Elektron Musical Instruments

Hi to all sidstation users...I need some advice....

I don't own a sidstation....I have the money and i'm very close to placing 
an order...i just need to know how much you recommend these machines...

I do ambient/abstract and a little dancemusic etc.and futuristic 
soundscapes..I don't use alot of grunge and distortion...i love it but don't 
make that kind of music...more futuristic/otherworldly ambient etc and light 
maybe?....I'm looking for sounds never heard of on planet earth before..not 
so much menacing as bewildering and inspiring......all the sidstation 
reviews seem cool.. the user reviews sound very very positive...is the 
sidmaster able to do subtle..ambient..arp warblings etc? whats the wavetable 
capable of...I get the feeling something is lurking in the sidstation..am i 
right.

Sorry for all the questions...I'm a little indecisive today...the sids
got me twitching alittle...I am considering a microwave...but i don't want 
loads of sounds or the usual basses and stuff so much ..just need a new 
soundsource to mix with various other synths etc...but with huge 
possibilities...I found the demo mp3's which show certain aspects of the 
sidstation but was left a little confused!

P.s ..is there a problem midi'ing the sidstation up to an atari sequencer 
(creator)

If anyone can offer any advice..etc then that would be cool...

Matt hillier......Ishq
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> I do ambient/abstract and a little dancemusic etc.and futuristic 
> soundscapes..I don't use alot of grunge and distortion...i love it but don't 
> make that kind of music...more futuristic/otherworldly ambient etc and light 
> maybe?....I'm looking for sounds never heard of on planet earth before..not 
> so much menacing as bewildering and inspiring......all the sidstation 
> reviews seem cool.. the user reviews sound very very positive...is the 
> sidmaster able to do subtle..ambient..arp warblings etc? whats the wavetable 
> capable of...I get the feeling something is lurking in the sidstation..am i 
> right.

I do FSOL/Orbital stuff and I find it fits in well, but definitely try to
find a friend with one, like every synth you consider.  

You are right in saying there is something in the 'station in the
wavetables.  You can make three parallel melodies running at different
speeds that transpose along with the midi note...and they can affect each
other to some extent through the sync and ring mod functions.  That's really
nice for LCM effects.

Also the knobs can control the voices individually, to fade between
sequences if you want!  I also suggest Generator/Reaktor if you're desiring
otherworldly ambient landscapey stuff...


> P.s ..is there a problem midi'ing the sidstation up to an atari sequencer 
> (creator)

shouldn't be...for note, program and controller messages, MIDI is a simple
standard and if it works on two or three machines it will work on all.
I suspect the user with mpc problems was having mpc configuration issues

> I do ambient/abstract and a little dancemusic etc.and futuristic
> soundscapes..I don't use alot of grunge and distortion...i love it but
don't
> make that kind of music...more futuristic/otherworldly ambient etc and
light
> maybe?....I'm looking for sounds never heard of on planet earth
before..not

I create ambient stuff, as well as a lil music. I'm very fond of my sid,
it's definatley got a sound all its own.
I must say, I'm a big fan of lo-fi chip music and weird sound effects ..
have been since i first heard the mos6851 do it's thing in the c64. Make
sure you actually like the sound of the c64, it'll give you an idea of what
the synth is built around.  It's a very noisy machine, but i love the
leaking noise as an effect.

> so much menacing as bewildering and inspiring......all the sidstation
> reviews seem cool.. the user reviews sound very very positive...is the
> sidmaster able to do subtle..ambient..arp warblings etc? whats the
wavetable
> capable of...I get the feeling something is lurking in the sidstation..am
i
> right.

well, there's a SID chip :) .. there's certainly not much around that sounds
the same.
The sweeps aren't exactly smooth, and the arpeggiator is not what you would
commonly call an arpeggiator. However, this all makes for new sounds ..
certainly with a future-retro feel. One of the guys on this list sent me
some amazing ambient stuff (you know who you are!), i thought this was the
best example of sid use in ambient sound i've heard..

> Sorry for all the questions...I'm a little indecisive today...the sids
> got me twitching alittle...I am considering a microwave...but i don't want
> loads of sounds or the usual basses and stuff so much ..just need a new
> soundsource to mix with various other synths etc...but with huge
> possibilities...I found the demo mp3's which show certain aspects of the
> sidstation but was left a little confused!

one to check out is the kawai K5000 , they've come down in price
dramatically and have an amazing synth engine. For ambient stuff the
harmonic synthesis is amazing! I use a nord micromodular for all my bubbly
bassy hifi sweeping sound needs, but when i want something with that blippy
power pill computer sound, the SID is always on.

Also the mention of Reaktor is interesting. There's a SIDstation for reaktor
someone has made, and it sounds pretty authentic! ..

andrew