This made all the difference for me in getting started. I just did not know what perspectives to consider; in particular 'what kind of player are you?' Very well described such that it made sense and I feel I can move forward with choosing, once and for all what my first synth will be. It's going to be the Korg Monologue synthesizer. Thanks again for the insight.

Don't let the name Semi-Modular fool you. It's not half but twice the synth of modular. Every knob or slider already works as a full functioning synth before patchcables... when a modular isn't fully functional till it's pretty much completely patched up.

I see that SH-09! It was my first synth, back in 1981, and it was an ideal synth to learn on - just one of everything, and every control arranged in a logical order.

Listen to this man. Exceptional advice all around.

Deepmind 12 or 12D with a Keystep is a great start since you can connect the Synth to an iPad or iPhone and be able to change all the parameters from it

Let’s face it, once you enter the rabbit hole no one stops at one synth. If you buy analog first you will want digital second and vice versa. It only stops once there is either no more room or you have no organs left to sell.

I come back an watch your videos every year or so. Love you, man. Thanks for the discussions. My first synth was the Behringer TD-3. Mys second was the Opsix for $310 brand new when that crazy discount hit two years ago. It went into the deep end quickly, but even DJing the presets in the Opsix is instantly fun like no other synth that I've yet tried.

if they don't know it's not a synthesizer, don't ruin the illusion for them. they didn't really want a synth in the first place, just wanted to be able to say they have one. if they're happy with their keyboard then there's no need to spoil their fun

This was really great info!!!!! I made the first 4 for sure and never thought about the others but glad I seen this.

Absolutely worthful&helpful video, such basic aspects one often forgets to consider 👍🏽

I thought I was supposed to buy a Moog One because it's called one. Aren't we supposed to begin with 1? I was told that the mortgage that I had to get to purchase it was a good deal and completely normal. I've had it for 3 weeks now. I only have 2 questions. How do I turn it on, and once it is on how do I make all of those little lights flash? Last question, is this all completely normal? I must have been really funny because all of the salesmen were laughing when I was leaving! Also I needed 7 more guys to help me carry it in. I thought that was a little weird. Plus my pickup truck (a 2020 Dodge Dually, extended cab diesel) was a little too small to move the synth easily. So, did I do everything right buying my 1st synth?

This covers a lot of bases. Thank you for this.

Great video, from someone who has made most of these mistakes. The silver lining is that my instincts were good about keeping several of them even though they didn't serve my needs at the time. Now they are "classics" and I am rediscovering them in much more depth. Most influential for me was the Juno 106 purchased cheap on eBay and subsequently reconditioned. Some of the more difficult synths to catch up on have been the Alesis Ion, the Poly Evolver and the Kurzweil PC3. Most modular fun for me has been in the hybrid form of the Nord G1 and G2 and Cherry Audio's Voltage Modular software.

Excellent video love hearing zack talk

fantastic gateway !

Great advice, I'd say nothing beats going out and trying gear first hand before you commit. I made a trip out of state thinking I had to have an "analog polyphonic" which at that time was the Korg Prologue - Long story short, I ended up spending a bit more and came home with a digital workstation - Kronos! By far my favorite instrument.

Excellent video. Must see. I fell in love with synth with my Realistic Moog and loved the weird strange things I could do until it broke.( I didn't know who or what Moog was until 30 years later. Fast forward 30 years + and I made the mistakes you talk about. I didn't understand what I needed to achieve the sound I had in my mind and bought what I thought would work. Lesson learned

Great video for all the synth newbies. I think you touched all the right facts on buying synths. I feel bad for the person you first mentioned who bought "My First Sony" synth by Yamaha. Lol. I guess alot of us have gone down that road at some point or another. Good luck to all who are making the jump into real synth instruments. I praise you for doing so. Again, great video. 👍👍👍👍👍

Great points!

Great!

My first synth was the CASIO SK-1 I got for Christmas when I was 10 or 11 yrs old… cute little bugger lol, and you could sample sounds!

