I’ve been buying tons of effects pedals for what seems like forever, but recently I’ve decided I’d like to tone down my guitar setup to the essentials and use a synthesizer for most of my glitchy weird spaceship sounds.

So, does anyone have an idea for a cheap (around $400 would be optimal, but it’s negotiable) synthesizer that can create truly wonderful noise?

Microkorg

They go for $400 new or you could probably find a cheaper one on ebay.

I tried a Microkorg at Guitar Center about a week ago, and it seemed like everything I played was the intro to a European techno song.

Maybe I didn’t spend enough time with it. I’ll do some research and try it out again. Thanks.

Just turn on the Rhodes setting and run that **** through a distortion and some delays, it becomes pretty killer.

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Want- Fuzz and maybe a Tremolo

The microkorg is a pretty crappy synth.

I'd scour eBay for a Novation K-Station.
An incredible 25-key synth that does it all.

Or drop 100 on a usb-midi controller and run soft synth.

Get a laptop, reason and a midi keyboard

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Fender 'Blackface' Twin Reverb for sale!!!!

The novation bass station is truly excellent, all analogue, all flavour. THe closest you'll get to a moog without spending the price of a car. I adore mine and have listened to a lot of others to compare. One day i hope to midi up the guitar and track the bass notes with it!

You might manage to find a korg ms20 or yamaha cs10 but they are pricey.

If you wanna go the cheap modelling route why not go for the Alesis Micron (used by Darron Malakian on the last SOAD tour) very nice, or the recent one made to compete with that by Novation called the XioSynth.

The Roland Jp8000 Korg Ms2000 and Novation Nova are the next up the line, very nice moddellers and getting more reasonably priced all the time.

The micro korg looks pretty lame to me, but it's sounds are all over the pop charts. I just hate the idea of having a knob that you can turn to get drum'n'bass in a can.

Crappy digital keyboards can be fun too, like the casio sk1, casio cz100 or yamaha dx27

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Yeah, I’ve been thinking about going this route more and more often because I need to get a decent laptop anyway. I’m really more concerned about carrying the laptop, controller, and guitar rig to any place where I want to play, which is why I hoped there would be a good compact synth for the job.

I feel exactly the same way. Whatever the synth may be I’m not going to be playing Postal Service covers with it, so I would like something unique, I don’t have my heart set on anything “modeling.�

I was thinking about just circuit bending this old Yamaha I have, but I A. Am surprisingly horrible with electronics, and B. Don’t know how wide the amount of sounds I would get out of it are.

novation have released a much cheaper version of the k-station called the xeosynth or sumin. it looks great and endorsed by some good respected people (roots manuva!!) also has X-Y pad and all you'r usual *****.

i'm gna get one for my keyboard rig

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Nord Electro 3 = Korg Mini KP = Digitech TimeBender

Novation XioSynth = Alesis Bitrman = Roland FV500L = Line 6 FM-4

Just get a couple Rolls Test Oscillators. Then you can run them thru the effects you already own.

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that would be great if he wants to start a Hawkwind cover band

test equipment is great for music!

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try an alesis micron. i use that with my pedals and it sounds like the end of the world.

Honestly though, I own a beautiful old Moog monosynth. It's just a giant Test Oscillator with an LFO/Filter attached.

Synths are just tone generators. The good part is the shaping of the signal. I prefer to just get all of my signal shapers in individual boxes. Like a modular synth that can be used for guitar, synth, vocals, whatever...

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I've always wanted to do that. I just need to find a TV repairman going out of business

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Very cool idea!

but, the thing is, I'm trying to break away from effects pedals outside of about 5 or 6 that will stay on my board, which would mostly be delay and gain. So I'd like to have something that creates noises without the use of effects.

Though I suppose a test tone oscillator through a phaser would sound pretty groovy.