The Phonics, they are Poly...

Nice RT60 session this morning. We had the (temporary) loan of an Alesis Andromeda, and this is the first time I’ve ever spent any quality time with one. I’ll be honest and say that I kind of looked at it as a completely over-the-top kind of synth, and never really bothered with it outside of a few minutes at Guitar Center a couple years ago.

I’ll tell you what, though. This sumbitch is a fairly potent box. Actually being able to sit down and program it for a while, I was duly impressed. The presets aren’t very good, as is usually the case with commercial analogs, in my experience. (The boardrooms of the music instrument industry would collectively shit their pants if they weren’t allowed at least “Lucky Lead,” with a side order of “Welcome Back…”) I’ll also allow that it is incredibly complex to program. Most polysynths of this caliber (the Prophet 5, Memorymoog, Jupiter 8, et al) are very much of the grab-a-knob variety, but it seems they stuck every possible feature in the Andromeda, and its front panel is rather overwhelming at first blush.

All that aside, it is extremely capable sonically, and records easily (unlike the Jupiter series, which can sometimes be a bear to get to sit in a mix.) I’m pondering selling all my analogs and just getting one of these in their stead.