i actually got one in the mail the other day right after i posted my comment...lol..your video inspired me..i absolutely love it.....I already did a video on the Tube...Thanks for sharing yours.
That first part is truly gorgeous, wonderful stuff. Edit: In fact I keep coming back and listening to it over and over, do you have a full version of it?
It's one of the nicest modern analog synths I've heard. I love it. And I've owned quite a few vintage and modern synths. It has that magical "alive" quality that you usually only find in vintage gear. It's rather simplistic and pricey for what it is, but it just sounds amazing. The sine waves alone are something special. It's a keeper.
How's the bass? I read a comment once, saying that this synth isn't really that good at making bass lines. Probably compared to an old Moog, I'm assuming. But in all the demos I've heard, this synth has always sounded full, meaty. So I'm asking you, does this synth keep its wonderful tone and richness even when turning the octave knob all the way down to 32'?
The PERfourMER is a full sounding synth. From personal experience, you have to get a little bit creative if you really want a fat bass line. When you start to implement the resonance on the filters, you loose a bit of low end. This is common in many synths. Cheers
I've owned a few Moogs (Rogue, Prodigy, Mintaur) and I haven't noticed the P4mer being any less meaty in the low end. I'm not striving to create the most extreme bass known to man, I'm just a guy who likes to make music so take that for what it's worth.
that's why i couple mine with a pair of Rossum Electro Music Evolution (ladder) Filters ; they have Q level compensation to bring up that bit you loose // anyway, lively & inspired performance - this thing makes you wish you had 4 arms sometimes...
Just gonna reiterate what everyone else has said. That first sequence is pure goosebumps. I've listened to it like 20+ times over the last few days and it is seriously testing my willpower to hold off buying yet another synth. Not to mention your other videos. The Perfourmer really is one of a kind... or four.
Thanks for sharing your jams with us. I listen to your demos a lot of times and just get in love with this great synth!! By the way your video is linked on the vermona website. Keep on going man! Cheers from Germany :)
@James MatthewSmith I did see your question but no longer see the comment. "In the first segment, with the voice stealing phrases (sounds terrific btw) is that small clicking sound at the note re-initiations a controllable sound? Is it just because of a 0 release while note" You are correct. It is voices taking over one another. It is when the release is set longer and a note takes over that voice. I like the sound of it too. It can be adjusted to diminish the click however you loose the release portion of the envelope. I like the glitchy-ness of it. Cheers
Do you keep a record of the voice patches you used for by any chance? I love the tone so much I think it would be worth hiring one of these machines to sample its sounds if you could let me know how they were achieved ( _pretty please?_ )
I always come back to this video. I can never get the LFO to modulate in the way you do here though. I'll need to play about some more. Any tips welcome!
Very good use of perfourmer, you are a very good representative of this synthesizer. I think buy the Perfourmer, I already have an Oberheim Two Voice Pro do not you think it will duplicate.
Well, that sounds just great. The gear is nice, but the skills are there too ;-) what your reverb/delay ? seems to be panning a bit, but the pan pots look dead center for each voice.
Hi Thanks for watching and commenting! I usually pan the voices on the PERfourMER. However, in this video I believe I used Logic's Space Designer Reverb and I was trying out NI's new Reflektor plugin. Cheers Archie
+cynicaloptimist Thanks. I have it sequenced through Logic. I usually write MIDI pieces playing a MIDI keyboard and then tweek them to send to the PERfourMER. You are correct that was a MiniBrute. I no longer have that now though. Cheers Archie
I'm assuming Vermona is paying you good money to make these video's... Otherwise they should. Amazing demo's/composition. Loving all your demo's. Made me buy one...
everybody with this synth makes just wonderful music. So inspiring, dark, melancholic... nice use of the P4M ! i will get one as soon as possible. Why did you rid of the brute? is the vermona your main synth?
Not sure why i find comfort in dark places :) The Brute never quite inspired me. I found it grungy and limited. Very good synth, don't get me wrong! I found its frequency response limited. Basslines for example always seemed to land in the same frequency range and I grew bored. For me it was limited and I can get distortion, etc from other units. The Vermona has played a lot of roles since I first got it. I can't really say that I have a main synth but the PERfourMER would come close for this personal music era. I do have some other nice sounding pieces of kit. What do you think I should add to my arsenal and demo? Cheers!
