$500 USD is the preorder at Novamusik right now...crazy.
It looks fantastic. And I like the tweaks they've offered compared to the recent norm. Why not use the Synthacon filter? It's cool that like on the Octave Cat SRM you can mix all the waveforms together. Love the potential of the arpeggiator which has a fewmore added features than your typical one. Tap tempo and swing? Fuck yeah. I just hope it transmits over MIDI and CV/Gate and isn't just for the internal synth.
You could have quite the powerhouse with one of these, a Minitaur, a new SEM and a Dark Energy. All brand new synths. It's quite crazy.
The market is so interesting now, I'm just wondering what's encouraging the shift by these larger companies?
Has the profit in the soft synth market been crushed by people selling iPad apps for next to nothing? Are there just too many people making soft synths now? Have some people at these larger companies been seeing what basic 1-osc vintage monosynths go for and figure we can make new products and still clean up if people are willing to still pay $500-$600 for one?
Or has the world using CV/Gate control gotten large enough that these companies are finally listening? Knobby monosynths being all the rage in 2011, maybe after 30 years analog has won? Or maybe the ADD/OCD generation of today has no interest in menu diving anymore and just wants knobs, knobs, knobs and instant gratification.
There's never been a better time to be into analog synths. New ones are coming out and the old ones are still available. Barring a handful of the most overpriced vintages, they're all quite accessible.
I figured I was done with buying any new analog monos but might be able to make room for this one. After I see the reviews and initial reaction...
It will be interesting to see what Arturia does if this is popular. Lord knows they have boatloads of money from their softsynth success.