Anyone play around with the Mopho? I’m thinking of getting the keyboard version when it comes out. 100% analog monosynth for ~$800 seems too good to be true.
ugliest synth ever?
i haven’t played w/ one, but the clips i’ve heard sound…ok. kind of plasticky and cheap, feels more VA than analog. but it’s versatile, for sure, and definitely preferable to a microkorg or micron/ion. the audio input can function as a trigger input for the sequencer, too, right?
how much is the tetra keyboard version going to be?
Actually all DSI instruments are pretty damn ugly. Korg too. I swear I’m getting cancer of the eyeball from having to look at my Radias every day. I don’t understand why everything doesn’t look like an MS-20 or a Prophet One. God, even the MS2000 was ok. All these silly colors. I mean, really.
And who the hell designed that Mopho? It looks like something that would have come out of a night of watching too much Tim Burton and Pokemon.
Anyway, I think we can probably all blame techno and ravers for all these ugly instruments. before that, when there was only synth pop, new wave, disco, and hip-hop, all the keyboards were cool.
I bet the Mopho sounds awesome though, as long as you can get past the interface.
It would be fairly easy to make a nice B&W decal to slap on the original model, but that keyboard is probably too big for that. I guess spray paint it, dig up some dry transfer letters at a forgotten graphics supply house and then coat it with a clear matte finish. But for the trouble, honestly, just get an old monosynth.
yeah, DSI doesn’t have a spotless design trackrecord, but between the name, the banana yellow, and the “push it!” button…it’s like ronald mcdonald went to a shitty rave and took bunk ecstasy with salt n pepa….
yea, i’ve heard of people making decals for the mopho, someone posted one they made on R4R that renamed it the “pro two” (which i believe i heard was actually the originally planned name).
but yeah, w/ the prices that many vintage monosynths are going for these days….once the sh-101 starts regularly selling for 1k, the mopho might actually be an interesting option…
lol Wouldn’t it be awesome if they sold enclosures separately? That would be so cool. Although it’s always nicer to have a factory finish, a lot of musicians would probably just as much like a DIY look to their gear.
Totally… the vintage market is super annoying with all these collectors raising the market prices on everything. It’s such a turn off. I wish there were a way for companies like DSI, Doepfer, etc. to keep their prices low while still being profitable and still use good components/maintain decent build quality etc.
I would totally consider getting a Mopho keyboard (in spite of its looks, just like the Radias), except that I know DSI stuff is built pretty shitty, just like Doepfer. I mean even a company like Korg has to choose what parts of an instrument to spend money on. And almost always, the knobs and pots are the first to cut costs on. it’s actually funny to compare where different instruments take shortcuts.
Looks aside, anyone know how this thing sounds? Are there comparable $800 analog synths out there? I’m looking for one with a keyboard, not just a module, and that is reliable enough for steady gigging.
And I know what you mean about the price of vintage stuff going thru the roof. Just in the last 5 years the asking price for a Wasp has doubled, and the days of $400 SH101 seem long gone. It’s sad, and I wish I would have kept them, but I bought a SH101 and an SH-09 for $50 each back in 1990. I passed on an MS-20 for $50 because at the time I knew nothing about analog synths and could only get it to make white noise.
[quote author=“Ollie_Stench”]Looks aside, anyone know how this thing sounds? Are there comparable $800 analog synths out there? I’m looking for one with a keyboard, not just a module, and that is reliable enough for steady gigging.
I think it is quite possible to find a Pro One or Mono-Poly for $800. At least here in Portland. You have to watch craigslist like a hawk, but what better way to spend the many idle moments of the day?
Futility is right. Also, if you’re going to go the DSI way, you can get a Mono evolver keyboard for $700 used which is much better than the mopho. Can get some pretty cool sounds with 2 analog osc, 2 lo-fi digital waveform osc, lots of mod abilities etc. And yeah, you can gate the 16x4 sequencer in the thing with +pulses from analog gear.
pro-one is not necessarily the most reliable gigging synth - horrible build, notoriously prone to malfunctioning. better to get an sh09/sh101 (even at the prices that 101’s are going for these days).
monopoly is good too, of course, but goes closer to 1k these days.
good point about the evolver, hayden. i have a few friends who use them, and they actually sound decent.
if you are going to get this, just get the desktop version. it is half the price, and sounds pretty fat. For a modern synth, I think it is really fantastic.
main things that are good about this synth are that it is pretty sturdy and easy to move around/travel with. for me, i really liked that it only had a few controls. the dedicated ones are for cutoff, resonance, attack, and decay… and you can trigger specific notes with the big “push” button.
lots of people are saying that this sounds identical to prophet 08, but from what i have heard, it sounds more aggressive… but i was reading that it has added sub-oscillators, so that is probably why.
the only downfall i could see was that it is a mono synth since i tend to gravitate towards poly synths. with that being said, it did not get in the way of me liking this synth, since some of the sounds oyu can pull are pretty epic. you also can’t daisy-chain to make it poly… but most people usually don’t care about that sort of stuff.
bottom line, if you want some warm and fat analog sounds without spending tons of money… GET THIS. And the yellow is not that bad. i actually like that is is yellow… looks cute. lol
Barring hearing one for yourself, I think the most convincing review of it is on Sound on Sound. There’s only one comment about it that might tip the scale (sonically)—regarding the 12dB/octave filter:
“In conclusion, the Mopho can be warm, deep, harsh, silky, clean, simple, grungy, complex, gentle or aggressive, as you choose, and I can’t immediately think of a cheaper or more convenient way to buy a genuine analogue signal path of this quality and flexibility. If you can live with its on-board programming system interface or you’re happy to use it with the editor, you’ll find that it’s a fine instrument that pleases on many levels. Given the cost of obtaining these sounds from a range of vintage monosynths, you have to take it seriously.”
And just for the record, I wish it looked more like this, without colors:
actually, i think the dave smith tetra is better than mopho if you are looking for a synth that does more. tetra is poly and can be chained up to 16 voices…. so essentially 4 mophos in one.
