Drive By Snark, Round 2...

So the big news of this morning is the trio of Korg Volca “analog loop synths” (their words, not mine) that further extrapolate the idea of the original Monotron in to its obvious conclusion. I’ll be honest and say that, like the MS-20 Mini, these do absolutely nothing for me. Korg will, of course, sell a shit-ton, and lots of people will have lots of fun with them, and some good music will be made. Hell, I’ll probably buy them all myself, of course, as my moods are changeable, but for right now, my verdict is “toys.” Fun for a minute, but ultimately useless.

Yesterday, Nord announced the Nord Drum 2, which gives everyone the stuff they left out of the original one. (Stereo outs, and 6 voices.) I can only assume the Nord Drum 3 will have individual outs. But that said, this will make the first version one of the best buys out there when the big retailers dump their stock; of that I have no doubt. In a studio context, the mono output is fine, and honestly, stereo kick drums for dance music = ur doin it rong, anyhow. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a deal on the first version.

This caught my eye this morning. Softube has taken time out of their busy day making studio plugs for NI to create a channel strip plug-in that is ostensibly an SSL 4000G clone (albeit unlicensed, so they say “famous British console” a lot) with a dedicated hardware controller. This kind of goes at the desktop console problem from the other direction, letting the DAW do what the DAW does, and having an ecumenical channel plug with its own controller. The controller doesn’t have any transport, nor channel arming controls of any sort, so for the Full Analog Console Experience, you’d still need a little DAW controller of some sort. Don’t think this will do well, as it assumes you’re only going to use one EQ or comp ever. Might be handy in certain scenarios, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a DAW in the first place, which is the lack of limitations on EQ and comp choice. Interesting idea, though.

And that brings us to the Bass Station II. I may have my timeline mixed up, as I used to do a lot of drugs, but I’m pretty sure the original Bass Station was the signal that the Long, Dark Nightmare of the late 80s and early 90s was over, and we could once again have knobs and analog stuff. In short, it was the first synth of the Analog Revival, best I can recollect. So the Bass Station II, aside from its appearance 20-odd years late, is a logical release.

Of course, the ~$500 price point for two-osc analogs with tiny keyboards is pretty full. I was joking with someone the other day that I wanted to have a huge synth rig just made up of tiny analogs. That dream is now within reach.