4.8
When I browse synth reviews and A/B comparisons online, one thing is very clear to me: my brain will subconsciously prefer the synth I had already decided to like. But in a true blind test, where I cannot tell which is which while listening, my answer might be very different.
When I stop comparing and just search for one model’s sound by itself, I usually think they all sound great. But once comparison starts, self-inflicted bias starts too: “Prophet 5 must be better than Prophet 6,” or “DCO can never sound as warm as VCO.” In reality, these are biases, not strict tests.
In music-making, I prefer not to chase so-called single-dimension “ultimate quality.” What some people call “warmth” or “analog feel” unique to one synth can often be recreated elsewhere with tiny processing changes, like a 0.5 dB boost around 500 Hz or +2 dB saturation. Today, variables shaping sound are not limited to circuit design; post-processing is deeply integrated into the whole production chain.
I can take a badly recorded sound and turn it into something unique through resampling and processing. I can also take high-fidelity recordings from excellent hardware and sculpt even better texture through careful processing. Ultimately, everything depends on the user. The tool itself determines only two things: the available post-processing headroom under its limitations, and the use case it was designed for.
Comparing phone mic vs U87 for vocal quality is meaningful in one context; comparing U87 vs phone mic for convenience/compatibility is a different context. Mixing those contexts is meaningless because usage scenarios are different.
If buying instruments is only about hearing the pure raw instrument sound, then yes, you can rank synths by strict hierarchy. Is there no gap between UB-Xa and OB-X8? Of course there is. But does a gap automatically mean “worse”? Not necessarily.
At first listen, OB-X8 may feel “warmer.” But if I translate adjectives into technical terms, that warmth can be decomposed into tuning drift dynamics and stronger midrange loudness. In modern dense productions, that range often needs control anyway. In sparse arrangements, OB-X8’s raw tone can indeed bring special color. But can UB-Xa never do this? With multiband excitation and EQ, you can often achieve a near-equivalent result. When the gap shrinks from 10% to 3%, whether that final 3% matters becomes context-dependent.
My view: if you buy instruments to play instruments, hardware differences feel huge. If you buy instruments to make music, you mainly need to understand each instrument’s core character and direction. Details are for your ears and mixing skills.
There are exceptions. Some synths are so idiosyncratic that without dedicated digital modeling, their tone cannot be truly reconstructed by post-processing. For famous instruments like OB-Xa and Juno-106, where many software recreations exist, the debate is often about that final 10% and how (or whether) to restore it.
A classic example is The Midnight. Producer/engineer Tim McEwan once answered “How much hardware did you use for this sound?” with: except for parts of Heroes, all pre-Heroes synths were software. After knowing this and listening again, you realize the creator’s understanding of tools matters far more than the tools themselves. If you do not understand what your tools can do, even “the best gear in the world” will not give you your target sound.
Given how much hardware I own, maybe this sounds less convincing. People might ask: “If hardware is not necessary, why do you keep buying it?” My answer is similar to many others: hardware interaction gives me inspiration software does not.
Some movements are difficult to draw directly as automation because of sequence and tactile feedback. If you perform dynamic filter movement by hand, you can reverse-engineer it into automation later. But searching for inspiration purely by drawing curves while staring at a software interface is a different feedback loop than real-time physical interaction.
I always recommend music creators not to ignore physical interaction with instruments. Even a MIDI controller is often better than only a mouse. For me, many sounds created on hardware eventually get converted into Diva anyway. So why hardware? For inspiration.
I also credit instruments that inspire me. I mention in release notes what was used, because I treat these instruments as collaborators rather than disposable tools. That includes software like Diva and SERUM too. This, to me, is part of human-musical interaction.
4.9
Sometime last year I saw Justice had released new music, early in the morning while still half asleep. I closed my phone and moved on. Only today did I realize this was one of the few albums I knew existed and was interested in, but never listened to.
So I listened to the whole album while walking. My reaction: Hyperdrama cured my electronic-music fatigue. I genuinely don’t know what is inside these French minds, but they repeatedly reinvent ideas others have used for decades. The album even gave me flashes of Random Access Memories. I felt that rare excitement of being hit by truly great music.
The first and second halves feel noticeably different, especially later tracks that move toward deconstruction and hybridization of musical language. Explorer is the clearest example. It felt like standing at the center of an interactive stage play. Some arrangement choices are unusually bold. I had never heard such dense irregular level-drops at that tempo before; it creates deliberate and fresh dissonance.
