at your disposal, and I found plenty I'd reach for with no qualms. The synthesizer can deliver sounds for a gigantic assortment of melodic styles, extending from dynamic shake to EDM and techno. The standard of the patches is high throughout and there's no evidence of padding, except where you'd want it (pads, for example). With transposition, the range exceeds seven octaves, from F0 up to C8. The Mopho X4 is exactly what its name suggests. Extensive library of factory sounds plus over 500 user memories. I noticed that some of the factory patch names didn't correspond to those in the synth, though, so some kind of bank refresh process would be very welcome. Thank you for signing up to Musicradar. At the back, there's a socket for the external power supply, an on/off switch, a USB port for connection to your computer, MIDI In, Out/Thru and Poly Chain ports, quarter-inch sustain and pedal/CV sockets, and, also on quarter-inch jack sockets, stereo and headphone outputs.At least the pitch and modulation wheels are where you'd expect them to be, raised onto the control panel and shunted over a bit. Auto-performance fans will relish the arpeggiator and gated sequencer, the former bristling with all the usual up, down, random, and 'as played' modes. The pitch twist wheel works easily also, giving an agreeable measure of attention back towards its resting place. Where Nord digital pianos hold their brilliant red tasteful through new models without any protests, the daylight yellow of the Mopho wound up a greater amount of a blemish than everything else. As a further boost to its controller credentials, the knobs are configurable to transmit either MIDI CCs (Continuous Controllers) or NRPNs (Non Registered Parameter Numbers). Canadian musician Angie C just used a brainwave-reader to play the monster analogue synth TONTO with her mind, The 30 greatest synth players of all time: keyboard wizards, programming gurus and sound design legends, The Style Council’s Mick Talbot: 10 records that changed my life. Once again, Dave Smith puts four Mophos in a box, but this time he doesn't Tetrafy them. This keeps the width to the absolute minimum that three and half octaves of full-sized keys can occupy. There's a headphone socket, too, and three MIDI ports, although the MIDI Out/Thru requires a software decision — you don't get both. The Mopho X4, albeit exceptionally adaptable and complex, spreads out its parameter options in such a perfect and composed way.
I love to tune piano anytime. Voice expansion can stretch as far as 16 voices, providing you keep buying hardware! Cranborne Audio Camden EC2 Preamp & CAST Expanders, Dave Smith Instruments Sequential Prophet 6, Mastering Essentials Part 4 - Mastering EQ: Balance, Don’t Match. So perhaps the best deal for those wanting more than four-voice poly is the X4 plus Tetra, which appears to be the most flexible setup. There are a dizzying number of modulation routings too for the money, plus four LFOs per voice, audio mod and noise but the downside is you can't stack, layer or split sounds like the Prophet or the Tetra, nor can you use it as four independent mono synths on separate MIDI channels as the X4 is mono-timbral. When you're in a programming mood, why labour over multi-functional hardware when there's a free editor available for download? I won't shed any tears that the Mopho X4 isn't bathed in the daffodil yellow of previous Mophos. I'd say four voices can work out just fine unless you're prone to bouts of Rachmaninov.
