[A6] modern analogs

[Michael E. Caloroso]

I still have my arsenal of vintage analog but when I play the clubs I
take my Andromeda.  The A6 has replaced my Memorymoog, Source, Minimoog, 
Kurzweil MIDIBoard, and a rack of ROMplers and FX on stage.  It won't 
replace a tonewheel Hammond organ - I've tried.  With the exception of a 
handful of patches the A6 is damn close to my Moogs.  I've been checking 
out a LOT of synths over the years and none of them made me leave my 
Moogs at home until the A6.

I'd say the best traits of the Andromeda is its chameleon abilities for 
polysynths.  It's a tad short on monosynth fat and squeal but does a 
better job than a DCO synth in unison (UGH!!!).

If you're willing to put the work into navigating the depth of the A6, 
the rewards are worth it.  While there are a ton of options to set on 
this thing, the design team wisely chose to keep the menu layers shallow 
and the interface easy to get around.  The frustration I had with menus 
on previous synth doesn't manifest itself on the A6.  Alesis adopted the 
Buchla perspective of designing interfaces from the outside in, not the 
other way around.  Too many interfaces are designed from the inside out 
and the result is a user-hostile interface.

No argument on ASICs versus discrete, but try and package the discrete 
equivalent of the Andromeda and it'll be as big as an EMS Synthi 100. 
On the topic of discrete vs ICs, as in basic opamps and OTAs, I got a 
Voyager here with a voice board stuffed with opamps that sounds 
incredbly discrete compared to my old Minimoog.  As Bob Moog's design 
skills have demonstrated, you *CAN* get ICs to sound discrete; it's all 
in how you design.  So just when I was convinced that you can't that big 
open discrete sound with ICs, along comes the Voyager to shatter that 
opinion.  Some day an ASIC synth might appear and we'll be singing a 
different tune.

I finally got my Anvil ATA case for the Andromeda last month, as it took 
longer to get here because they were waiting on Alesis over the holidays 
for dimensions.  Well designed case; fits like a glove with clearance 
around the knobs so they don't get damaged.

Complimenting an Andromeda?  The Voyager works nice, as does my 
Hammond/Leslie, my Kurzweil ROMplers and Alesis DM-5 drum brain.  The A6 
will give you all the polysynth brawn and bread-n-butter sounds you'll 
need.  Oh yeah, and a Datadisk MIDI playback sequencer slaved to the 
Andromeda's clock absolutely rocks - I'm putting together songs for a 
duo band with sequenced drums/bass/aux keyboard parts and this 
combination makes for a super stage rig :)

MC