My first real synth was the Quantum MK2 which has been a fantastic way to learn how everything works. The screen is incredibly helpful since it show how all the features work together. I also liked that it has both pure samples but can do resonance, waveforms and analog like sound. A way cheaper option is the Iridium Core that has nearly the same features just no keyboard. I just ordered a Moog One to get a more complex analog synth. My background is in piano so it is important for my type of more instrumental music that I have enough voices which both the One and Quantum delivers with 16. I also use a Native Instrument 61 to get more pure sample libraries but I wish it had many more inputs. I find myself not being overly excited about VST and only use them when I have to. Quantum is used every day though and is always a joy.

Even the old Video Manual for the jp-8000 in the mid 90s has a bunch of plants in the background lol

Great video sir! I’ve been overthinking this 1st hardware purchase and you mentioned the Minilogue 3x which has always been my first choice along with the Roland Ju 06.Which would be the best bang 4 buck. I’m into House and Drum and Bass and I’ve got Pigments 2. Thanks

This is a very good guide for someone starting in their synths journey

After some trial and error, I've settled on a combo of a Roland alpha Juno 2, which sticks me right in the sound space I want, and also a cheap used Korg Minilogue mainly for hands-on learning the ins and outs of synths, but also its interesting sound. I think it will be a good combination.

Maybe it'd be cool to do a similar type of video with regards to drum machines.

Great advice, thanks. I recently bought my first synth, a Yamaha CS5. I'm really into "Detroit Techno", this kind of thing. I also tagged on a Volca NuBass. I decided to go Monophonic since the idea is to create little bleeps and bloops, rather than soundscapes.

I have a 88 key Controller, a 61 key workstation, and a 37 key synthesizer. My mother complains I have to many pianos. It's pointless to explain it to her. She's the one who got me started, she got me a piano when I was a kid. BTW, very happy with what I have, My synth can be easily be repatched with surface controls without menu diving, so it sort of takes the place of modular. Pro 3 SE is a wonder to behold.

11: Access to a place where you can try out all the potentially perfect synths for you doesn't exist. But it never did, so don't feel bad. Ideally you'd be able to try out synths in person, but honestly, at any given time, even the best 'stocked' music stores, even in the golden age of non-online retail, has always had a limited availability. There are a billion youtube videos out there discussing every synth on the planet. Those have their problems too. The end result you are hearing may not track with the experience of having that instrument in your hands. The perfect world of synth consideration may never exist, but use what tools you have available, take baby steps and be patient.

good advice right there.

Start with an Arturia Microfreak. A dozen different synth engines, great price, small foot print, sounds good and if the key bed is an issue just get an original Keystep to control it.

very sound advice. I guess my getting a 1978 Minimoog model D as the first synth kinda rings all those warning bells. It got damaged on its way to me. Bringing it back to life and enjoying its unique sound is worth it to me, however using it and learning it is a challenge. But, it is huge fun. I can only recommend this if you got tons of money to burn (when I found it during a vacation I just did not care ...)

I definitely made the complexity mistake with my ultranova and the wrong type of synthesis mistake with my volca fm :p

Good advice

My biggest mistake was buying a synthesizer because making sounds is fun and it's an excuse not to practice keyboard. I'd stick with the Clavinova if I were you. :) On the other hand, playing the piano or any kind of keyboard is a bad choice, because everyone expect you to read music, which nobody expects when you play the guitar. So, in the first place, I should've studied guitar, not keyboard. That's all I have to say, if it makes any sense.

Thanks for the informative vid. I hope people will see this vid so they can avoid getting a rompler when they really want a synthesizer. I got my first real synth (a Prophet 600) in the early '90s when used analog synths could be had for less than $200. I made the mistake of buying a modern Yamaha that only had a user controllable filter and amplitude envelope. I wanted something like the Yamaha S03 where sounds could be completely edited by the user. I love wavetable, FM and subtractive synthesis. Analog synths are much easier to program than FM. I would suggest a newbie save up for a Deep Mind before they go for something as complicated as a Yamaha Montage.