After one listen it’s hard to offer a substantive review, but this is probably the first new album in a month that I finished end-to-end. I had stopped exploring new music because genuinely novel experiences feel rarer in the current market. Either you dig deep into obscure corners, or you end up with bland listening. That’s why an album that sits at the center of global attention while still breaking clichés is so valuable.
4.9
After finals I kind of want to buy this (MiniBrute 2S)… I already own many synths, but I never feel “too many.” Maybe it’s similar to collecting figures or craft objects. That said, I really do use my gear in production instead of treating it as studio decorations while secretly staying 100% in software (which, to be clear, is also fine).
My view of Arturia has improved a lot. I used to think they were weak on detail. Their vision of serving modern musicians across scenarios was great, and products looked convincing, but real use always surfaced many minor annoyances.
Previously, Arturia’s small UX details often felt rough: plasticky keybeds in some products, laggy UI animations, occasional automation glitches. I especially remember OB-Xa V in V Collection feeling too far from real Oberheim behavior.
MiniFreak, however, showed me a company that is reflecting and improving.
Its industrial design is excellent: 60 Hz OLED display, softened edges, sturdy knob feel. And surprisingly, this time I found far fewer of those “small but annoying” issues.
Given its size and ambition, MiniFreak still requires many secondary-menu interactions, but you can see careful design in menu logic. Learn one relation and trigger pattern, and the rest become intuitive. Hidden parameters are printed on the panel with color coding. I believe great instruments should minimize user learning cost, and this time Arturia did simplify complexity well.
What feels truly unique is the software counterpart: MiniFreak V. It is one of the most promotion-worthy ideas I have seen. Hardware appears as an independent software instrument, and software actions map one-to-one to hardware behavior, and vice versa. This is not just a MIDI editor; it is effectively one instrument existing in both physical and digital worlds.
Why do I praise this design so much? Because it gives near-infinite deployment flexibility without losing previous edits. Preset management and firmware updates are integrated in software. You can even treat MiniFreak hardware as a MiniFreak V controller. For live performance, sounds you designed before are already on hardware without import friction. Combining both hardware and software advantages into one seamless workflow is MiniFreak’s brightest point.
I want to buy MiniBrute partly because I miss MatrixBrute. That was a great instrument. It also had rough details, but its design philosophy was ahead of its time.
4.10
I noticed my buying impulse spikes before exams. After exams, desire crashes to near zero. It’s weird. Before exams, I see synths and want to buy instantly, even thinking “the price is reasonable.” But this impulse is based more on collecting than usage.
Among all my synths, only Sub 37 feels truly irreplaceable. If the other two disappeared, I could still find software substitutes.
Now I am looking at Subharmonicon and Matriarch again. Especially Matriarch—I owned one for nearly two years, and almost every song I made in that period involved it. I still do not know why I sold it and switched to MatrixBrute. Probably just restless decision-making.
4.10
Whenever I avoid online news and comment sections, life feels okay. The moment I read them, the world feels terrible.
The internet amplifies forms of malice people often suppress in real life. Anonymity and low accountability make it easy to hurt others and escalate conflict. Humans are tragic in this way: dopamine-driven social intelligence, endlessly chasing conflict and noise. If there is no conflict, people manufacture it.
That is why I think people living online today need something stable to anchor themselves. For me it is music, and maybe data science (though that is my major, so I cannot always tell whether it’s pure love or practical necessity).
Without these anchors, I might also wander online seeking stimulation all day, especially in this era where things appear stable on the surface but are turbulent underneath.
So it is often better to stay in your own small circle, or simply avoid those feeds. Just realizing “watching this won’t change anything” already saves a lot of time.
I try to stay consistent online and offline. It gives me no tactical advantage, but it makes life lighter. I do not want to wear masks for everyone. If I do not want to engage with someone, I simply do not engage.
People like this are probably rare. I cannot guarantee I can sustain it forever. Maybe one day I revert to old habits of concealment and performance. But for now, I still want to be someone who speaks clearly and keeps empathy.
4.13
Today I saw some ugly comments on an overseas audio forum. Once certain topics appear, discussion atmosphere can collapse instantly from exchange to emotional venting.
Someone who was just discussing computers and guitar maintenance with me said things elsewhere that I found deeply disturbing (not aimed at me directly; I did not participate in that thread). Some familiar, friendly people also posted views that shocked me.
I don’t even want to expand this topic further. The world does not actually have that many enemies. The real enemy makes you attack people who should have been friends.
