Mark is a great salesperson (no shade), but here are better and more affordable synths: Korg minilogue 500, Arturia Microfreak 350, Korg MS-20 600, Novation MiniNova 400, and the Dreadbox Nymphes. No doubt this synth is beautiful and may be worth buying for that reason, but it is not great for those looking to dip in to hardware synths. The pricetag and lack of features is actually insulting. It makes the Teenage Engineering Op-1 Field look like an amazing value.
I might add Arturia's MiniFreak, though the Microfreak might be enough if you don't mind the touch-capacitive keys and a mono output (since you'd put it into pedals anyway). And if you're looking for a portable, simple, basically knob per function synth similar in spirit to the Replay, Yamaha's Reface CS is also an option worth considering as it has similar features and is much cheaper.
Yup, it's a lousy first synth and not a good value. It's oscilators are digital and pedestrian, it has a mono output, there's no saving of patches on the hardware, only 6 voice polyphony, it's trying to be portable but doesn't have a battery and will not run on an external battery. It's not velocity sensitive, no mod-wheels; it's essentially a non-functioning keyboard that is not conducive to improving your keys chops; for all practical purposes it's a desktop digital synth, whose sole selling point is it appeals to hipsters that want look good playing a synth with labels you can't read. Even still, it's not gig worthy. No one in their right mind would use this on a job. It's not performance ready. If this were priced much lower, it would still be an uninspired digital synth. At the risk of pissing people off, you could get the Behringer UB-Xa in a close price range and get a great sounding synth. Still the better alternative for guitarists thinking about synths to use at home is to get a decent keyboard controller and then invest in VSTs, like the Arturia V, Cherry Audio, or GForce. And if you're interested in sound design, where to start? But maybe consider a mono synth which can be sampled to make poly, then upload to sounds to something like the TE EP-133, which doesn't require much skill. MONO SYNTHS: The Typhon, which you can sample to make poly for half the price, or the Dave Smith Instruments, Tetra (out of production) but pricy. Or maybe the Taiga, which you can find used or open box for less than what the Replay is going for. For that matter, just get a used Rev 2 8-voice on reverb, which come down to a thousand every once and a while. There are just so many better options at that price point. But if you just want to an inexpensive starter synth to check out, get a Yamaha Reface CS (not velocity sensitive). They sell new for under 300 (used sometimes around 200) and they have an online user community, Soundmondo, which give you endless patches, or for slightly more money, the Hydrasynth Explorer, under 500, which has room for growth. Both of these have a legit keyboard, and the Explorer is velocity sensitive. Or go with a used OP-1... and it's truly portable. That said, I like the Vongon company. They make great pedals. I own two of them and they're not cheap, but I think they're a great value for their uniqueness. So I hate putting them down as a company, but this synth is priced too high for what it offers; looking cool isn't enough. And I'm not sure why so many influencers are selling out over this synth. They're not doing their followers any favors. It perhaps says more about the infuencers than the product. Btw, I was on a live feed of Mark's and he was reviewing maybe some pedal, and I brought up Pladask Elektrist, he said he didn't like them because they were mono. It's true that they're mono, but they are unique pedals. And now he's hard selling a mono output synth. Make it make sense.
Agree with everything here. I'm really puzzled by this synth. I love what VonGon has done with their pedals, but this unfortunately just seems like a potential miss to me. Time will tell as people either buy or don't buy this synth. Hopefully I'm wrong as we start to see how people use it.
Heck, the MiniFreak is $250 less than the Replay. I love Vongon's pedals, but I really do not understand the draw to a mono-channel synth that actively spites people with vision impairment.
Great sounds out of this from what I’ve been hearing. Hard to justify the price when the Hydrasynth Explorer is $300-$400 cheaper, but a really cool device that I want nonetheless! Using your guitar through it must be awesome.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about synths to comment on the price, but with Vongon I think a big reason why their products are often priced at a premium compared to similar products is their design. Their products are gorgeous and some people are willing to pay extra for that.
@@signalpath The Hydrasynth is probably one of the greatest modern synths of this era to come out. They have 4 different models and the the explorer is the smaller portable version. It’s incredibly powerful and priced very nice.
Honestly don’t get the hate here. You gave a good review of a product you like. It’s not for me, but I don’t expect you to showcase things that are always applicable. I’m perfectly fine with my Akai mini but I appreciated your process & using effects in the mix. Sounds great.
