School me on Synthesizers

[TedEH]

Sorry if this is the wrong section for this, wasn't sure where it would go.

So!
Anyway!

On a whim, and out of some kind of curiosity, I picked up a Roland Boutique JX-03 to mess around with. I've always liked the idea of synth and effects and racks of junk you can wire together in cool ways to make musical and nonmusical and noisy and great and terrible sounds and all that, but it's a whole world of stuff I've never dug into. I grabbed this Roland device because it was more than half off and looked like a cool thing to noodle with.

Some things I plan to do with it:
- Try it on it's own via USB
- Run it through a high gain amp and a bunch of pedals and junk
- Get a midi keyboard controller for it
- Try to "reamp" some of the midi in existing projects to see how using this compares to some of the freeware VST synths I've played with before.
- ....? I dunno.

So, given that I know very little about what you can do with these things, I'm open to random suggestions or knowledge or what have you.

What cool things can I do with a device like that that I might not have thought about?
How does a physical synthesizer compare to a VST / Sim?
Do you think there's any harm running this through an amp head?
Any concerns using guitar pedals with this?
I'll probably use a bass cab instead of a guitar cab, that makes sense right?
What other fun facts do you have about these things?

I got some pretty beastly noises from this thing yesterday by running some MIDI into it via my PC, then ran that out into a bit crusher pedal, then into my Mark V:25 with a bit of gain, a chorus and delay in the loop, then cabclone back out to mixer/monitors.

I realize how dumb this may be given how expensive these are, but I've so far most enjoyed the really simple square wave beep sounds that kind of sound like what you'd get from old video games or something. I think it would be cool to use some of this as the soundtrack for a game I'm working on.

 

[Shask]

I dont know much about that one, but it looks like a ROMpler mixed with a subtractive synthesizer. I would probably not run it through guitar speakers due to the low frequencies. I would treat it like a bass guitar. A bass amp, or PA amp would probably be fine. Usually Roland kind of has a fat, smoother sound. They are famous for the Supersaw sound. Using guitar pedals is probably fine.

It is hard to compare VST with actual Synths. It depends on the actual units, but usually you can make the same argument as guitar modelers vs. solid state or tube amps. Many times the physical units can have a better (fuller, fatter) core tone, but software can do WAY more.

 

[TedEH]

I ran it through a guitar cab yesterday for a short time at low volume and I think you're probably right that I should stick to bass cabs, both because it'll probably sound better, and so I don't damage the cab (not that I expect to blow a 4x12 with some low volume noises, but you never know). I've got a 4x10 bass cab that never gets any use (only two speakers in it are connected though) -> could be perfect for the job I think. I've got some monitor speakers that work, but so far they sound pretty wimpy compared with an amp/cab.

I find the biggest difference so far compared to software is the ability to twiddle with the knobs while playing -> It feels more like "playing" it like an instrument compared to just hitting play and letting the PC do the performing. In a sense, I think there's some value to reacting to the sounds you're creating in a "live" way that would be harder to do if it was programmed/sequenced in.

 

[Shask]

Yes, that tactile feel has a lot to do with how you make music with them. I have a Korg Microkorg for this reason. It is fun to sit and just twist knobs. That is why the MIDI controllers with a bunch of knobs are so popular. They bring a little bit of that experience to the VST world.

I would say guitar is similar.... it is a very different experience having multiple pedals with knobs vs. something like n Axe-FX where you program everything. You can do anything with it, but the experience is different than dialing on the fly.

 

[TedEH]

I find the one thing I'm missing is a decent controller with a reasonable number of keys. I have a keystation mini, but that presents two problems -> One is that 32 keys feels really cramped, the other is that there's no MIDI output other than through USB, and the Roland module doesn't accept MIDI through USB that way (you have to go through the PC driver to send MIDI via USB). So getting the keyboard to play through the Roland means connecting both to a PC and routing the MIDI messages through something like Reaper. The other bit is that with so many things connected together in weird ways, I'm getting what I think is a ground loop somewhere. With the Midi controller, the Roland, the amp head, the cab clone, mixer, etc all connected together in a bunch of ways it's pretty noisy. Noise goes away when I disconnect the Roland from the PC, but then I can't pass through the keyboard controller.

There's a guy who has a 61 key controller with a regular MIDI cable out that I play on buying. It's only $20 because it needs a simple repair that the guy doesn't want to do.