My first and currently only synth is my Korg Ms20 mini which I got really cheap. It needed some love and repair, which is fortunately something I love to do as well. I bought it because I played in a band that had a synth player whom combined it with guitar pedals, which is also how I use it. However, I am still new to learning synthesis and probably shouldn't have gotten it, but... Is it hard to operate? YES! Could I have started on a easier synth? YES! Do I feel stupid when using it? YES! Do I regret buying it? NO! I enjoy the steep learning curve and getting new ideas every day. Enjoy the journey people. Learn, get inspired, and experiment alot. Life is short, death is longer.😃

If you choose outside of the few flagship vintage synths, like the Jupiters, the Juno-6/60/106, Oberheims, Prophets, CSs etc., you can actually get really nice stuff for fairly little money. And outside of mini-key models or Behringer, the price of modern synths is actually quite high in many cases. It depends a bit on what you want, but brand new synths are actually not generally very affordable. It also depends greatly on what kind of sounds you want to get out of them. I wholeheartedly agree with the argument about maintenance and such with vintage gear though. That is an obvious downside.

Number 8 is hard if you're into Aphex Twin and NIN. They're both gear nuts with large modular synths.

My bad decisions when buying synths is seeing a cool video and instantly wanting them (and buying them often). 😅

A lot of good points. Off hand I'd throw in along with paying attention to your own musical palette onboard vs. outboard effects. This ties in a lot with your palette (musical likes and influences.) I've heard people playing a Moog or an original Prophet 5 and complain it doesn't sound like something from some album like they expected. Most vintage, and even many new synths don't have builti in effects. If you don't want to buy a bunch of outboard gear, best to get a synth that has some delays and/or reverbs built in to air out the sound.

For me, things were different. I bought at a used instrument shop around the corner from my job. Each keyboard was all new to me and could take weeks to figure out. The internet was not as developed, so that took up even more time. I now own about 10 boards all sitting in storage.

My first synth was a yamaha tq5 fm synth module that I bought at the pawn shop in 2003. I didn't have a manual so I didn't know you had to replace the internal battery to be able to save user patches. You definitely need to make your own patches since the factory patches aren't very good.

i wish more synths could handle multiple tracks like the JD-XI...sofar its the only synth ive ever had that lets me control a totally different patch with a midi-in controller- independent of the patch selected on the JD-xi itself...so with a midi keyboard its basicly the equivalent of 2 synths at once...both with their own cutoff and res control filters-if you have those knobs on the controller....if anyone knows of more affordable synths with this feature please let me know.

the minilogue was my first synth i ever owned i use to own my own smoke shop i would drive to ashville to get items from the whole sailer to avoid shipping cost i only live hr n half away and they right beside the moog factory and i would lush so bad i finally went in one day and they were so nice to me as were the people i did buisness with ashvilles incredible and the people have mostly been beyond friendly great video vety solid advice in my opinion

Microkorg is a good start, the lack of full knob per function forces you to learn the terminology and every function rather than what each knob does

Nice video. I'm considering the Behringer TD-3 for my first synth cuz it seems to be good quality and the price is right at $120.

I think #1 doesn't apply to everyone. The reason the Synthesizers now have key beds is to help with actually playing / sound sculpting while creating. Why force people to buy a controller to control a synth when it can already come built into the unit..

You forgot midi keyboards, many times I have seen midi keyboards wrongly labelled Sythersizor in used gear shops like Cash converters.