You do realise this reviewer will have been sent this synth by the maufacturer right? They sent a load of em out for youtube review. Infact I rarely see so many reviews of such a mediocre synth. Can't imagine him dropping £900 on it
All my background outside of this is in the box synth VST’s and the time I was in a band with a guy who had a microkorg. You’ll notice that in this video I talk about the greater advocacy for guitarists getting into this world regardless of whether they want this one or not.
thanks for the video. I love how intuitive this is. There is a lot of division about the release but it seems like a fun way for someone who doesn't play a synth to dabble and make sounds. keep up all the great work
How about the deepmiond 6 voice. Small, analogue , sounds great, great effects, stereo out, full midi, velocity and aftertouch, mod wheels, more hands on control than this thing, saves presets about £499. or (350) of ebay. I suggest hipsters buy this, musicuans....buy the deepmind or any other ovbiously superior synth
Deepmind 12 is cheaper, sounds better, has 2 analog osc per voice, has amazing effects onboard, and is both easy to use and deep under the hood for later if you want to go there. Smokes this thing without breaking a sweat. This synth is for people who care more about what their gear looks like than how it sounds.
Yes guitarists should have a synth! But you can get twice as much synth for half the price. Not bashing Vongon, they’re a small company that makes beautiful looking (and sounding) boutique items.
This is very cool. As a guitar player who has tried to play piano many times, this is an appealing way to "play piano" without having to play piano. I also just want to say that we are COMPLETELY different guitar players and musicians; however, I have really enjoyed your channel and have subbed. I like your casual but articulate format and I like that you're a smart guy making great videos. Keep it up man. Cheers from San Diego.
I love the aesthetic of this synth, and the filter actually sounds fantastic. Getting that kind of low end out of the box is superb. I had a Korg ARP Odyssey for a little, and the filter on this reminds me a ton of what I could do with the ARP. Being able to get that type of sound with six note polyphony is rad. The sounds coming from this keyboard are phenomenal! With that said, I agree with lots of others here commenting that there are tons of more 'capable' synths that people can get for cheaper. I've had a roland jxdi for about 7 years and it consistently surprises me with the tricks it has up its sleeves. It can do the "juno" thing and tons of other stuff. It doesn't have a ton of it's own personal character (in the way a juno sounds like a juno and a ms20 sounds like an ms20), but it covers a lot of ground and can produce a lot of familiar pad/lead/bass tones by means of presets (and if you're willing to tinker with controls through the menu system). You can find them on Reverb for like $350 used to $600 new. Lots of "cheap" synths ($100-$400) coupled with fairly basic pedals (jhs 3 series/walrus fundamental series chorus, tremolo, delay, reverb) can get you into the "sound design/soundscape" world, and you'll be able to produce high quality sounding stuff. But I do think that depending on someone's budget/needs, the aesthetic of this synth + the sound capabilities it has makes it super attractive. It's a synth that looks fun to play, just because the layout/aesthetic is refreshing (sorta like a Teenage Engineering OP-1). Coupled with a Chase Bliss MOOD, or a Hologram Microcosm/Chroma Console, the results will sound great, but so do most things routed through those effects, because they make everything sound great lol. All that to say, while this synth isn't for everybody, I think for a niche audience, this could be a cult classic one day if someone like Tame Impala, Jacob Collier, Mark Ronson, Phineas, or Bleachers gets one, starts making music with it, and plays with it live. If it becomes part of an artist's aesthetic/sound, fans/critiques/producers will be all over it in spite of the current price tag.
Sounds cool, I can appreciate the retro aesthetic, but the lack of any meaningful UI is just silly. Seems lazy. Looks like an unfinished product, like you grabbed it off the assembly line early. Also priced way too high given current market offerings. Reface CS costs like $300. Plus the Reface has some of the best mini-keys in the business, these mechanical keys on the Vongon look awkward to use. Still, you make it sound incredible, and I can tell you find it very inspiring. That's really what its all about at the end of the day I guess. I would love to see more synth content personally! Once you really dive in, you'll realize what poor value proposition this is in context.
It’s not lacking UI; all the knobs and switches are labeled but it’s white on off white so it’s only vaguely legible in person and completely not on camera. It’s mildly annoying but I’ve found that in the studio I don’t struggle to see what it says.
@@markjohnstonofficial Oh thank goodness. I couldn't fathom why they would leave it completely unlabeled. Yeah on camera, it looks that way, that's crazy.
i wish more people that are presenting this synth as amazing would talk about the UI being garbage, but i guess that’s not how you get free stuff. i’m not the synth police though, so enjoy.
@@jonobot_ I've watched a lot of the content about this thing that's come out, and so far I haven't seen a single person struggling with the UI, so your assertion that it's garbage is a wild one unless you've got hands on experience with the article As someone who's designed UIs for VST, guitar pedals and some pro audio DSP devices I can confidently say that what's right for some users isn't right for everyone. It's true that the text print isn't accessible which is a fairly major problem for certain impairments, but it's laid out pretty intuitively for something capturing the essence of a synthesizer. It's the right level of detail for it's own level of complexity.
