Great video, thanks for showing this beauty. You have a new subscriber! Please make such Summit uploads because I've just ordered a Summit. :) A long time dream came true. This synth is a real beast. Can't wait to put my hands on it. (tomorrow hopefully :D )
A pretty nice synth. I have it. It’s a matter of taste wether it’s the best synth though. One thing is that it lacks is a sequencer. Other than that, it can do and sound like almost anything.
Ok, so the best polysynth 2022 just got a huge update and just crushed the competition. Watch and learn the power of the Novation Summit v2.0! Hope you like the video! Enjoy! 🌞
I've tried the Ob6 that you have mentioned in your replies, it is a very good sounding synthesizer but I'm becoming more intrigued by the summit which has more sound shaping possibilities. Another synth that I like look of is the Waldorf iridium.
Yeah the 0B-6 sounds buttery sweet. But I totally agree on the vast possibilities the Summit offers. It's really a deep synth to explore, especially since this new update. Waldorf Iridium is also an awesome wavetable synth. ;) Though I fell for the Summit! 🔬🌞
Waldorf iridium is such a different synth than peak/summit…get both! They have very minimal crossover territory. If you can only get one ..depends on what you want to play…. Nothing is going to beat the iridium in pads, textures, and rhythmic ambience..nothing. Its absolutely the king in that section for the time being.
Since 3 weeks a Summit is on my desk. Great, lovely and an absolut stunning synth. The only drawback is "aftertouch" which needs too much force to the keys. But nevertheless, the Summit is my holy grail.
I don’t know the reason, but for years I’ve kinda dismissed the summit. I have good instruments so I guess I just wasn’t needing it. I recently traded my Waldorf Iridium and Korg Prologue 16 to buy a Waldorf Iridium Keyboard version. I always intended to re-purchase a Korg Prologue but then last week I was driving and listening to available patches for the prologue, it was a 3 hour road trip…..I suddenly found myself hearing some AMAZING patches! One after the other I kept thinking “wow! I did not know the prologue could sound like that”…..I looked at my phone and saw IT WAS SUMMIT! That started a week long exploration of tutorials, reviews and sounds. I am DAMN SURE BUYING A SUMMIT. It’s a very modern sounding instrument and will get along great with Iridium!
Ahh already got the Iridium? I tried it at Superbooth, its like a DAW synth. Super deep and powerful sculpting. Yeah I love the summit. Its a wonderful synth too. Many capabilities and often quick from idea to final sound with many straightforward and direct controls. Looking forward to hear your thoughts after working with the Summit! 💎☕️🤩
The update looks really good. While I might come up with more on serious effort there are only 2 relatively small things I would love to have seen included. A pair of glide options for chromatic stepped and constant time regardless of notes spanned. (Polybrute has both) With the new delay time mode in addition to half/double - third/triple etc. also being able to flip playback to and from reverse would be great IMHO.
I am looking to get a synthesizer and I recently bought a bass station 2, it’s a lot I still need to learn but I really like the idea of using a line input on a synth. I am looking to get a summit next
Cool, the Bass Station 2 is renowned. The Summit is an excellent synth, I really like the ability to stack two parts / layers with different patches. The only downside is that you have to dig menus to create some deeper modulation connections, but there are many upfront knobs on the board to create FM, and much more. The loopable Envelopes are also neat. And the Animation buttons with AR is also awesome. Highly recommend the Novation Summit!
very nice, clear review. thank you. please tell me if you could make an interesting review on the topic of sounds from the world of DnB? Very thankful for this🙏Aleksei
Hi Aleksei, Thanks for writing. Happy to hear you enjoy this little clip on the Summit. Do you want me to do a video on how to do sounds suitable for DnB tracks? Making the sounds on the Summit, or just with a general vsti synth? Or just talk about the genre in general and maybe do a little dnb production session? I am always open to new requests and topics from the community! Thanks for writing! 🥳☀️☕️🥁
Yes, it would be very interesting. I torn myself between buying two completely different instruments, one of which is Summit. That's why I asked to make a video to find out the possibility of this DnB production tool. Thanks a lot🙏🙌
Hey, absolutely. The polybrute is also a true beast. Indeed different beasts. What do you like with the Polybrute? I was weighting between OB6 and Summit, but IMO Summit is a tad more versatile for a sound designer with wavetable oscs. ☕️☀️
The Summit has more knobs for instant parameter controls (like instant FM and some other useful params) aside from that they are the same, BUT the major difference is that the Summit is TWO peaks in one. So you can have two presets loaded at the same time and do a split, layer or have them play via different midi channels. You can also use the second engine to process external audio through the excellent Summit effects. The reverb and delay on this is among the best in any synth Ive tried so far. So all in all Summit is the big brother. The Peak is an excellent desktop synth though, you only need to do a bit of menu diving for some if the features / params, but its pretty straightforward! Cheers, // Mattias 👌💎
In this case, a desktop is not interesting. Now you can easily reach everything and more buttons. Same as with the V Synth. These kinds of synths are so good and special that you better leave the desktop versions with far too few buttons.
