Time for a little update...
A lot has hapened latelely... first off I've had to send my father off to the other side, which made me think a lot about my life when it comes to one day having to look back and judge your life... and that has made me think a lot about GAS to be honest... I already did start a movement towards stopping it, but thinking about my father who really did not do much with his life, I started thinking hard about if I wanted to sit in 25 years, looking back and the only legacy I've made for myself, is a hell of a lot of knowledge about synthesizers... that's just knowledge... I'll take that with me to my grave, and I can feel that this is not what I want... I want to have something that will outlast me... some serious music... something that I can look back on and be satisfied with... not that others need to like it, I just have to be happy about it myself.
So my path for a three synthesizer setup and a DAW is still very much the path I'm on... I will choose these three very wisely because when they have been bought, I WILL NOT buy another synth again... these three I want to dive into, 100% becoming an absolute poweruser in them... I want to build a huge library of sounds for them, so therefore they cannot be replaced by anything newer, because then I'll loose all the sounds I've made for them... I already tried this with the REV2... will not happen again.
These three must have presets... I just have to accept, that I cannot live without the ability to browse presets fast when I compose... sound design and composing are two different stages.
The synths must complement each other and cover a broad selection of synthesis methods, but most importantly, they must be completely selfcontained, have a storage medium and have a relatively large touch display... I want to edit sounds and do sound design directly on the synth, thus all three must have keys as well... I also prefer to have effects be part of the sound design process, so all should have built in quality FX.
Two of the synths have been found... the first is the Roland - V-Synth GT... I simply cannot find anything else like it out there, and even if it's 100% digital, it sounds really good. One of it's main advantages for me is the VariPhrase synthesis that allow me to manipulate formants... I simpy cannot find any other synth that will give me that kind of natural sounding vocal phrases that can be manipulated in both pitch, time and formant individually, and choral sounds is very important for the type of music I want to make... if the V-Synth GT did not have this feature, I'd probably not choose it as one of the synths because it lacks on another very important thing; modulation and engine depth... even if the V-Synths seem deep at a glance, and do have a lot going on, each section in the audio path only have 1 LFO and 1 Envelope... there is no modulation matrix, and that quickly can be limiting... an example is the "OSC" section... here you can change both formants, time and pitch... but all three share the same LFO end Envelope whcih is really crippling if you want to mosulate all three parameters... this means that the samples must be very carefully chosen to include a lot of the modulation you want... so if you have a choir sample for example, then it better have vibrato in it, if you need it because if you need to put vibrato on it via an LFO, then the LFO is used up... that's it.
This means that for truly deep synthesis, the V-Synth GT will not cut it... it's power lies in the complexity of the samples you use themselves mostly, which does not allow for much control...
So a deeper synth is needed for this task, and within a week or so, I'll be ordering synth number two... I have found it, and there really is no contender... Waldorf QUANTUM... It has samples as a great integral part of it's various oscillator algorithms, but all the synthesis types seem to compliment the GT... it also has the largest set of synthesis options in any synth today in my opinion... wavetable, Granular, Resonator, Sampler and with OS 2 also the new FM engine... it has the keys, it has the display... it has it all, simply put. It's expensive, but definitely what I would NEED.
So what is it that it has that the GT cannot provide? ... first off; the deepness of the engine... the modulation matrix to induce lots of physical control into the presets for live play... Another aspect is the synthesis types.. I'm really looking forward to using the granular engine... it's perfect for ambient pads etc... the resonator will be perfect for organic plucked sounds etc. and the FM for bellish tones... that topped with analog filters is just cool.
With those two synths I do not know what else I'd be missing really, except for maby those booming analog oscillators and filters of the Gransmother/Matriarch... but these two do not have displays, presets etc. so there really is only one candidate left for this position... and it's darn expensive... but I'll start saving up for it emediately, and should have the funds for it in 1-1.5 years.... yes... it's MOOG ONE... I hope this will induce just a bit of the MOOG MODULAR sound of the Matriarch/Grandmother into the tonality... I know it will not be perfect for this, but with the criteria I've got, plus I will only accept polysynths, I don't think any other polysynth will do the task better... not unless something new comes up before I have the funds to pay for it.
With those three synths, my path towards ambient bliss should be set...