I definitely support hardware synth helping u understand Soft-synths way more. I've owned Pigments for a while now. Didn't fully understand features and stuff until I bought my Axe-Edge. Since the Edge forced me to learn what the knobs etc did making patches. Find one u like and can afford and learn from it.
Synths are the only digital UI that I still endorse skeumorphic design. Nebulous OSX era UI elements changing a million parameters on a boring screen feels incredibly intangible
I'm also a guitarist who learned how to use synths as backgrounds so I could improvise over an atmospheric background. Nowadays, I actually do a bunch of synth songs without any guitar. Or I add guitar as the last thing I record, after doing everything else on synths. Learning how to program and use synths is a great tool in the studio.
Guys i have Novation launchkey 25 midi controller laying around here. If i use that with some synth plugin, am i just absolutely missing out and doing this wrong. I do not know anything about this stuff other than i like those noises we getting here 😂 Any suggestions for synth plugins also?
I absolutely love the way this thing sounds and the look of it, I think it’s pretty unique in ui design, I just wish it was cheaper :.) maybe it’s just my gas but having one of these would be really cool with the softsynths I have + midi controller and my opsix I don’t feel I could ever justify anything else, but this review is very nice and the sound examples are very well done! i would love to see more synthesizer reviews in the future
Brother! Love love love your videos. Am a HUGE fan. Just one quick note for you. I have been noticing on some recent videos (including this one) your vocal voiceovers are coming in really hot and overloading a bit. It’s a bit hard to listen to. Just wanted to mention it a bit, just cos I am a huge fan. Thanks for all you do, brother!
“Oh shit, I thought I put on Mark’s video of the Vongon… not Bladerunner.” -Me during the intro song lol Good stuff, Mark. To everyone complaining about the price… it’s like Apple… Androids are SO much more flexible/customizable/(insert whatever you want here) and generally cheaper. Yet… more than likely, what’s in all of your pockets? An iPhone.. lol
I just bought a (used) OP-1 Field. It's still absurdly expensive for what it is, but it's also an absolute delight to turn on and makes me want to make music. It's entirely possible I'm just a douchey hipster that wants to spend money to seem like a better musician than I am, but I just find it to be really great, even if an MPC one+ for 699 can run circles around it in terms of capability. I'd love to pay less for it (which is why I bought a used one), but it's compact, has a great battery life, I'm not tethered to my desk with a DAW, and has everything I need in it to make a song. There's other portable devices even smaller and much less expensive like the OP-Z and the Dirtywave M8 that also seem really cool and maybe I'll check them out someday, but they also definitely have entirely different workflows from the OP-1. I think some people just struggle to understand that people value different things from them, especially when they need to maximize their dollar in order to pursue their hobbies, where getting the most power or options is paramount. You see this with phones, like you mentioned, but also PC vs. Macs (why're you paying so much more for so much less hardware specs?), and definitely in music gear as well. This synth definitely doesn't seem as powerful as a hydrasynth, but who cares? Who says one can't have both, anyway?
Just like you I'm not a keyboard player, but I love playing synths. I'd be very interested in what you think about the Linnstrument, or other isomorphic grid MIDI interfaces (Erae Touch is another one). They let you use a lot of chord shapes from guitar, slide notes like on a fretboard, and use pressure for expression.
Intro track is a lot of lushness from stuff like the MOOD mkii but the sound samples are all the vongon in isolation and imo it sounds great. Like with ambient music, reverb is the icing but a poor foundation means a low cap on how good you can make it in post.
@@markjohnstonofficial totally agree with you, a good foundation is critical. All a guitar is, is one of the best foundation waveforms ever which sounds better with distortion and reverb. Same with a synth.
Vongon is a company that sells a plate reverb a random modulation for 450 in a walnut enclosure. They’ve always been a company that sells at an “above market” price point because of their look and while it’ll likely keep them out of the mainstream, it seems to be keeping them afloat
@@markjohnstonofficial I did watch the video. I'm just laughing because another synth reviewer just released a rather funny video about how a certain segment of reviewers all suddenly released simultaneous videos praising how this is some super synth. It's about as bare bones of a subtractive synth as you can get and takes teenage engineering level or "artsy" laziness to the next level. This synth has absolutely nothing to offer over the myriad of other basic subtractive synths for a hugely inflated price...
I guess you changed your opinion on mono vs stereo; the Replay has a mono output. You rejected Pladask Elektrisk because their pedals are mono. Now I love Vongon pedals, and I don't doubt the Replay is very cool, but influencers should remain consistent.
nope, "influencers" should be real and if they like something (whether stereo or mono) shouldnt make a difference but i guess theres always gotta be that person who feels the need to tell people how to do their videos
@@persywho5863 You're incorrect. If they say they don't like mono, they should mean it and they shouldn't change their mind just so they can shill a product. But I guess there's always going to be someone who gets their wee feelings hurt just by hearing the opinions of others.
