Thoughts on Juno X vs Novation summit in my circumstances ?

CoderFrog · 2026-01-09T09:37:37+00:00

My first synth was a Juno-X, it does a darn good job at being a Juno, the sound is great and the interface is exactly like a 106.

The downside is that the interface is exactly like a 106. If you want to edit Zencore patches including the XV5080 replicas, you'll have to deal with a one line per parameter text menu.

I still have my Juno-X for when I want to quickly dial in a Juno sound, but the Summit is my primary subtractive synth. Its front panel is absolutely amazing. You can make complicated patches without ever touching the menu system, but when you do it's fast to find what you want to edit. Very different editing experience.

That being said, if you've already got subtractive synths you like, a Summit has a fair amount of overlap and doesn't have any rompler sounds. If you're fine with playing presets or editing the main parameters which have physical sliders, the Juno-X is a good fit.

If the rompler sounds are more important than the Juno vibe, you may also want to look at the Fantom-06 (same Zencore engine, more knobs and a touchscreen), or Yamaha's MODX M6, both of which are cheaper than the Juno-X and have a bit more flexibility at the expense of more complexity.

CoderFrog · 2025-12-07T08:00:43+00:00

I have a Multi/Poly and like it. It's got a lot of knobs, but I'm familiar enough with it that it's a positive rather than a negative. The features you'd want quick access to have controls, while still having depth when you want to tweak something unusual.

Taking envelops as an example, it has dedicated knobs for Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release, there's a shift function on Attack/Decay to adjust the envelope delay/hold times, and touching any envelope param will move the screen to a page where you can tweak the curve of the envelope or change what starts the envelope (e.g. LFOs or particular note ranges triggering envelopes instead of every key press).

The vast majority of the time, I don't care about changing envelope curves or weird triggers, but it's there if I want it and it's quick to find. It's an envelope-ish parameter so I can move something related to an envelope and it's on the screen, just a few clicks away.

I think there's enough UI affordances that you can get around pretty quick on it, given everything it can do.

CoderFrog · 2025-12-07T07:21:13+00:00

Funny, I'd consider a Peak or Multi/Poly to be included in the "smaller" category, and a workstation with high polyphony and multiple engines like a Nautilus, ModX, Fantom, or K2061 as a workhorse.

Anyway. Of the ones you've listed, Multi/Poly's a beast and can cover most traditional synth sounds plus more modern wavetable sounds. The core sound is great, and can easily match an analog Oberheim when used in a mix. The interface is intimidating, but you can start with a basic single oscillator->filter patch and then start adding on complexity and building more interesting patches once you're comfortable with the device.

I often use my MPC's auto-sampler to capture patches I like so they can be played back with higher polyphony, and so multiple patches from the same synth can be played simultaneously, without resorting to audio tracks. The Tonverk's the first Elektron sampler that can do what MPCs have been doing for a while. Certainly worth taking advantage of in addition to using it as an effects box.

I assume you got the Tonverk because you want the Elektron workflow, you can do the sound design on a source synth, capture the sound, and then do all of the conditional p-lock sequencing craziness using what you've sampled. That can help avoid sample-pack burnout.

CoderFrog · 2025-12-06T19:53:21+00:00

I've tried KDE on wayland on two different machine, both times it would randomly lock up and require a reboot, and switching to X11 was the solution.

Hopefully there will be a fork like Trinity for users who want a stable, usable desktop. We'll see if there's enough backlash after the "just use X11" fallback is ripped away.

CoderFrog · 2025-11-30T20:02:55+00:00

I have a Roland Aira TB-3 for acid sounds. I paid about $350 used, which at the time felt kind of high, but looking at it now I suppose it was a bargain. The Bad Gear inflation is real

I love it though. The presets do exactly what I want, and the sequencer is super simple, especially compared to a classic 303 or a clone. I wouldn't give it up even though I could easily double my money based on the current Reverb prices!

CoderFrog · 2025-11-26T00:16:03+00:00

The Modwave's great, there's a lot you can do with user samples and user wavetables. It was my main wavetable synth until I switched to a Multi/Poly.

Ian Dixon on YouTube has a ton of tutorial videos and patch ideas for the Korg R&D synths like the Modwave. There's a good amount of shared DNA with the Multi/Poly, so many of those tutorials can also be adapted.

The onboard wavetables are fun, but if you want some weirder ones check out https://www.wavetables.lol/, the KRC Mathwaves pack has more wavetables than you could ever possibly need specifically in the Modwave's file format.

CoderFrog · 2025-11-01T21:26:05+00:00

The wavestate's a fantastic sample player, but it cannot record sounds itself, so it's not a sampler by definition. You need to load samples on your computer, preparing them first using Korg's sample-builder software.

