Awesome video! I absolutely love mine. One thing that I like a lot about it that doesn't get much attention is the fact that the midi out port still transmits polyphonic with velocity. With this hooked up to my DAW, I can record a couple riffs from the grandmother, then switch over to a softsynth to play some cords without having separate midi controllers.
This is possibly the apotheosis of 21st century analog revivalism. Both contemporary and supremely nostalgic, It sounds like 1971, but the SMD components inside look like they were hit with a shrinking ray.
Hey mate I just bought one of these and wanted to get a full rundown before I plugged her in and started playing, so I didn't feel totally blind. Extremely comprehensive video and made me super keen to give it a go! Cheers, keep it up!
I have looked at buying a minilogue xd for so long. But I can't get past the real/organic sound of this. Put headphones on and find a "modern" synth on RU-vid that sounds anywhere near this thing. Nothing comes close.
that is exactly what I've been doing during my research for the Analogue Synth to get; I started looking into small boutique synths .... but during the research I discovered that I would be just spending more until finally get a Moog.... si I did 👍
Serious question from a relative newb . . . what makes a filter "great"? You clearly loved this one, but what is it that separates one lowpass filter from another? I'd be interested in someone making a video that made a direct comparison of filters on different synths to better understand how different filters create different characters. As for the Grandmother, I should never have touched one in the store the other day . . . wow did everything about it just ooze quality. Now I have Grandmother lust. Ew.
the slope, and the resonnance ! The slope is usually 12db/octave, but sometimes it is 24db/octave (it means it's a more agressive slope, usueful to design slappy bass ; a 12db on the other hand is more useful for pads, for example) but what's really differs a filter from another is his ability to enhance harmonic contents in different way, and that's the resonnance parameters (emphasis on moog) each filter sounds different because of how they shape the harmonic content ;
Long story short, it's the chips used and the design of the filter itself that shapes the sound; the harmonic content is altered by the resonnance parameter, at least ; the filter slope also plays a role, and sometimes, the ability to overload the filter also changes the sound (like on the minimoog or on the minibrute I believe)
Thanks . . .would love to hear some head-to-head comparisons and discussion so I could tune up my ear and better understand it in concrete terms. OUAS would be an ideal guide . . . please?
For me it's the overtones, harmonics, that you hear when the resonance is turned up a bit. The System 80 Jove filter to me is magic. The Bastl Intruments Cinnamon is a close second. I also have a utility "clean" Intellijel VCF. I love the filter in the Erebus V2 and the filter in the Mother 32.
Each filter, by means of slope, type (low pass, high pass, band pass, notch, comb, etc.) resonance, input, circuit design, and components used sculpts the incoming signal in different ways. A Moog filter sounds different from an Oberheim SEM filter, which sounds different from the filter in an Oberheim OBX, different than a Prophet 5, MS20, CS80 so on and so forth. It’s what gives a synth a lot of its personality and everyone has their own preference. Myself I like filters that have strong character and lean away from cleaner, “utility” filters. Nothing sounds like my MS20 unless it has a cloned filter, and I go to it because of the way it sounds. I would not go to a Sequential Pro One if I wanted scorching, howling, demonic growls. That’s what the MS20 is for. You get what I’m sayin?
your GM videos are very nice and informative. i've been working with a minilogue for a while now and have become very dependent on patches, which has taken a lot of the fun out of synthesis. i was originally going to get an mfb dominion, but mfb isn't making any for the next two months so i ordered a GM. your videos demonstrate a lot of the potential this synth has and even though it hasn't arrived yet i feel like i made a sensible choice. kind of wanted a sub37 but it's fugly and doesn't look like much fun.
