SYNTH WEEK 2024: The hardware synthesizer market is one of the most exciting in music production, with flagship models constantly released, packed with the latest generation and making waves among sound makers and designers around the world.
However, not all synth releases have the effect they deserve, so to celebrate Synth Week 2024, we’ve rounded up some of the most underrated synths on the market today for a reevaluation.
Our only rule in this roundup of synthesizers that go unnoticed is that you can buy new keyboards; In a different way, we’ll be here all day judging synths that date back to the 1970s. But even this rule doesn’t rule out some pretty old models because, believe it or not, some of the underrated beauties we’ve included here were first introduced over a decade ago!
So, without further ado, here are six (actually seven) of the most productive hardware synthesizers still on the market that may not have yet gained the popularity they deserve. . .
Incredibly, the Roland JDXi was released in 2015, so almost a decade later, its numbers still want to replace it with Roland; Otherwise, it still wouldn’t sell new for around £499/$599.
However, if you take a look at the top lists of the “best hardware synthesizers” you probably won’t find any mention of the JD-Xi, and it’s now set aside as a reasonable lightweight synth alternative. Which is a shame, because while this is actually one of the lightest synths you can get (we think two hands might be enough) and it sounds a lot heavier than its physical weight suggests.
This is because the JD-Xi’s trump card is its hybrid virtual/analog architecture. The synthesizer goes from one extreme to the other with an analog mono synth engine that is combined with a virtual synth engine that offers a large 128-note polyphony.
This means that the JD-Xi is capable of producing Roland’s famous SuperNATURAL sounds (from genuine tools to atmospheric virtual synth textures) and fat analog basses and leads.
You even get built-in patterns, effects, and beats, and a gooseneck microphone lets you encode in as silly a punk spot as you want. Lightweight in price, but big on sound, so never judge a synthesizer by its weight.
Check out our original review here. More facts about Roland here.
Behringer is occasionally (well, very occasionally) criticized for cloning everyone’s synths, and whether you agree with that sentiment or not, one of the side effects of this is that other people made some original, clever synths back in their time.
In fact, Behringer’s owner, Uli Behringer, built his first synthesizer when he was just 16 years old, in 1977. Called UB-1 (well, why not?) it didn’t seem to clone anything else on the market at the time. .
However, the UB-1 is not Behringer’s only original synthesizer. Yes, most of the company’s existing synthesizers take features and workflows from older synths to a greater or lesser extent. Some models of the variety are more similar to the original synthesizers (the Model D as opposed to the Moog Minimoog, for example) than others (Deepmind is “inspired” by the Juno-106), however, Behringer’s Neutron is an original semi-modular synthesizer and the larger it gets.
Neutron has two oscillators, with five waveforms, as well as a Tone Mod that serves for richer harmonics, and you can also load your own audio input source into the mix. But it’s the patchbay that opens up the synth to all sorts of routing possibilities, giving it a much more flexible setup and sound than the price promises.
That price has increased (lately around €319), but in our opinion (not so much), it’s still an excellent buy.
You can read our original review here. More about Behringer here.
It’s another synth that’s been around for a decade, another that continues to sell, and also another that got rave reviews when it was released. But the Nord Lead A1 is still included because it is overshadowed not only through many other hardware synthesizers, and even through other Nordics in its own stable.
It’s true that analog-modeling synths like Nord’s have been considered less elegant in recent years, simply because there are now so many true analog synths for sale and for less money. But the A1 would have arguably also suffered in terms of “respect” because it was presented as an undeniable duvet that needed to be programmed, like the rest of the range, which was hard to understand.
However, A1 is not only easy to program, but it also has great features that will keep you tweaking it. Chief among these is an oscillator configuration option that allows you to transfer between complex oscillator configurations, as well as an option that becomes a programming feature. itself, allowing you to create melodic lines or diversifications of existing presets with absolute ease.
The A1 is reasonable (around £1,299/$1,399) but offers enough interest and some wonderful artistic angles that can’t be found anywhere else, and with the Clavia’s very good sound quality shining through at every step, it’s still a wonderful buy.
Read the original review here. Learn more about Nord here.
Yes, like the other synths here, Opsix wasn’t underestimated when it launched, and Korg recently announced an update to Mk2, so it’ll have to promote itself pretty well. That’s right. . . Well, you never hear other people shouting about from the rooftops. That’s probably because what Opsix does well is facilitate FM synthesis.
Didn’t you need a simple FM synthesis? Yes, this may be why Opsix is rarely at the top of the hardware synth tree – other people don’t realize they need FM, and especially plain FM.
The Yamaha DX7 was the first popular FM synthesizer, but no one programmed it and preferred to use its presets. Therefore, FM has the synonym (by letters?By initialization?) of those presets. Do you need FM? So you need “decent pianos and great bell sounds,” right?
But the fact is, FM does a lot more than those flickering sounds, which Opsix demonstrates by turning on lots of FM parameters in the sliders so you can replace sounds in real-time. So just like when you impress your friends with the frequency dial activated your VA synth, you can now also replace your operators in real-time (trust us, the effects are much bigger than it sounds).
So the original Opsix is a wonderful buy, and the new Mk 2 edition at $699/£699 (necessarily the Mk 1 with additional polyphony) promises to be just as good, if not better.
Read our review of the Mk1 here. Learn more about Korg here.
Now, you might think that some of the synths of this strain are old (although, let’s note, they’re still available), but none are as old as the Blofeld. This is a synth we first reviewed in 2008, when we were using a cut-out synth. Pants, you can still buy this new logo in white or black (Shadow) edition.
However, despite its reasonable value (or maybe even because of it, as other people might have considered it rubbish because it’s so reasonable when it’s anything but) and its cool name, the only “best of” on the list than Blofeld makes the most sensible thing to do is the underrated synth. Incredibly for such a compact and reasonable synthesizer (though more expensive now than when it was released), it offers VA synthesis and wavetable, over 1000 programs, and 16 multitimbral portions.
The synth even has some of the wavetables of its mythical Waldorf companions, and combines them with many other features you wouldn’t expect from a case of this length (including 11 types of filters and effects), and it’s still a good idea. -Blown synthesizer for money.
Here is our (very old) review. There are more Waldorfs here.
We may have seamlessly included Yamaha’s high-end Montage synthesizers in this synthesis, as they are underrated simply because they do so much. On the contrary, the company’s Reface series has been cited as doing very little, but the fact is less harsh than that. : Each of the four models in the range is designed to focus on an express sound.
So you get the Reface YC organ, CP piano, CS analog synthesizer, and DX virtual synthesizer. Of these, the YC is a bit “too organ” for this synthesis, and the CP, our favorite, a little “too much. “electric piano”.
Which leaves the CS, a synthesizer capable of producing monstrously lush analog-style sounds, and the DX, capable of producing great FM sounds that aren’t all “decent pianos and pretty bell sounds. “
One of the big criticisms about them when they introduced them, almost a decade ago in 2015, was their price, however, if you can buy them for £299/$299 each (which is imaginable using the magic word “Google”), then they’re still a very decent buy.
Check out our roundup here and learn more about Yamaha here.
Andy has been writing about music production and generation for 30 years, and worked at Music Technology magazine in 1992. He edited Future Music, Keyboard Review, MusicTech, and Computer Music magazines, which he helped launch in 1998. It has too many synthesizers.
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