Inspired and need a Hardware Synth

After listening to a lot of IDM / Ambient music I've become inspired to pickup and play synth myself. I've read on Aphex Twins soundcloud that he stated the Yamaha Reface DX is one of his favorites, But I've also been recommended the Reface CS, BS2, Monologue or Minilogue and the Blofeld. Its all so intimidating for me as there are so many options, my budget is a little over 1000$. Any suggestions?

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Reface DX is a shittier version of DX7 because it has only 4 operators instead of 6. The DX7 is pretty cheap, but the problem is that buying an used one can be a pain in the ass (and they are also big, clunky and heavy as fuck) . Some of them have batteries that died out, so they lost all of the internal patches (you can solder a new one in if you can, I don't know if you are comfortable with this kind of stuff). You can also use cartridges to load patches, even without the battery, but it is kind of a hassle to get one of those from my experience. If you can find a dealer that actually knows what he is selling, you should be fine. If you can't find one and are not sure on what you're doing, a Reface should do the job (and it is a lot easier to patch).
The Monologue/Minilogue sound pretty good in my opinion, they have pretty heavy sounds. Also, Richard patched some scales on the Monolog I think. they are pretty standard synths, you should be fine. Subtractive synthesis is by far the easiest one to deal with, I don't know if you already familiar with soft synths, but if you are not, maybe you should get one of those before delving into FM.
Blofeld is a favorite of mine. Wavetable + FM is a great combo. It is very flexible and sounds amazing, specially for ambient-ish soft sounds. It has a lot of options, just buy it if you know what you are getting into.
I don't know much about the other ones to be honest.

What made you want to start? Have you ever made music before?

I've made some stuff in ableton a few times and have used keyboards before but after listening to a lot of synth based music over the past several months I tried some vst's and was satisfied at first but after playing an analog synth in a local music store I've felt an urge to start seriously creating music.

I'd go for the blofeld. it's nice and cool

Honestly, EVERYONE is getting into synths. Be the guy ahead of the curve and just start with a daw. If an outboard synth helps you interface with the DAW then get one, but honestly dude. It's a trend and the music market is about to be saturated with a thousand other twats who bought expensive gear that they don't even have a grasp of. You look like a prick. Save yourself a bunch of time and money and start out with a DAW. Seriously. I fell for the hype and the only way to serious music production is hard work and dedication. Noodling around only goes so far and you will hit a wall where you realize that getting good at music is just as tedious and boring as using a DAW is, if not more tedious, boring and also harder. Synths sound shit on their own. Don't be one of these numales who think a synth is going to make you / your life more interesting. Trust me.

Ok I'm exaggerating but I'm selling a bunch of gear because i bought into the hype and you remind me of myself back then so just consider it. Making a good track is a long long process that takes years to perfect. Just don't be afraid of daws. Learn synthesis, sure, but don't be afraid of daws. You'll be shooting you self in the foot I promise you.

don't do it, just get a soft synth. I spent 10 years learning the ropes in DAWs before getting my first hardware and in hindsight that was one of the best things that could have happened. I have a deep understand of various forms of synthesis and can look at pretty much any synth and understand what everything does.

If you just buy one immediately you will have wasted a lot of money on something you don't know how to use.

Spend at least 6 months in your DAW of choise with a simple plugin, i Recommend OBXD or Synth1 to learn the basics, just throw a reverb and a delay on them and your eyes will be opened.

also, watch this before you do anything at all youtube.com/watch?v=atvtBE6t48M&t=1s

if you absolutely HAVE to buy a hardware then buy a microbrute, they are pretty much a learning tool

Listen to a lot of synth videos on youtube before you buy anything. I wish I would have thought to do this before I started buying gear. Watch out for synths that have a lot of problems--the Juno's sound great but have a lot of dying voice chips, the korg polysix is the best synth ever but has battery leakage problems. Some new gear sounds amazing for the price. But if you want the idm sound, the best place to start is a roland 101. They are great sounding synths. You can get good enough fm plugins.

synth demos that is. This guy is a great way to start, but he makes everything sound good--it partly sounds amazing because it's recorded to vhs tape I believe.

youtube.com/watch?v=STkETxJf0wg

don't get a blofeld, they can sound good but they are a pain in the ass to get right. That's one of my early gear regrets. The Roland SH 101 will get you A LOT of the IDM sound, especially early squarepusher.

I have 4 monosynths and a eurorack. Don't get a hardware synth unless you're getting a modular and don't get a modular unless the music you're making necessitates it.

If you're really set on it, get a semi-modular that's not the ms-20.

>more tedious, boring and also harder
This could not be more true.

Read manuals before buying, if you can't understand it, you have more research to do. I wish I would have done this, would have saved money and time.

How's the erbe verb?

what daw then?

Ableton, cubase, reason... etc

Christ, even audiotool. It does the job while giving a good emulation of hardware (Roland, moog, etc) while having the capability of a daw (arrangement, automation, etc) and it's fucking free. Yeah it's not the best but some people make some good fucking tracks out of it.

Using hardware is leagues harder than learning audiotool because you have to actually interface Hardware with a daw to get any useable recording, and those interfaces cost money.

Also remember that the bulk of Aphex's work was done in software.

It's so terrible as a traditional reverb I don't even count that against it.

Once you start to modulate it, it can basically be a soundsource unto itself. Modulating any one of the parameters can totally reshape the acoustic modeling of the input in insane ways. Sending short envelopes to attenuate size collapses the whole reverb tail making an almost snarelike whip. It's not perfect for every application but for what I do it's indispensable.

for those that know how to play piano/keyboard, how technical is this piece?

youtube.com/watch?v=QQkAaykt0Hw

I've been following this guy forever and he is so good, it makes me want to learn so bad.. I'm 25, could I come anywhere even close to his level after a couple years?

I don't even want to make music or become famous, I just want to jam like he is... it looks like so much fucking fun

yeah, it's pretty simple, give it like 2 or 3 years and you'll be good

what keyboard would you recommend I try to look for on craigslist?

If you're on a budget, i would recommend the Ashton UMK49 midi controller keyboard. Just hook it up to a computer with some sampling software and you're good. If you're not on a budget, idk maybe some sort of digital piano.

alright ill do some research from there! thank you user I appreciate it

Speaks the truth.

OP is five years late for the synth revival. Only soyboys still care about hardware synths.
Listen to the cutting edge music being made today. It's hyper-digital and not your cringe 80s revival shit. Don't be a bugman and surround yourself with expensive worthless shit. Channel the true creative spirit of a redpilled white man and let your vision come to fruition independent of any Jewish tools.

Personally I am writing music from pure C code now. Like one file is a song. I start with basic sine functions and use my knowledge of FM to build them up into more musical sounds. This is a lot less brainlet than hardware synths OR a DAW. It's also way more dynamic because every song is an interactive program unto itself rather than a linear array of amplitude values like whatever numale crap OP wants to make.

Bump