KORG phase8 – Acoustic Synthesizer

Your take is obviously a valid one though. I just find it infinitely interesting how there can be so many valid viewpoints about something like this.

I'm sure I'd have a good time playing with it for an afternoon and come up with some sounds I like. And, in principle, I'm all for more ways to create music existing - especially ones which are interactive and tactile. But the reality is, if I bought this device it would end up spending most of its time in the basement graveyard with all the other cool tools that are too narrow, too big, too hard to interface, store/recall patches, etc.

I decided several years ago to refocus on a stack that's purely microphone (or other a/d converted input) + MIDI controllers to a DAW driving infinite layers of internal real-time digital synthesis, analog modeling and effects plug-ins. There are fabulously expressive MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) controllers now which can capture every nuance of input my hands, feet and breath could ever provide. As you highlighted, the feeling that creating in a digital audio workstation is "too easy" or maybe somehow 'soulless' - is all in my head. That lurking suspicion analog circuitry or electro-mechanical waveforms are more authentic or pure is just magical thinking.

Always believing that the next new box's cool-looking tactile input, novel interaction model or unique set of opinionated constraints will unleash my creativity - is just getting in the way of actually sitting down and making myself create with all the insanely powerful, wildly creative, infinitely flexible, hyper-productive digital tools I already have. Being able to save and recall entire racks worth of patching at the press of a button isn't soulless or limiting - unless I let it be. Feeling like I need just-one-more new device to inspire me with its defaults or constrain me with its limits - is the limiting constraint I finally realized was holding me back.

I had an OASYS PCI and synthkit 20 years ago that had incredible physical modeling.

Maybe because I can picture what this would sound like with those OASYS models that it is not impressive at all.

I do always appreciate how daring korg can be though.

While the feature is useful, in some senses it's not terribly important to have a sound be exact, because you're giving a performance to the circumstance. Acoustic instruments react to temperature and humidity and all of that - it worked fine for thousands of years of music.

Motor Synth: https://gamechangeraudio.com/motor-synth/

Agreed the Phase8 is a neat synth. Basically like a Rhodes and a EBow had a baby.

https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/1j7hgoo/makin...

Erica synths makes really solid hardware too.

Almost all of them own instruments and gear they'll touch once and never do anything meaningful with ever again. Then it becomes a fixture on their walls or den.

It all seems wasteful.

But still, by rich people standards, it seems cheaper than other things like buying a huge boat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonewheel

Speaking of spring reverbs: you can use a cheap piezo transducer mounted on the tremolo springs of an electric guitar as a passive reverb. Waylon MacPherson demonstrates this in his YT channel: it actually sounds good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP5pJLgHrgw

I expect this will turn into a small range of variations with strings, tubes, and so on.

But it's also part of a cultural trend moving back from do-it-all software products to tactile collectibles with a simple, legible purpose. Vinyl started that, and I think this is a kind of musical take on the idea that something mechanical has more presence and authority than software.

Sonically I don't think that's true at all, but it's a comprehensible marketing pitch.

I also imagine that it's the olive branch that brought Takahashi back to the company after he left. He brought Korg back from the dead and they were probably and rightfully desperate to find a way to retain their top performer.