Awesome, I would recommend looking at the delay types (and flipping between them while performing) and the fx modulation to delay rate. Its sick. When u run delay feedback to max its basically a looper with the new delay types. Also kick reverb feedback to max with this setting and u are in ambient land. ☀️🥁🥃 i actually recorded a 3 min performance but cut it out since the video would end up too long. Might upload later as a separate clip. Happy sound designing weekend with the Summit Vincent!
Thanks@@MattiasHolmgren! This helps a great deal! I’ve noticed I was quicker in actual sounddesign with my Bass Station 2. With Summit I feel somewhat overwhelmed 😅 But i want to dive in, instead of skimming through the abundance of presets. I’ll let you know how it pans out. Have a great weekend!
@@Dragcellar Yeah I definitely don't play the presets. I'm not that kind of guy. I make my own sounds and I think it's super quick once you know where the knobs are. Most controls are accessible directly which is nice. You probably just have better muscle memory from that Bass Station 2. Old gear is always quicker until you say "aha" and learn the new stuff on a deeper level. ;) Before the update my only downpoints on the Summit was the simple delay and the non-existing ability to tweak Attack / Decay curves, BUT with this 2.0 update they fixed the delay by 200%. It's now one of my goto effects. Super versatile! I'm gonna start routing other audio stuff into the Summit on the B part to process through the effects. ;) It's a winner! Love it!
The exciting feature of Summit is that it can run two full patches / layers at the same time. Which is mindblowing if you want to create rich, fat interesting sounds and textures. But how it compares to prophet I leave to someone else with that experience to answer. 😄☕️
I enjoyed your review.. but it has some stellar competition in this range.. there is quite a few i really love.. my setup : Roland Jupiter X, hydrasynth, peak, Gsi Gemini,
Thanks Jules, and great arsenal of synths. Yeah I played the Hydrasynth & Jupiter X at NAMM great synths but I feel the overall hands on control and flexibility + the gorgeous effects of the Summit makes it stand out. Was considering the OB-6, but the Summit has more sound sculpting tools imo. Glad u enjoyed the clip! There are many amazing synths! ☀️
Oh thanks, the intro song made with Novation Summit is called "Cascading Stars" and is released on Spotify / Bandcamp under my name Mattias Holmgren: Cascading Stars (Spotify) open.spotify.com/track/5gz6AfrZcSYsVMaINJwQiZ?si=381c6ac4590147fe Cascading Stars (bandcamp) mattiasholmgren.bandcamp.com/track/cascading-stars Happy to hear you enjoy the track! ☕😄
Hey Mattias! Great demonstration! Loved that distortion 😻 other stuff is very cool too. What do you think of the keybed on this synth? Would it be good to use as a MIDI controller for other synths and pianos? Do you find aftertouch usable on this synth? Oh, and an off-topic question: do you still use your Wacom tablet for production? I remember an old video of yours where you discussed this.
Definitely, I think it's a lovely keybed on the Summit. Less clacky than the Komplete Kontrol S61 mk2. Oh yes, it's also great as a midi controller and works great for playing piano pieces. The aftertouch is workable, I never found a synth where the aftertouch was spot on. I more often use an expression pedal rather than pushing for aftertouch. It just feels odd, a exp pedal is more natural. Iä've got the Moog expression pedal, it's nice. Yes, the Wacom tablet is always infront of me. I've used them for several "wacom generations" ;) This more recent ones has multi touch which is super useful. I can never go back to a mouse. It just feels odd and I instantly feel the strain whenever I need to touch one. 😂😄
@@MattiasHolmgren thanks! That’s very helpful! I agree about aftertouch: I tried many controllers and all of them had very short travel and very high resistance; I almost had to lean with my weight on the keyboard! And it was even worse on the black keys, I’ve touched a keyboard with even halfway decent aftertouch feel on the black keys. Add to this that often they also response unevenly 😅 maybe I should just finally forget aftertouch and get myself an expression pedal too! 🙃 As for the Wacom, I kind of want to try it, and for drawing my presentations also. Great to know it serves you well!
@@MattiasHolmgren thanks! That’s very helpful! I agree about aftertouch: I tried many controllers and all of them had very short travel and very high resistance; I almost had to lean with my weight on the keyboard! And it was even worse on the black keys, I’ve touched a keyboard with even halfway decent aftertouch feel on the black keys. Add to this that often they also response unevenly 😅 maybe I should just finally forget aftertouch and get myself an expression pedal too! 🙃 As for the Wacom, I kind of want to try it, and for drawing my presentations also. Great to know it serves you well!