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The black and white display has the regular DSI touch, showing original parameters next to edited values. This didn't compromise Roland's Jupiter 4, and I doubt anyone will give it a second thought after playing the first few notes. The Mopho sequencer can be edited but cannot be smoothed. Sequencer, arpeggiator and powerful mod section. Whether you love or hate the Mopho keyboard's yellow livery, the X4's black looks much more classy (except perhaps for the slightly tacky X4 logo). The envelopes are pretty snappy, though, and I've a feeling they've been tweaked to be a little faster than the Prophet 08. With eight banks in total, you've got over 1000 patches (!) Re: 2 tops and 2 subs how to run tops in stereo and sub... Re: MacBook Pro 2010 w/Logic. © I'm sure there are some who'd have loved yet another five-octave keyboard and others who'd sigh because even that wasn't enough. However, I feel the single set of envelope knobs, with a button to select which of the three should be live for tweaking, is a compromise too far. "The X4 sounds like the Prophet 08, yet it's £500 less, it's very compact and self contained, versatile, well built, fairly easy to navigate". This should nudge even the most cautious synthesist to start overwriting and personalising. Rating and Reviews: Dave Smith Mopho x4. If you don't mind an external keyboard and are willing to trade programmability for accessibility, Vermona's Perfourmer Mk2 is a classy-sounding four-channel instrument. Numerous synthesizers available brag extraordinary adaptability through complex game plans of buttons, handles, switches, LED lights, input jacks that can look dauntingly confounded. This takes into consideration more precision for the individuals who are progressively familiar with full-estimate keyboards or pianos. Albeit occasionally restricted, four-voice constructions work extraordinary for generally songs. Obviously, the drawback to this design is that the keyboard contains less keys than it would in the event that it had used a smaller design for the keys. The Mopho X4 gives valuable features that were absent in their past synthesizer, and as a result of these upgrades, the Mopho X4 builds up itself not just as a commendable successor to the Mopho, yet in addition as a commendable contender to different synthesizers available. Just to be clear - this is not a Tetra keyboard, it's a polyphonic Mopho. The vibe of the handles, wheels, and buttons on the front board are fulfilling too. Mark from Vermont. Its velocity and channel aftertouch are welcome and the keyboard action is light and fast. Again, this is a cost-cutting move by DSI, enabling the X4 to hit the sub £1,000 mark but nonetheless even two-part multi-timbrality like the Prophet 08 would have been handy. However, at first glance — and even after several subsequent glances — the controls seem to be laid out in a counter-intuitive fashion. All the way from deep bass to 4 note spatial pads and everything in between. Anybody using one? The Korg's note sequencer is polyphonic, the Mopho sequencer is not.
Where the microKORG offered a perplexing framework on the front board to expand flexibility with less handles, the Mopho X4 profits by an increasingly saved, moderate design that supports experimentation as opposed to directions-perusing. It could be better employed by sequencer and arpeggiator alike if it were more configurable. In contrast to the microKORG, the 44 keys of the Mopho X4 are full-sized like the span of a fabulous piano. At the heart of each voice is a modern variation on the Curtis CEM3396 'synth on a chip', with extras such as sub-oscillators and digital noise slipped in. Be that as it may, the compositional capability of unpretentious cushions can endure incredibly when confined to only four voices. Obviously, on the off chance that you intend to buy the Tetra for more than its capacity to fortify the polyphony of the Mopho X4, it is an extraordinary workaround. Receive news and offers from our other brands? … Incidentally, patches can be saved in formats suitable for loading into other DSI synths, which is a further incentive to mix and match. Your email address will not be published. All contents copyright © SOS Publications Group and/or its licensors, 1985-2020. Four-voice polyphony is an incredible update from the first Mopho’s monophonic setting, however it is as yet restricted in its own particular manner.
There are countless (at least I didn't count them) solo patches of the in-your-face and searing type, and rather fewer of the flowery, new age sort. Required fields are marked *. The touch of this keyboard is one of its most fulfilling qualities, as I would like to think. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress. Similarly, the LFOs are at top right, leaving the bottom left-hand corner for the two oscillators.
Mopho x4 Reviews Sort By Date Sort By Rating Write Your Review. We're sure those of you looking for more than four voices are starting to ask which is better: a Prophet 08 module, Prophet 08 keyboard or an X4 plus Tetra?
We will probably make looking for a piano & piano accessories as basic as could be expected under the circumstances. Costs less than £1,000.
Bath The Mopho X4 may not be physically huge, but it's a polyphonic synthesizer worthy of attention. Equally, the Tetra module offers four voices and multi-timbrality for around two-thirds of Mopho x4's price (this time with the sacrifice of much of the x4's instant tactility).