Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
My HS desktop is broken again now, this time dead display. still makes noise but a bit hard to control.
For a person as myself that has to think twice before spending even £50, weighing it up against essentials, reliability is a concern.
I considered HSExplorer after I purchased my first hardware synth in over a decade Microfreak which i promptly sold as music I make is more fantasy oriented and something as HS suits better.
But at the end of the day I cope with 2010macbook and 2012imac i have for which I have various sound libraries.
Hugh Robjohns wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:33 pm
Hmmm... I hope reliability has improved....
I've had my desktop since they came out with no problems, though I don't use it every day. I do have all my synths on a UPS, here in the mountains of North Carolina I can get some wicked power spikes during storms.
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
My HS 49 key has been absolutely reliable and I've had it since the start of the pandemic. ASM has had a small number of PSU failures and the odd unit with display issues but as a proportion of devices shipped I suspect it is very low, because just about anybody who experiences a problem is likely to post either here or in ASM's Facebook group for the HS.
You only have to play with one of these for a few minutes to appreciate that the build quality is very good. All the knobs and buttons are solid and the button legends are printed under the transparent button surface and clearly will never therefore wear off. The keyboard and ribbon are very good quality.
And there are other little touches. It comes with a proper printed manual. The analogue inputs e.g the foot pedal input, are high resolution so you don't hear any kind of 'zipper noise' when sweeping filters etc.
Personally I feel that the HS is incredibly ergonomic in its design, and probably the nearest most of us will ever get to owning an actual CS-80. In fact - as has been said - it's arguably even more flexible and the HS deluxe (which I do lust after) probably provides as much synth power as any of us will probably ever need.
ajay_m wrote: ↑Sat Aug 13, 2022 4:04 pm
..... ASM has had a small number of PSU failures and the odd unit with display issues but as a proportion of devices shipped I suspect it is very low, because just about anybody who experiences a problem is likely to post either here or in ASM's Facebook group for the HS.
Given ASMs ranking in synth sales, my PSU problem is insignificant, a random failure.
I still store mine upright & worship it as the sun comes up, not because it can emulate somthings from the past but because of what it enables for the future.
Im still curious as to why its not multitimbral. Going back 10 or 20 years to the blofeld or micron - multitimbral digital synths, the HS needs the "extra voice board" to become bitimbral, thats like somthing from the analogue world.