I think the biggest question you need to ask yourself is if you need a sampler (e.g. piano, organ, guitar sounds), as well as a synthesizer. You'll probably need a keyboard workstation if so, just make sure it can do sound synthesis (e.g. Roland Fantom, Kurzweil PC4, Yamaha Motif). A keyboard workstation is probably a bad first synthesizer but it might be your only choice, just make sure you get the corresponding editor software on your PC so you can actually design patches (yes it's usually much easier on the computer). You can get used Keyboard Workstations for fairly cheaply depending on the model you want. I'd probably go with a Kurzweil K2000... that's a really bad starter synth, but you will not exhaust it's capabilities. As you said, complexity is not the best choice. Korg Wavestate or Korg Modwave would be good choices, they both can use a sampler at the core, but they are both real synths. The second question you should ask yourself is "what is your budget?" Don't get stuck comparing synths that cost vastly different amounts of money. Maybe your budget is $100 and all you can afford is a used MIDI controller. Free is also an option, there are many completely free VSTs (synth plugins), and honestly I'd recommend starting there until you find out what you like (yes, many free vintage synth recreations to be tried!). Look up the MiniMogueVA (Minimoog clone) or the Arppe2600va (Arp 2600 clone) or maybe Dexed (DX7 clone) or OBXD (Oberheim OB-X clone). If there's a synth you want to try, there's a good chance somebody made a recreation of it. Some of the clones cost money, but they are way cheaper than buying hardware. It's a good way to test the water first. Now say you go down the road of analog or virtual analog hardware, you should consider whether you want something that can do monophonic, polyphonic or both, and if polyphonic, how many voices you want. Polyphonic gets expensive, do you really want real analog? Digital can usually do more voices. The final thing I'd caution about is "Hands-on Control"... how many of the features are presented to you with knobs and sliders, and how much is buried in menus. You want a LOT of knobs on your first synth. Or as I mentioned for the Keyboard Workstation, get the editor software for your computer. But it's not the same as turning knobs with your hands. I made the mistake of getting a kind of menu driven synth for my first keyboard and it was harder to program than I anticipated (Yamaha CS2X). Some of these noobs are getting stuff like a Waldorf Blofeld. Don't get me wrong that synth sounds great, but its knobs are few in number. Roland GAIA might be a good choice.

I bought a keyboard instead of a synth. Im here mainly to hear Zachs voice.

"Synthesizer" is one of those word that aparently has changed meaning over the years. Today it seems that it is only used (or allowed to be used) for those instruments where the sound can be edited. But those instruments that could not edit sounds used to be called "preset synthesizers".

Mistakes are there to learn from, the more you make, the more you learn... Making mistakes is GøøD!

I started out with a Yamaha cs5 back in 1987...it's currently residing in my outhouses unused and I wonder whether it can be refurbished

What synth produced that ARP on the outro of the video? Cheers ;)

Some good advice here. My first was a Blofeld - not analogue, physically very ugly, but exactly what I wanted - a super-deep sonic pallet with extensive midi and modulations and it can go from bass to pads to evil digital malfunction noises.

Always get a deal.

WE NEED AN OPSIX REVIEW because i’m undecided on whether to get an opsix or deepmind 12 huge fan :)

Number 10 is top priority, try the synth in person!!

Hello, Im looking for synth with midi but also a synth that i can connect the pedals, is there any affordable? Thanks

This is a really cool guide, Actually, I made my own version of synth connected to my keyboard poor mans synth

My first synth was a brand new Yamaha AN1x, so according to this video, I did everything right. But it is somewhat limited. So then I added a Yamaha EX5. Let's just say that it shouldn't be your first synth. If anything, it could be your last synth, the destination of your journey.

Well i got an old Korg Ds8 for free and was disgusted about the preset sounds, till i found out it was a synthesizer 😅

Someone not knowing he is doing should not buy a synth at all if he does not want in invest time in learning. You cannot find a synth that is so easy you don't need to learn a thing, even on a keyboard that only has presets you still need to learn how to play the notes. The more advanced a synth is the more there is to learn, but that does not mean you cannot use it before you know everything! You need some basic prerequisites: 1. just learn the basics of piano playing, know the chords at least. On what synth you learn that does not matter but a 49 keys and above is nice to learn. 2. learn the basics of sound design online, know what a VCO/DCO/FILTER is, how ADSR work etc. (youtube is filled with good tutorials) 3. Get whatever you want and fits you budget. Buying simple stuff coz you don't know how advanced synths work is mistake 11. In my eyes the biggest problem is GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). Not knowing your synth, but still getting yet another one because they look so nice and you think you need them for the sounds. You should take time and experiment with your synth. Just stick to one, and buy the next one when you really understand you are doing, and get everything there is out of your synth. And mistake 12: when you use a DAW (logic, Cubase, Ableton etc.) you don't need a synth to make music. A midikeyboard without internal sounds is more than good enough to get you started because most DAW's are filled with internal instruments that are great. An external synth is not always better as a VSTi/AU, i think there are softsynths that are better as most starter synths.

what is a synthesizer? mainly knobs, less knobs, less fun. should have knobs labeled " cutoff, Attack, release, LFO" on the device, so you don't have it hidden in some menu.