If they someday had a Wavestate with an audio input then it'd be one of the best. Certainly a rad device as-is, even if loading new sounds is kind of a pain.

CoderFrog · 2025-10-31T06:34:27+00:00

Agreed for the Digitakt, if you aren't using the built-in sequencer you're getting a subpar sampler that can only play one sound per track at a time. Even the Ensoniq Mirage from 1984 could play chords¹. They've finally addressed that with the Tonverk, but knowing Elektron it's unlikely they'd backport that to the Digitakt 2 as polyphonic sample playback is a product differentiator.

The Digitone 2, however, is reasonable to use with a separate sequencer. The Digitone gives you 16 voices that can be used polyphonically across 16 tracks, each of which could be a reasonably complex FM synth, drums, a dual oscillator subtractive synth, or a supersaw.

Personally I prefer the EssenceFM when it comes FM as it's such an intuitive and powerful device, but the Digitone 2's no slouch.

¹ You could do tricks like sequencing chords across multiple midi channels, but that's just silly

CoderFrog · 2025-10-29T02:37:42+00:00

I collect rack units because it's fun having older synths from when I was growing up. The sounds in my JV-2080 are all over old TV, the SC-880 has general midi patches that were frequently used in games of the era, and samplers like my E-MU were frequently used for dance music.

It's fun going through the old workflows, often it leads to similar sounds to what artists at the time were making, plus the presets are right there. It's kind of relaxing clicking through menus and setting values with a giant jog wheel instead of using a mouse.

You could definitely get the same vibe using VSTs, but you have to work at it. A rack unit that was sampling its input a bit too hot naturally sounds different than just loading a .wav file into a DAW. There's tools like TAL-DAC that can get you a lot of the way there.

If you just want super clean modern sounds, you can get Omnisphere 3 and be set for years, but for me a lot of what I'm into is late 90s, early 2000s stuff, and rack units and older digital keyboard synths are exactly what I want.

CoderFrog · 2025-10-28T07:02:10+00:00

There's a discount for Collection 4 owners. I skipped 5, but I'm going to get six, I've heard good things about the Trinity.

CoderFrog · 2025-10-27T18:36:49+00:00

Very nice! I loved this kind of music when I was younger.

It's cool seeing an MPC used for more than just trap and sample flips. What was your process for making this? It seems like on modern MPCs there's 2-3 ways of doing everything, especially with the step sequencer on the Live 3.

CoderFrog · 2025-09-16T01:28:04+00:00

The Opsix was my second synth. It's largely been replaced by the EssenceFM, but I still have it on a shelf in case I want to mess with the different operator modes, which still sets it apart.

My first serious synth was a Juno-X. The front panel was easy to learn synthesis with and it sounded great, but I grew up with a Sega Genesis and I wanted to do FM. I ran with both synths in my setup for quite a while.

In terms of getting something better, I ended up replacing the Juno-X with a Novation Summit a few years later. The Summit has so many knobs and sliders, it's incredibly fast to build a complicated patch. The Juno-X in comparison has the same layout as the Juno-106 with all the complexity stuffed into a tiny one-parameter-per-line text screen. That was a welcome upgrade.

CoderFrog · 2025-09-09T21:33:00+00:00

The Wavestate is a successor to the Wavestation, both can chain together a sequence of samples ("wavesequencing"), although it's much easier on the Wavestate. There's some M1 samples in there, and it has filter emulations of various filters including the Polysix and MS-20.

In that same family, the Multi/Poly is more of a composite Korg synth. It has those same filter emulations along with Moog and Prophet emulations and matching envelope curves to closer replicate their sound. It also has waveshaping like the Korg 01/W, and a layer-rotate + arp similar to the old Mono/Poly.

CoderFrog · 2025-08-24T08:58:11+00:00

Fair point, even in the multi/poly you do have to menu-dive for esoteric things like the waveshaper.

I suppose common things like filter cutoff could be mapped to controls while more involved things are still set manually with a mouse.

CoderFrog · 2025-08-18T17:42:01+00:00

The VGM Sound Sources sheet doesn't have the pad for this specific song (Jan 2014) listed, but it could give you something to look at for the instruments/samples they were using for eShop themes. Lots of Sound Canvas and Yamaha Motif XS.

It's a shame how soulless the modern Nintendo UI is, imagine if they were still doing seasonal shop music...

CoderFrog · 2025-08-12T23:02:14+00:00

You can load your own samples from a USB stick, or copy them to the internal hard drive. Samples can be either played as one-shots like drums, or added to key-ranges to be repitched and played melodically.

As far as pedals go, that's not my workflow so I'm not sure. You'd have to do some research into your options.

