, but my question still sounds dumb

While reading your post all I could think is: "this person needs a Lyra 8 (or even a Lyra 4)". Not the cheapest option out there, but it is by far the best standalone, playable drone synth I've ever laid my hands on. I'm pretty sure you could cover everything you do with your current sound source and much, much more with a Lyra 4/8. But again, not cheap and I think there's also a wait time if you're buying new

The Electro Lobotomy offerings may be worth a look for you. You might have to get two devices, or he is very receptive to customer orders.

I go down down a similar rabbit hole at least once a year. It looks like this though.

1. Want new sounds source. 2. Let’s look at “drone synths”. 3. Wow these are cool but they’re $500 fo pr a 2 Oscillator, three LFO, and one filter synth. 4. ***Goes on Craigslist -> Sees old school Ensoniqs for $200. 5. Starts over complicating cating search looking for old school gear that is now cheap, but has far more modulation, and waveforms. 6. Realize these things have a lot of menu diving. 7. Start at step two and repeat process as many times as necessary.

Marbeau Synth may be another good start. Also, post links to your set. I’d love to hear some noise drone with a sampler. What sampler are you using?

My suggestions:
Moog MF-102 Ring Mod- use the oscillator out and you have an FM oscillator pre-patched. Or patch the LFO to the pedal input for AM sounds. You can later expand it with exp controllers, other pedals between patch points, and even sequencers (like ehx or Korg).

The cluster flux is another pedal that can be an awesome synth. It's got a different flavor because it's an oscillating delay with feedback control. But it's easy to tune, responds well to CV (sequencers and stuff), can be controlled by exp pedal, and has its own pre-patched FM sounds.

[youtube][/youtube]


(You don't need they keyboard as seen in the next clip...it just can be controlled by midi, knobs or CV. With the S+H LFO built in, you can get some pseudo stepped sequences.)

[youtube][/youtube]


The big koma pedals can be patched in a way for them to make some synth sounds, but it's not as easy.

These are all great suggestions from LG. OMG, running the sampler into any of those pedals...

There are the electro Faustus fugue state, drone synth, and theremin too. The sample player pedal they make wouldn't work though...it has a gap between sample playback (I've tried to use one as a carrier, you have to start the sample over manually when not playing to avoid the gap so it won't work as like a free running wavetable which sucks...it would've been so cool).

$harkToootth wrote:Marbeau Synth may be another good start. Also, post links to your set. I’d love to hear some noise drone with a sampler. What sampler are you using?

Roland 404-sx. I also have used the Zoom R24 and like them for different reasons (more space for stereo samples on the Roland, while the Zoom lets you fade samples in and out, and all samples are synced up). I started using a sampler live because I didn’t want to spend 5-10 minutes building up to a full drone from scratch, I wanted it to sound full from the very beginning. I started by adding a Ditto and it got more complicated from there, previously it was all built up from scratch. Having different samples lets me emphasize different frequencies and textures, and gives me the option to change pitch abruptly if I want to, and have that pitch be dependable. But maybe it’s boring if it’s too planned out and just about activating samples. The Bent-It drone box is fun to play (it can screech, rumble, etc and the doorbell/arcade buttons are very playable) but the pitch isn’t completely stable anymore, so it’s not useful when I need it to drone.

Thanks m8. I think you might like the Electro Lobotomy stuff... but that is getting up there in price these days.

On another note, so... we all love KVLT Peavey... did you know they made a couple synths in the 90s? I didn't. The PEAVEY SPECTRUM Synth sounds... well... GREAT!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LgBRtqtNo[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LgBRtqtNo