You mean I shouldn’t have bought the JD-800 as my first synth?🤔😂😂 I wouldn’t have but it was $400 lol… and I still can’t completely wrap my mind around it 😂😂

Is the microfreak hyped?

Laughed so damn hard the first time you said "don't buy a modular synthesizer" because it has truth behind it, DON'T BUY MODULAR THERE'S NO ESCAPE

My advice is beware of buying synths that dont have presets. I have the korg volca keys and already it is a pain in the ass writing down all those presets. When I try to recreate a preset of an odyssey vst or oberheim vst I get the wrong sound, so my advice: understand that a synth without the ability to store presets is a pain in the butt.

My first synth was fully modular. No regrets, and still adding more modules till this day 🙌🏽

Best advice buy a digital synth because you have presets versus having to create sounds

Don’t knock Cacti, Dude!

And a couple more: #11. Decide on your budget. Maybe the perfect synth for you is a Moog One. But if you don't have $9000 to spend, it probably won't be your choice. Figure out what you can realistically spend. If none of those are suitable, than you know that you need to save up or buy on credit. #12. Decide what non-synth capabilities are important. Does your synth need to have a realistic piano or organ sound? Does it need to be highly portable? Does it need an excellent quality velocity-sensitive keyboard? Does it need to interface well with a computer or DAW? These can quickly eliminate specialized instruments that may be appealing, but don't really meet your needs. #13. Related to #12. Decide if real-time controls and knobs are very important. Some synths have lots of these, and this can make them easier and more expressive to play once you get used to them, But synths with fewer knobs (for example, a Waldorf Blofeld) can be just as powerful or more so and may be cheaper. So you need to balance your possible dislike of menus with your other criteria. #14. Don't rule out computer-based or iPad based synths. Even if you decide to buy hardware eventually, these can be very helpful for learning and can help you narrow down your preferences in synthesis and what you like. I agree that listening to music you like can be very helpful. If you love 80's music with lots of DX-7's, than an Op6 or MODX might be good. If you love 90's ballads, than a digital sample-based synth (again like a MODX) might be best. And if you love classic 79's-80's analog synth sounds like ELP or "Jump", than an analog or virtual analog (like a Deepmind 12 or Summit) might be perfect.

You never mentioned the difference between a Synth and a MIDI Controller. That is a common mistake.

Got it. Buy modular :)

7 out of 10 I did!😂

Moog prodigy I learned on way back when. It looked great like a synth should look and it's simple enough but I got bored of it pretty quickly. . A synth still has to look like a synth not like the sy77 I have. It's just not inspiring

I bought Deepmind 6 as my first synth. It was a mistake - this thing is sounds low quality. I sold it and bought Hydrasynth - it's much better sounded and wellthought synthesizer.

Great video. Keep the videos short.

Analog is more costly

Don't plug a random power alimentation cable or you'll ruin your synth . Learned it the hard way .

Nothing wrong with buying a used synth there more affordable

Actually the TOP mistake happens before you even think about buying your first synth…. it’s choosing the wrong career path, because synths get EXPENSIVE and you need LOTS OF THEM!!!! 😜😂😂😂

Buy synth that inspires you to be creative.

Them hand gestures tho

Analog are more expensive

I disagree with this list, this one is better top 10 mistakes when buying a synthesizer 10 Leaving it in the box 9 Leaving it at the store 8 Having it ship to someone else's house 7 Selling a synthesizer 6 Buying a guitar 5 Buying a hammer 4 Not buying a synthesizer at all 3 Filing a lawsuit 2 Being mean to people 1 Not owning any sort of cables/monitors or headphones to listen to the synth with

There aren't any mistakes if you buy them all.

#1 mistake: Buying a Prologue.

Don't buy a Oberheim OB-12^^

Takes you a long time to get to the point, but yeah, the synth is an instrument. If it is f..k-all difficult to play, it is functionally useless to you.