at 17:36 when you turn all the envelope controls to minimum resulting in no sound when you press a key, I still get sound despite having all the knobs and switches in the same positions as you have them set
I worked it out, you never mentioned VCA Mode had to be switched to: ENV in order to have all the envelope controls enabled, and it is difficult to see the position of the small white switches on the video
Hey I really enjoy and learn a lot from your tutorials. I have a question about the GM’s filter cutoff... I was wondering if there’s a way to control the filter from an external midi controller. I have a Digitone and was try to create some triggers..... Anyway Thanks again you videos help a lot... especially the DeepMind12 vids
Thanks! Oddly enough it looks like filter cutoff is not controllable by MIDI :( (at least, looking at the manual MIDI implementation chart). Maybe the filter isn't digitally controlled.
so after at least 3 years of having it, do you still use it as much? have you evolved into a Matriarch? (or feel the need to...). Super Great video!!!! 👍 👍. UpDate: I haven't received mine yet and I am seriously thinking about getting the Moog Werkstatt-01 to complement it... what do you think? (it would be combining its signal and it could function as another LFO also.....)
Great tutorial. Thank you. Love the Grandmother. Such a great synth. 4:15 great explanation of the keyboard tracking (so 1:2 raises the filter cutoff by 0.5V/octave). Took me a while to fully understand the manual despite it being well written 😄.
The only thing I hate about the Grandmother is the power supply connector, which doesn’t fit properly. I actually bought a eurorack so I could patch the dfam and mom32 without that problem, but so far the Grandmother is not in eurorack form. Haven’t had the nerve to disassemble the GM and patch in eurorack power.
Hi, how do you change the Legato/Glide mode? My Grandmother only makes Legato effect. I have tried hold "hold" button and move the knob at the same time to the right and left and it no change to Glide mode. I have restore the firmware and it only makes Legato. Thank you.
Hi! Great video! I was wondering is it possible to control GM with the Model Samples sequencer from Elektron and at the same time playing patches from Peak with GM keys?
The best grandmother vids so far! I would love to see a really technical deep dive into the functions. Its sounds easy, but i have no picture and no deeper understanding in my mind about whats Happening in the inside
Really enjoying your Grandmother videos, can't wait to see what else you do. Do you have an 0-coast? That it would be cool for you to show some interconnectivity options with it.
Really digging the grandmother since her release, have some extra money to get into the subsequent 37 range though too! Different they are but, in order to get into the moog world, which do you suggest?
Thank you very much for the video. I have never been able to afford a Moog, and even when I daydreamed I didn't know which one I would want. I am hoping that with a little bit of saving this can be my first. Tiny Diodes Instruments - Fun to Look at, Fun to Play
Great review! I gave you a shoutout on my podcast called Echo Kast, for people to check out your RU-vid channel on the grandmother review. Also told them to check out your other videos as well.
Hi Once upon a synth, thanks for all the great content. Do you happen to know any analog synths that could create the type of trance-like chords in Die Antwoord's - Never Le Mkemise 2?
Hm good question. I'm not that experienced with trance patches, but I'd imagine any of the modern polys could get close (prologue, rev2, etc), but you'll have to rely heavily on external effects like reverb and chorus. Probably a digital synth from the 90s/2000s would get closer with super saws and stuff. Is there a reason you want to go analog for this?
Does anyone know if you can plug a smartphone into this synth so you can run a drum machine app through it? Instead of having to buy a drum machine to hook up to it.
Yes, although in my experience you need to run it from an effects pedal or amp output to provide some gain first. There is no gain knob for the external input on the Grandmother.
So, i have a sub phatty and i'm very happy with it, love the sound and functionality off it. but i've been struggling with external devices for arpeggiators and other synced stuff. hooked it up to a keystep and hooked that up to a midi interface and synced it to ableton. that all works but still feels a little off and it's quite a hassle with plugging it in and out on stage and it forces me to take so much 'extra's' with me on stage. i feel like this could be done easier than bringing loads of gear on stage just so you can arperggiate in time. so i've been thinking of maybe selling the sub phatty and buy one of these babies. cause what i like about the grandmother is that it has the arpeggiator that can send and receive clocking through cv but also through midi. but first i'd like to hear your opinion on that, i'm really curious what your thoughts are about this. Technically i would still be able to get the same sounds out of it as i do with the sub phatty right?
