Get More Engadget: • Like us on Facebook: / engadget • Follow us on Twitter: / engadget • Follow us on Instagram: / engadget • Read more: www.engadget.com
For the screen they have Im surprised they didnt throw in a mod matrix. I have a cobalt 8 but always go back to serum because soft synths are just so much more intuitive.
Lemondrop got a kind of updated blackbox firmware with the live input. I only hope blackbox would get a live input 30s buffer with the granular engine...
Yep... Lemondrop is something special... I think it is THE best synth from 1010Music worth buying. Except Texture Lab there is NOTHING in a granular synthesizers world in this price range that can compete with Lemondrop. I love mine and I use it as often as I can - for ambient music it is a perfect match. BTW: you can use external audio source and run it through this small box... which makes possible weird things - for example your analog monosynth can be now a 4-voices polysynth ;)
I feel the firebox will be on sale at some point with a good discount eventually since the lemondrop is a lot more popular and sold out already. I got myself the lemon and will keep an eye on the firebox for any heavy discounted deals in the future.
Since they both (and the new Razzmatazz) use SD cards for their data (patches and samples), I recommend to backup them regularly, SD cards are seemingly not very reliable. The one that came with my Lemondrop gave up after a year of (not very intense) usage, without any warning. It is/was a Kingston Canvas Select plus 32GB.
Not giving it the capability to act as MIDI host device, or at the very least make it possible to connect it to a computer is inexcusable, I feel like that alone would have totally justified the price. I can think of so many tiny, portable MIDI keyboards that don't have a MIDI out, in fact majority of them don't, and it would have been perfect to make it possible for people who own these to use the synth. This, or the ability to interface with PC via Bluetooth or WIFI, or USB cable to quickly offload patches would have widened the market considerably, and I can't for the better of me understand how it hasn't occurred to the manufacturer, or how they were able to rationalise and justify away cutting of like close to 50% of potential customers.