Hi , nice performance and sounds . i have a question : i don't own hardware synth ( perfourmer might be the first , i'm in love with the sound ) the question is : is it possible to automate any parameter of the perfourmer by drawing lines in daw and send it to the synth by midi ( like with virtual instruments or any vst) ?
+Adrien Studier Sorry for the later answer, I just noticed your question. There are synths out there that are MIDI programmable and you never have to lay a finger on them. The PERfourMER is raw and essentially you can only send note to it. There are a couple things like note velocity that you can send to it to control a little cutoff however it is not the whole frequency range.
Thanks! Unfortunately, you cannot control all 4 filter cutoffs with one control on the unit. However, you can via aftertouch. I can't say for sure if you get full resolution though. Handy for expression while playing. I imagine if you get crafty with a controller or automation, that you can control the 4 cutoffs with some sort of external controller.
What do you think of this synth now that you've had it for awhile? Is it functional as a go-to sound writing tool or does it play more of a backup role? I guess my point is, I'd love to own this synth someday, but not sure if a good poly like the OB6 would be more flexible in terms of sound creation/palette ease of programming etc. The raw sound of these oscillators is fantastic though! Thanks for any advice! Love this video!
+Jason Ramler Hi Jason. Great question. Ill give you some background on my work flow first.. I typically don't keep specific units for that long or use them forever. I get bored/not inspired by synths fairly quick. With that said, The PERfourMER for me has seen a lot more use than others in the past. I have a few go to "patches" on it that I will dabble with when I have time. In productions, I don't like to overuse certain sounds. I have used it and layered it with other synths in my tracks. Little subtle but you can still hear it in some. As for playing, It is great. For recordings, I have been letting it sit out a few tracks but still sees some use. I suppose that everybody is different but for myself, I gravitate towards similar sound like polyphonic short decay long release sounds. I am not too much into the spacey LFO heavy sounds. I don't intend to let my hands of it anytime soon however some may eventually start to feel themselves bumping their heads of the glass ceiling. Though with effects, layering, etc. it opens a few open doors. The PERfourMER has an awesome raw sound that that is super clean. That does a lot if you use it correctly. I have a JX3P without a programmer at the moment and the workflow on that is still easier than programming in poly on the PERfourMER. There is just something unique about it though and it with the poly modes and note assignments, it beats some modular configurations. If you have a listen to my other demos and other peoples examples, that should sum up its sound palette. If you like what you hear, it might be right for you. If I was given the choice between a DSI OB-6/Pro6 module that fit in a rack space and giving up the PERfourMER, I would be in a pickle. Cheers!
+ArchieMusicCanada Thanks for the information. Just about to grab one of these, with gate / cv. Can't wait to integrate it with my modular. Thanks for the lovely demos!
+ArchieMusicCanada Thanks for the detailed response. You definitely sell this synth. It has just a great clean sound like you said. And it's unique work flow inspires ideas other synths would not. Keep up the great work!
The tuning is set to A440 but the voices are tuned down a little in this video. Even with all knobs set to in the center, and set to 440, the master tune on mine is not line up at the center position.
I really like both Vermona's perfourmer and drum machine, and I will get them in the next few weeks most probably.. I'm a bit reluctant because I can't find sequencers that are both cheap and reliable.. I can't do midi via laptop, the whole point of getting hardware for me is to finally be able to get away from the laptop.. so I need something that's hands on... Is it too much to ask? :P help?!
+Fady Aswad Cheap and reliable shouldn't be the issue. Lots of gears from the nineties are fit for the task, for a bargain. But the ease of use is not always a strong point... I use a Yamaha RS7000 for all my sequencing as I hate midi-ing with computers. It's a really good sequencer for my needs, with a somewhat tedious workflow though... I just don't care about the built-in synth. You could use a small MPC from Akai, or some groove-box from EMU, these are all more-than-fair sequencers. In the end it pretty much depends on how you work : do you want to tweak the sequences a lot while playing, or do you pre-write most of your stuff ? you can find a whole lot of threads about hardware sequencers on the net. Good luck !