In this era, if you want calm and stability, disconnecting from the internet is often the only reliable option. Once you choose to remain online, you must tolerate these dynamics, and maybe be changed by them.
Seeing people post extreme claims with no factual basis is genuinely disappointing. At the same time, I am disappointed in myself too: I still lose time and peace over events unrelated to me. In that sense, maybe I am not so different.
Suppressing my urge to respond is still suppression. I also want to clarify and rebut things with evidence. But whether I speak or stay silent, it often changes nothing. Most of it is just time loss.
4.14
Another thought prompted by something a public figure did:
Once you are in the spotlight, your safest default is to speak less. If you plan to say something, send it to trusted people first and get feedback before posting. “Loose lips sink ships” is one of the few principles that applies almost everywhere.
Just like mixing benefits from a fresh pair of ears, speech also needs external perspective. A speaker may have no malicious intent, but for public figures, intent matters less than how the audience hears it. Explanation often has limited corrective power once impact lands.
4.14
I found several good synths lately, all software, mostly from GForce.
First two are drum machines: IconDrum and DMX. Both are high quality and easy to use; you can treat them like more flexible Ableton Drum Rack variants. They work especially well for open/closed hats.
Second is VSM IV. I had been looking for an alternative to Solina V, and this one surprised me a lot. Very easy to use, with focused functionality around synth-string design. Sound quality is high; I especially like the filter resonance behavior.
Third is OB-EZ, which you can view as an encapsulated OB-E. I did hit some cases where I wanted to adjust unavailable parameters, but overall it lowers OB-E complexity and makes onboarding easier. If it gets you the sound you need, it is very practical.
That said, because OB-E’s core identity is 8-SEM parallel behavior, OB-EZ inevitably misses some charm of full OB-E. It comes down to your tradeoff between convenience and complete control.
I also have M Tron IV, OB-8 (still exploring), and several others. I will keep testing and reviewing after exams.
4.15
Still, I want a real Oberheim someday.
Recently I tried many SEM-based virtual synths, and even my own MiniFreak has SEM-like filter ideas, but none of them avoid being clearly outperformed by real SEM character in specific contexts.
I heard OB-X8 filter behavior at high resonance: the grainy, growling current-like texture lit up my whole nervous system instantly. It may have been my first time feeling that from a synth so strongly.
Besides OB-X8, both OB-6 and TEO-5 are also SEM-based designs, so in principle they should reach related tonal territory.
4.16
I revisited the overseas forum thread I mentioned earlier and was relieved to see many people (especially from Europe) openly challenge those extreme comments.
When people are trapped inside information bubbles, they usually do not realize it. This is true everywhere.
So on first sight, I do not immediately condemn people making extreme statements; if they sincerely believe what they say, that itself reflects constrained information context.
History and natural science are permanent landmarks. Whenever you feel confused, look at those two. The world has always been messy, but at least not boring.
4.18
I am starting to outgrow VN’s overly simple feature set, so I plan to learn Final Cut Pro.
I likely won’t abandon Mac in the near term. Even if Windows comes back into my daily workflow, I still expect to keep working on Mac, so the learning cost should not be wasted.
Apple’s trial setup also has a loophole: even if you did not buy the software, the 90-day trial resets if you uninstall and install it again. If someone wanted to, they could keep using it this way without paying. I still plan to buy a legitimate license once I know it fits my workflow. If not, DaVinci and Premiere remain alternatives.
Even though Prophet Rev2 has eight voices, I still have to accept that hardware flexibility differs from software. Under 8-voice unison, I ran into ADSR behavior issues, especially around forced reset from release into fresh attack. Osc Mod also behaved oddly in some cases. Might be user configuration, so reading the manual carefully is necessary.
I may also have identified my audio-interface issue source: I had synced Ableton clock to Prophet Rev2, Sub37, and MiniFreak simultaneously. Their clocks likely conflicted (errors happen without robust correction), and because my interface is tightly tied to Ableton, it could temporarily lose valid reference clock and then recover. After disabling sync, the issue almost disappeared.
It is still too early to conclude the interface is fully healthy, but this is a strong lead worth monitoring.
Today I also watched James Dymond’s Sonic Academy class. I only got through the kick-bass balancing part, but it was already useful. I immediately started applying PA Subsynth in my own project. It is an interesting plugin that generates low-frequency components not present in the original source.
I also finally figured out how to use SPAN properly. I had been using it for three or four years, but likely in the wrong way most of that time.