@@MattiasHolmgren thanks! That’s very helpful! I agree about aftertouch: I tried many controllers and all of them had very short travel and very high resistance; I almost had to lean with my weight on the keyboard! And it was even worse on the black keys, I’ve never played a keyboard with even half decent aftertouch feel on the black keys. Add to this that often they also respond unevenly 😅 maybe I should just finally forget aftertouch and get myself an expression pedal too! 🙃 As for the Wacom, I kind of want to try it, and for drawing my presentations also. Great to know it serves you well!
After updating my Summit using Windows Components it shows ver 126.778 in the screen of Summit and in Components it says Summit is up to date running Vcustom build 2126 FPGA 778. Is this correct? or shud it say ver 2.2 in the Summit screen? I am confused.....help....thanks anyone
Hello. I've been looking at the Summit for a long time, it's a very powerful synth and it sounds great. I am very interested in the quality of the case itself, what it is made of, the quality of the knobs and the keyboard. how well everything is done. How easy it is to make patches yourself, is there Wavetable synthesis. I will be very grateful if you share with me.🙏🤟
Hi the case feels very sturdy, the woodpanel sides are actually of plastic but they feel very sturdy. The knobs and keybed is of very high quality of the Novation Summit. It's super easy to initialize a patch and then sound design with the upfront tactile knobs and buttons. You can do FM with a simple twist and add LFO/ENV to pitch, filter etc. very simple. Finally adding the effects as icing on the cake is super simple since most controls are instantly available. The menus are super simple to surf on the Summit too if you need deeper editing and adding additional deeper modulation. It's one of the more intuitive synths I've worked with. Super fast! Can't recommend it enough! Hope the info helps! 🌞
@@AlekseiDroganov if you referring to the "body", i.e. enclosure of the synth - it seems to be made out of metal. It feels very sturdy and premium quality, so I would not be worried about that. (Have been an owner of the synth for more than a year now.)
I am getting a lot of white noise hiss when turning up the volume on the Summit. Anyone else experiencing this? DI box doesn't help, and I've made sure that none of the audio cables are crossing electrical cables. Any tips?
Using the headphone jacket? In my experience the headphone jack has not as good preamp as the dedicated output ports. So for the cleanest sound, use the output ports. I also experience this on my Summit and I've heard it's a known "issue". I also feel that using the chorus introduces unwanted artifacts and degradation in the sound. Try to begin your sound design without any effects at all. Set them all to (0) zero; chorus, delay, reverb. Then start designing your sound and make good use of gain staging with the different VCA, Overdrive, Filter Overdrive to boost the signal if needed so your signal is way higher than the noise floor.
The Summit is a piece of cake and it is on my "Must Buy List". However, I just can not decide whether to buy it or not because I do not know if it does what I need. So, I am more of an oriental keyboard player. Does Summit can adjust any key tone by a 1/4 scale? Also, can I generate any sounds that I want? I watched many videos and it seems to me it is all about Bass, Strings, and Synth sounds and they all play on this device like it is for very limited purposes such as Movies (Introduction, End, or during the movie) background music. Nothing about on-stage songs or solo. Nothing about the other sounds like Flute, Saxophone, or some Middle Eastern instrument sounds. Can Summit do that? or there are other instruments I have to look at?
You can define several custom scales in a sub menu. This is like a virtual analog synth with digital oscillators, but analog filter and 3 stage analog diatortion. It does not do sample playback so don’t expect to do real strings, woodwinds, brass, sitar, drums etc. But it does very versatile and great sounding synth sounds! 👌 If you want oriental real sample based instruments I would look at something like: * Roland Juno DS61 * Kronos, Nautilus, Oasys * Yamaha ModX, Montage * Integra ;)
Estimado amigo, gracias por el video. Estoy motivado en comprar este sintetizador. Tengo una consulta. ¿Qué interface usas? ¿Qué cables usas (TS o TRS) para conectar tu teclado? ¿Y en qué inputs de tu interfaz conectas esos cables? Saludos cordiales.
Hi Roberto, thanks for watching my videos. The Novation Summit is an awesome and powerful synth. I'm using several audio interfaces. But the ones that I connect the Summit to is; Antelope Audio Zen Tour, and sometimes a AudioFuse 8pre (hooked via ADAT) to the Zen Tour. I record at 48khz 24bit, the cables I use are balanced TRS cables. I hook it to the regular balanced tele-inputs of the audio interfaces. The sound is lovely! 😄👌☕
Always Subjective. But IMO Summit is not better than Poly Brute. It’s different synths and I like the Summit for its extremely sweet effects, and dual layer (parts) capabilities. Poly Brute has more accessible (hands on) mod-matrix 👌😄🥁
The Novation Summits is a hardware / standalone synth. But it does have a webb app which let you transfer patches and wavetables etc. There is also a plugin (controller editor) but I only use it as a hardware synth myself. 👌☕️🥁
Ive made an absolute epic soundbank for sale for the Summit. If you like DnB, EDM, Dubstep, Trance and other trippy sounds, my sound bank is for you. I've spent the past 12 months developing the sound bank, I'm still working on the sound demo but can send and MP3 demo for you to hear in the meantime.
