I just sold a piece of gear I wasn’t using today (Yorick LFE); once the funds clear, I’m pretty tempted to check the Bree6 out as it’s around the same as what I sold the LFE for.
I don't think you'll be disappointed if you get a Bree6. If you need a sequencer or arp onboard, you'd want to pay a little more for the keyboard version, but I'm fine getting those features another way and prefer the small size and using a separate MPE keyboard with it anyway.
I don’t use sequencers or arpeggiators so it’s fine for me. Of the polys I have, I’ve probably written the most actual music on my Juno 106, in part due to its simplicity/lack of distractions. I’m definitely appreciating the simpler stuff, hence selling the LFE; I got that to go with my Prophet 10 but am finding I’m fine just using its own limited feature set. I can see me really enjoying the Bree6. I liked the sound of the E7 but found the chorus not so great, so I’m glad to hear the Bree6 version is much improved; I wonder if Guido might be able to replace the E7’s algorithm with this new one.
I'm not sure because I saw a conversation somewhere (GS or YT) saying his synths aren't firmware updatable -- but honestly if he produced a simple, one-knob stereo chorus pedal that sounded like the chorus on the Bree6, I'd probably buy more than one. I think part of the magic may be that by reducing it to a single knob, he's optimized the curve of the underlying rate and depth settings so that the entire knob range is one big sweet spot. That's probably one reason the Juno chorus always sounded so good -- there wasn't a lot of opportunity to go into bad sounding settings because of the limited buttons, they were really like specific chorus settings designed to sound good on just about everything.
The simplicity of the Bree6 is another reason it's so attractive. Not to mention the sound, it has a modern sound. Wondering how it sounds compared to a more organic synth like the Polysix?
Sound is a very subjective thing. If I've learned one thing over the years of working with synths, it's that how sound is perceived can vary among individuals. What sounds good versus bad, or what reminds one of modern versus vintage, etc. is not consistent from one person to the next. For example I think you're the first person I've heard describe the GS Music sound as modern -- to my ears it is one of the more vintage sounding synths I own. And then, once we introduce even more vague terms like "organic" (see
this link for more on that) it becomes even more challenging to convey sound comparison results.
I think the best advice I have for figuring out how a synth sounds these days is to listen to lots of YT demos. Back in the day, my advice might have been to take your own headphones to a music store to plug-in and try a keyboard out, but these days there are probably only a handful of stores in the US that would have the synths I'd want to try out on display.
Most of the synths I own now were bought solely based on watching YT, and while it sometimes takes time and patience to find a video that finally sells me on a synth, the method overall has never let me down and I'd say in terms of long term satisfaction has worked out better for me than the older method of trying the synth out in the store.
As far as just a general subjective statement about comparing the Bree6 and Polysix, I'd say that they are very similar in workflow, simplicity, abundant sweet spots, and "that sound" you want from a VCO based poly, and I'd say they both excel at the same use cases and music genres.
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