Minimal Wave Records

I’ve been looking for good synth for leads and only now starting to seriously consider analog monosynths (I’m still undecided on whether I should deal with the hassle and get one vs just getting a va polysynth and setting it to mono), and this note-priority issue is now tipping the scale.

What I like about what I currently use to compose (va poly), is that I can set the trigger to whatever I want, which is usually multi- and last-note.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this and/or know of a resource somewhere that lists analog synths and their note-priorities? I’m thinking low-note priority or high-note priority is probably not as good as last-note priority.

If I end up getting one at all, I want to get something on the cheaper side, like a Yamaha CS-10 or Roland SH-09 or something (single osc is fine). Or I wonder if a Nord Lead or Lead 2 does a good enough job of emulating analog since you can probably set it to mono and whatever type of trigger you want. Ideally it would be a smaller keyboard so it’s less of an eyesore on stage, like 3 octaves, but I’ll take whatever.

Cs series have, i suppose, high note priority. At last my cs30 has. It’s the only thing i don’t like about it.
Connecting monosynth by midi/cv converter to other keyboard for skipping low/high note priority issue is possible, but then you have 3 devices instead one…

I find it odd that I hardly read anything about it. I would think it’s pretty important.

I wonder what the early Roland SH- series monosynths are, like the SH-2, SH-09. Also the Sequential Pro-One and the Moog Prodigy. VintageSynth has some info on the Mini Moog… http://www.vintagesynth.com/moog/moog.php

sh-1 has low note priority, i guess other sh synths have this as well

I have owned and played analog (and digital) synths since the 80s, and I would recommend you to choose your synthesizer based on which one you think SOUNDS best rather than get hung up on a trivial feature like this, believe me it will make you happier in the end..

Everyone has their own playing/programming techniques i guess, but i don’t see why “note priority” would make a big difference on a mono synth, you are obviously only going to play/trig one note at a time?

If you are worried about legato behaviour, sure this can vary from model to model but won’t make a very noticable difference to the music in the end..

[quote author=“villeg”]I have owned and played analog (and digital) synths since the 80s, and I would recommend you to choose your synthesizer based on which one you think SOUNDS best rather than get hung up on a trivial feature like this, believe me it will make you happier in the end..

Everyone has their own playing/programming techniques i guess, but i don’t see why “note priority” would make a big difference on a mono synth, you are obviously only going to play/trig one note at a time?

If you are worried about legato behaviour, sure this can vary from model to model but won’t make a very noticable difference to the music in the end..

Obviously that’s not the most important thing. However, when you’re looking at a group of very capable synths and you get to the point of having to choose one, it’s nice to weigh all the pros and cons. I’m just doing research and trying to learn every quirk. In any case a lot of the better synths all sound good anyway, so you can’t even really decide on just “the sound”. There are other factors that start to become more important if they all sound equally good. Many people claim this synth sounds better than that synth, but I find it trivial sometimes since you don’t even hear the nuances by the time everything is mixed and/or compressed. That sound factor is sometimes only discernable when you play the synth by itself (not always of course, it depends). I also thought that I might not even really want to create unique sounds, which makes the sound factor even less important.

What I think I’m realizing is that because there isn’t always an envelope retrigger on old monos, you just have to get around any potential legato accidents by composing in a certain way or just keeping the sustain up, instead of relying on the decay for the shape of the notes. It’s just a given. It is what it is and something you just have to embrace.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I ended up getting an MS20 over an SH09 and CS15 mainly because it was in better shape. So much for getting something cheap. Oh well. And incidentally I think there’s a way to patch it to do multi-trigger, but I haven’t tried yet. I think you can also override the default trigger with a Kenton converter.