OB-6 is another level. Its creamy as butter. But Summit can go where the OB can not. Different beasts, but for general analog subtractive sounds OB-6 wins! 🥁👌😄
I have the Summit and trying to connect quality Kawai F10H sustain pedal, I tried almost everything according to the manual, but with no success.. I tried setting 'pedal sw sense' to open and auto and 'pedal sw modes' to sustain.. I do not get any response at all, tried both pedal 1 and 2 input, I saved settings and power cycled many times.. I get no response from the pedal what so ever, the pedal is working on my digital piano so it is not broken - any tips please!?
@@MattiasHolmgren Thank you for the response! But it actually makes me worry even more XD.. The Summit is brand new and I did the latest firmware update.. Was hoping for any settings that I might have missed.. I also tried both pedal inputs and trying several sound presets , but It just does not seem to work.. o.0..
@@MattiasHolmgren I will soon test another 'regular' pedal for science and will let you know if that solves the problem.. Thank you for the feedback, cheers!
Hi Tyler, I only had brief experience with Polybrute in the store. They are quite different at first "sound" / look. Where Polybrute is analog oscs, the Summit is digital (emulating analog), and thus Summit can do broader palette with more advanced oscs (wavetables). Polybrute only has 6 voices compared to 16 on Summit, but it's probably quicker to dial in tones to sit in the mix on the Polybrute, as the analog VCOs sound outstanding. As always it's about experience on the gear. Summit is very immediate to me and I feel it's almost as versatile as working with a soft synth with FM knob in your face. ;) Polybrute has very nice performance tools: Ribbon, 3-axis Morphée controller and a sequencer (if you want that onboard). I use external sequencers like Octatrack, Digitakts / DAWs to handle SEQ. Summit is also Bi-timbral (true) which makes it awesome if you want to run it as a bass and lead / pad at the same time, or do stacking / layering. And you can also use one of the A/ B patches as an audio-in and treat an external source through the REALLY LOVELY effects section of Summit. I can't praise the chorus, (new lofi) delay and reverb enough. So I'm very happy with it. But when playing true analog OCS synths you will hear that they are more immediate and Summit takes a little "control" to make the sounds. But it's extremely quick to edit. All controls are there for you! What are your own impressions so far? What gap are you looking to fill in your studio? ;)
@@MattiasHolmgren Hey, great response, thank you. It is interesting, I bought the Polybrute, and it is extremely impressive so far. I had to sell my Peak to afford it, and the option was Polybrute or Summit. There are a few things I miss on the Peak including the envelope curves, wavetable shapes, the knob feel, the filter bite, and the unbelievable reverb. The Polybrute is quite the happy accident machine so far; the mod-matrix and controls are so powerful and well thought out. The sound is noticeably distinct from the Peak - there are some sounds the Peak could make that I just cannot get out of it and vice-versa (as expected). The way the Peak's envelope curves are handled was something I really liked; the Polybrute's are a little harder to hit on the sweet spot. I have a Digitakt as well, but the on-board sequencer has been great so far as it doubles as a programmable mod lane (not unlike the Elektron sequencers. I thought I would butt up against the 6-voice limit more, but the voice stealing setting can add a lot of character. Overall, there is so much to learn here, the Polybrute is exceptionally capable and deep; it sounds beautiful, but it is not a replacement for the Peak, which has it's own extremely appealing character.
@@MattiasHolmgren Well, after owning the Polybrute for a week, I have returned it. Although it sounded great, I experienced constant full synth lockups, and lost a number of patches. I also found myself missing the slow, high-poly, atmospheric swells that I built on the Peak. I am going back to Novation - a Summit is on the way. Luckily, I saved out my Peak patches, so they will be making their way back onto the Summit.
@@itsdrawkcab5899 hi sorry, I haven't played the UDO Super 6, it looks (sounds) promising. Especially for stereo spread with the binaural analog signal path.
Super 6 is overhyped and overpriced. It has less voices, no fx, and far less features/synth engines. Summit does ‘binaural’ stereo spread, too, and has fx to die for. The S6 is a bit brighter; the Summit is a bit less so.
Yeah its a huge leap in price for a Moog. And they are great at different sounds. The Summit can do a broader palette of sounds though. But moog filters are moog filters :)
Its the most expensive, and a totally different League of synth. Despite the outstanding features, Moog synths are totally overpriced as well as overrated. Just because of their signature preset Sounds used in famous productions. At the end the only Thing you can get Out of a Moog is a Moog, while you can get much more out of a Virus or a summit.
