Yeah, if you scroll down to the bottom you'll see his last post says, "Sold. Thanks." That would have been a perfect deal for me. SC did not give me a date. Just a vague "quite a while."
WARNING: THINKING OUT LOUD MODE
Now I'm really torn. On one hand, I got the KingKORG and Prophet 12 sold, so my space issue has been totally alleviated. In terms of replacements for those, I have some good hardware analogs and a s load of native software plug ins. There's no "I won't be able to work until I get X." In fact, I kind of ignored Omnisphere 2 when I got it because it came on the heals of the Prophet 12. Now would be a nice time to dig into it deeper. So, I could really do nothing and have all of what I need to make music until I die/get brain transferred into robot.
On the other hand, I did get bitten by the Sonic Core bug. G.A.S. is a terrible drug!
Going with an XITE-1 would be totally doable, but it would mean gutting the hardware core of my studio. That idea makes me a bit nervous. Maybe I could also sell some plug ins... but I tend to either love them or buy them second hand or on sales where they become NFR. I played the f out of those hardware analogs all day yesterday in hopes that it would reveal which ones I'd not miss... and it didn't happen. The decision to get rid of the KingKORG was pretty easy. SC instruments will best it and the interface was meh. Letting the Prophet 12 go was a bit harder, but not too bad. I quickly realized the types of sounds it was great for (distressed feedback/distorted NINish kinds of things) I like doing better in my hardware analogs anyway, and lush/digital/sweet kinds of sounds were harder to coax out of it and IMO, done better in any number of software synths.
But the analogs... oooo those little analogs.
The ones I've thought weren't that great have long gone. My mental studio tour yesterday revealed this:
Neptune 2: All sweet-spot. It's really hard to not make a great tone out of this thing. It's my "Model D." It's only flaws are that the LFO MIDI sync is buggy and I wish the aftertouch filter modulation amount was adjustable. It's sound is more or less covered by my ATC-X but... KNOBS! $400
ATC-X QFS: I love that Studio Electronics sound. This synth has Model D, ARP, SEM and 303 style filters on board. ATC stands for Active Tone Chameleon and that it is. It's flaws are it's single knob interface, but it's my only VCO based synth that has patch memory, which is really useful. $1000
Pulse 2: I love this one for crazy BPF tones that use osc feedback. Hands down the best modulation options of any hardware I own. Flaws: Not a great interface, but I bought a software editor for it that works like a charm. My gut tells me that this is probably the synth I'd miss the least, but man it's a lot of synth in a little box for not too much cash. $500
Bass Station 2: If anyone out there is looking to get into a hardware analog without breaking the bank, this is your synth. Sounds great, has lots of filter options, does good osc filter mod and when you feed it's headphone out into it's audio input and crank it up it sounds glorious. The interface is decent and it's keyboard feels good. Getting rid of it wouldn't generate that much cash. Flaws... for the money it costs, there are none. $300
Analog Four: My only analog poly. I got it and used it as a preset machine with the idea that when they released their software editor/USB audio software I'd dig into it, and now I love the hell out of it. I don't even use it's sequencer, but it has such a quirky and weird sound with modulate-able effects. My gut tells me that this one is probably easily replaced with a Scope instrument, but it does not take any analog audio inputs on my mixer and would provide me with an additional pair of inputs. $900
Then there's the Presonus 16.0.2 audio interface/mixer. Can't use it with the XITE so that goes no matter what, but it will only generate $600.
So... my initial thoughts are sell the Neptune and Pulse 2. That won't get me the funds needed for the XITE-1, but with the Presonus funds I'll have it... but with very little cash for any additional plug ins for the XITE-1. Of course as the Stark family likes to say, "Christmas is coming."
Er, I mean "winter." Since we have a man in a red suit coming instead an army of undead frozen guys, it means a bit of funds for some software. Maybe getting the XITE-1 will reveal that I don't need some or all of my remaining synths and that will free up plug in money.
That's plan A.
Plan B: Keep everything I have and use the Prophet 12/KingKORG funds to buy a Modal Electronics Modulus .002r. I've G.A.S.ed for that synth ever since the first demos. It has some odd flaws though. The voices are hard panned via the stereo outputs. So, unless you run it into a mixer with both inputs panned center, you will hear the notes randomly panned left and right. WTF? They said it has something to do with noise floor optimization, but that just sounds stupid to me. I can run it into two mono channels of my audio interface and process it in stereo, so it's not a giant deal. Also, modulation amounts are set at the source! So if you say want aftertouch to modulate filter cut off by 50% and LFO speed by 20%, you're S.O.O.L. That's so weird to me... especially considering it's not some pure analog. The modulation options are actually pretty limited as well. That said, I've yet to hear a bad demo track and that pole-morphable filter is a thing of pure beauty.
What to do... what to do?
I am only using Z-link at this time.
