The electronic musical instruments market is very large nowadays, so the device selection can become a problem for beginner musicians who decided to give up virtual plugins and get a hardware setup, as it is difficult not to drown in the variety of options and find affordable instruments with wide functionality. We have analyzed the market and are ready to provide you with our view on the ideal inexpensive digital setup, which is suitable both for live performances and for the studio.

Having been sharing with us the story about hard work on Circuit (we’ve already told you about that) the British developers of Novation released the new firmware – 1.4 version – for their Circuit instrument. The update comprised some new possibilities including rethought user patches, samples, synth and drum patterns.

Analog generator waveform is far from being perfect – it’s unstable and suffers from inevitable voltage-brought deformation. Many of the analog filters are unsteady – you might hear some noises, phase shift or self-oscillation. But these very drawbacks make the signal so brisk, lively – well, actually, alive indeed. Digital developments helped to tame analog sound, cut it into samples, increase polyphony, give you a synthesizer equipped with the functions which were simply unobtainable in analog instruments. In 1990s instrument manufacturing companies got highly interested in analog modeling technologies development – they were eager to re-create those smallest details of electric musical instrument circuit behavior.

There’s a huge difference between lite versions and mini synthesizers. While lite versions often turn to be a stripped down model of an instrument which used to feature an imposing range of functions, the compact keyboards can sometimes replace the weighty originals. Of course, if the number and size of the keys don’t matter so much to you. But if you want to get the quality, sound and parameters of the pricier unit for less money, then mini synthesizer is likely to gain even more popularity and become more commercially successful than the genetic roots. Arturia, Novation, Korg and Ketron prove that to us.

Should we buy a new one or a second hand unit will serve us well? Here we’ll talk about a never-ending dilemma, designs and pricing, the reasons of purchasing an old instrument or a new one straight after being assembled. We’ll analyze it while having a close up on the Japanese synthesizers (and an English one).