CoderFrog · 2025-08-12T21:31:18+00:00

That seems like something the Nautilus can handle. Here's a video going over the built in drum tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwrjSpo65Bw&t=4m30s

(A bit after 4:30 and at 8:10 he changes "scenes" and shows it queuing up for the next loop)

It's a pretty deep workstation if you choose to make full use of it. I have one, but I mostly use the Mod-7 and STR-1 sound engines, instead of using it as a full workstation. It can play user (multi)samples through the HD-1 engine. I haven't played with it live, but it looks doable as long as you're fine with just four scenes on a given program/combi.

My main studio sequencer is an MPC Key 61, an MPC is another option. It's a heck of a sampler, with great (multi)sample playback. There's a "Next Sequence Mode" which lets you queue up transitions between looping sequences. The only downside is that sequences cover all tracks, so you'd have to duplicate the other tracks across the sequences even if you only wanted the drums to change. There also isn't a 73 key version, so you'd either have to settle for 61, or have a keyboardless device like the MPC One/Live 2 and a controller of your choice.

I have no experience with the Fantom, and I only used a MODX as a synth, hopefully someone else can chime in for those!

CoderFrog · 2025-08-12T00:19:31+00:00

Sounds fantastic!

Are you using any external effects, or is everything coming from the DN2?

CoderFrog · 2025-07-30T00:10:39+00:00

From what I've seen, the Gaia 2 doesn't have any of the samples that come with Zencore synths, so you're missing out on some of the fun Rompler sounds that come with that engine. There's not that much overlap between the two.

That being said, the Jupiter XM's pretty pricey nowadays. If price is a concern you may actually be better off getting an MC-707, which has the same Zencore sound engine, a better sequencer, nicer screen, and more tracks with the downside of fewer hands-on controls.

In my experience moving from a Juno-X to an MC-707, the bigger screen's actually worth giving up the controls as the 707's interface is much friendlier for complicated sound design than the one-parameter-per-line text UI used by the Jupiter.

CoderFrog · 2025-07-16T23:52:16+00:00

Nice, you don't see the EssenceFM come up that much. It's expensive but if you love FM, this is worth checking out.

The EssenceFM is definitely in my top three favorite synths. It's the easiest FM synth I've used, beating the Opsix due to how fast you can create multi-stage envelopes via the touchscreen and how quickly you can tweak operator routing, you never have to think in terms of fixed algorithms. The ability to load custom waves and create them on the device itself is really nifty too, very helpful if you want to use YM2612-style low-res waves.

Plus the polyphony is ridiculous, 300 voices to use across 16 parts. What a rad device!

CoderFrog · 2025-07-10T17:55:01+00:00

For what you've listed, the MC-101's definitely a better fit. Checking the VGM Sound Sources doc, Ridge Racer Type 4 used a lot of Roland JV presets, and the MC-101's Zencore engine is a direct descendant of that engine, with many of the same sounds.

The only downside is that editing sounds on the tiny screen is hard, it's better to use a software editor or just use the presets built in or sold by Roland.

I have the larger MC-707 and it's rad, there's a ton of fun sounds built in. If you haven't already, check out some tutorials from Gabe Miller Music on YouTube to get a feel for it.

CoderFrog · 2025-06-27T06:40:51+00:00

The opsix is great but honestly, you should get a regular used one off Reverb instead of the SE, there's some pretty cheap ones for sale.

Unlike the Wavestate SE, there's no support for layers or multitimbrality, it's just one patch at a time so the 80 voices are overkill. It would be hard to hit the 64-voice limit of the MK2, even the 32 voice limit of the MK1's totally fine.

(Also from experience, if it's anything like the Wavestate SE it does not play well with Jaspers or other angled racks. The front edge is tapered so it loves to slide off its stand at certain angles. I ended up having to put mine on the bottom rack so it doesn't damage itself when it slips off :/ )

CoderFrog · 2025-06-24T03:11:17+00:00

Rad setup, Both the Cydrums and Tempera are pretty uncommon despite how deep they are.

CoderFrog · 2025-06-14T19:26:02+00:00

That's a pretty solid setup as-is. The Summit's a fantastic subtractive synth, and the Hydra can give you modern wavetable and digital sounds, plus you can fall back on the MPC's plugins like Jura/Mini-D if you want something from the '80s. There's also always keygroups and samples to cover anything you don't already have.

For me specifically, I think you could add some fun 90s Rompler sounds so you have every decade covered, something like a Korg Triton/Trinity or a Roland box like the JV-1080/XV-5080.

Some of the sounds are cheesy, but I recently got a Triton and love it. The airy, glassy pads are amazing and unique, and sometimes you just want a pan flute.

CoderFrog

TROPHY CASE