It’s never been “I don’t like mono” because that’s reductive and silly. I prefer stereo for a bunch of specific purposes but not as a wholesale solution. I don’t want / need stereo drive pedals. I don’t expect my guitar itself to function in stereo because “stereo is better” and I don’t care that this is in mono because, like a guitar, it’s the source of the audio that will then process through mono and stereo effects as it goes. What you, I hope, are referring to is the fact that I prefer reverb to be in stereo. That’s still.. largely true but even then I have shifted my hard stance on stereo over the last two years as I’ve moved further from writing ambient with amp modelers and into writing most aggressive genres with tube amps. Super wide stereo guitars just are not right for every genre. Its not inconsistent to evolve you opinion as your work and artistic expression changes.
@@markjohnstonofficial So you don't deny saying you didn't like Pladask Elektrisk because they're mono effects. Great, your honesty is appreciated. You evolved your position. Great, this is probably why your channel is still relevant. But suggesting my comment is reductive when I'm quoting your past opine is much like the pot calling the kettle black. I get that this is your current opinion, but a synth is not a guitar and the standard options for guitars and synths are very different. Not caring whether or not a synth is stereo is ignoring the industry standard for synths that utilize any sort of modulation. Sure, you can always plug it into a stereo effect in your chain, but the modulation from the synth will remain mono. And this is not a reasonable option for a synth in this price range. I don't remember which pedal you were featuring. It was a good show, but when I commented on Pladask pedals you were dismissive of them based on them being mono, which was a little off putting considering that Chase Bliss early pedals were mono, yet while you seemed to have collected all the Chase Bliss well before your opinion morphed, you still reject Pladask; it think it was during COVID. It's curious. I appreciate that you can be flexible in your opinions over time, but you rejected Pladask based on a feature that Chase Bliss didn't have at the time. So I'm not seeing the consistency here. As far as the Vongon product is concerned, I'm not seeing why you're obsessed with it. It's price point is out of sync with the Replay's features. And the comment sections seems to be in agreement on this point. It's a shame because I like Vongon, although all their products are premium product priced. IMO, their first foray into synths was an overreach. But your opinions are valid. And I still find value in your vlogs.
“I don’t like mono” is the statement I was calling reductive, not your message. Because it’s an entirely too limiting thing for anyone to meaningfully be able to say. I still hold that I don’t prefer mono reverb because it feels unnatural to me but my overall take is much more malleable these days. Not sure I would change my opinion much on Pladask though. Iirc my main gripe with them (haven’t thought about them in ages) was that they seemed to do a lot of glitchy / micro looping kind of effects and I’ve ALWAYS struggled to get sounds I like out of mono granular stuff. Even when I covered the walrus lore / fable that did some of that I tended to process it through something with stereo width just to get it back to something I would be able to sound design more effectively with.
Vongon is not trying to compete with the market (this feature set would cost about 25% of this synth in the current market). Vongon has a similar business model to Apple or Teenage Engineering. The major quality of their products is its asethic beauty. Deeply versatile is a bit redundant and an inaccurate description of this synth.
Wait which part? The part where I say this is the first time we’ve ever talked about a synth on the channel or the part where I say I’m going to link to Matt Lowery’s video on the topic because he is a better resource?
@@markjohnstonofficial No, the part where you try and push this as something unique, special or sonically special as opposed to mediocre sounding, terrible keyboard but with the 'look' that seems to attract a certain type of buyer. I think I saw the words commodity fetishism somewhere. This thing is for the better off types, or ones who get given it free to review.
“Versatile”? Really? You got it for free. I wouldn’t be surprised if vongon kicked back with some cash as well. This synth is deeply embarrassing. The end times for commodity fetishism is now.
@@markjohnstonofficialI didn’t say it was the end times, just for commodity fetishism (and hopefully synthfluencers as well). How much did they pay you? $1000? More?
U still playing with this a month later? Synth is proper dogshit - engine, sound, and design wise. The price is offensive and completely out of touch. Hopefully these just went out for free to the shillers and no one actually bought one
Was using it like crazy the month leading up to the release. Have been using it since; it's currently within arms reach as I type this because it regularly gets used on tracks. Vongon seems to have sold out of the first run so I fear that you hope might have gone unfulfilled, but rest assured that when they restock them you'll be able to not buy one a second time.
@@markjohnstonofficial lol whatever enjoy your paid promotion money. synth is actual ass though and if you knew anything about synths you would know that