I'm not too familiar with the sub phatty specifically. I believe it has a sub-oscillator which the GM does not have. But I guess you can always use one oscillator at a lower octave to replicate that. But yeah you can probably get most of the same sounds on both, and having a built in arpeggiator and sequencer is nice if that's something you find yourself using often.
Thanks for the response! yeah that would be easy to replicate but one first sight i thought both the synths were pretty similar but they both have quite different features. Like the waveform Switch or Pot cause you can get quite cool waveforms in between on the phatty. i have to figure out if it's worth the change and miss the features i like off the sub phatty or go for the functionality and new features on the GM. i first will have to test one in a store i guess! Thanks
you said you treat the reverb like part of the synth engine, but it doesnt have a patch point right? like you cant envelope or LFo control it can you>?
That's correct, there's no CV points for controlling reverb params, but there is an input and output directly for the reverb. I guess I meant more that I use the reverb to sort of add character to the patch, and to exaggerate pad sounds, as much as I use it like a standard reverb.
There is a 100% wet signal output on the back of the GM. If you have a Mother-32, you can patch the 100% dry and 100% wet signals into the Mix 1 and Mix 2 inputs of the VC mixer of the Mother-32, and then fade between them using another control voltage (like an LFO). This "effectively" gives you voltage control over the wet/dry mix.
That was so good, I'm surprised i watched a 30 minute synth demo. After watching, i was 15mns on my minibrute to get an approximation of the R2D2 sound and, even though it requires no cables on the MB, i could not get it anywhere near the sound of your GM. I had the LFO in sample and hold going to the filter with resonance, tried a bunch of settings with keyboard tracking, filter envelope, noise and the oscillators but never quite got that sound. I admit the filter envelop is hard to hear sometimes or i dont know how to set it properly. Also the arpegiator has the problem you allude to. You can't really use hold, then change arpeggios smoothly like you can here, some strange rhythmic retriggering messes it up, unlike on some DAW arpeggiators I've used. I wonder if there's a workaround in the Minibrute, or if it's a Sysex setting. My plan is to get a Deepmind 6 and Minibrute 2S, I hope not to have these limitations. The GM is really attractive for me, was also considering it instead of Minibrute 2S even though its probably more comparable to Minbrute 2. I don't want more than just a two synth in front of me at one time because i also use another keyboard for non-synth sounds. Maybe you have some tips on that, especially if i can remedy these 2 Minibrute issues: am I just playing or programming it wrong or is it some setting/parameter?
I'm not sure about the arp glitch, unfortunately that might just be the way the synth is designed. Not a lot of synths get this right. As for the r2d2 patch, it's hard to say since I'm not familiar with the arturia synths. But if there's a knob to control filter envelope amount, try maxing that. Also try using high pitched oscillators and maybe add some hard sync. In general when I try to learn a new synth I like to just take knobs to their extreme values to experiment and get a feel for the synth, so that's what I'd recommend with the minibrute too. Filter cutoff, envelope amount, resonance, oscillator frequency ranges, oscillator shapes, etc. Good luck!
@@onceuponasynth ok thank you for the thorough answer man, i will try just that. So does the deepmind 12 arp work well in that respect? I will support you if you start a Patreon or something similar by the way. I already learned a lot on your channel
Thanks! I honestly don't remember how the DM12 arp worked, I sold it about a year ago. If my memory serves me right I think it also had the problem where you had to be very precise with timing otherwise it through the groove off (but I could be misremembering).
i'm a complete beginner in this field and actually only play guitar, this is my first real synthesizer🙃 so far it has felt this way to me having to repair a satellite🛰🤦♂️🙃, 🤝thanks
Thank you for the Grandmother videos! Extremely helpful. Please do one on the “instrument in” feature. Would love to know how to utilize this. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the video! Just purchased one recently and have been learning since then. Very educational. Also like you were saying “watch your dogs/cats.” Haha I do have a dog. He seems ok watching me doing weird sounds.
