Rise Of The Micro Machines

We don’t usually do gear reviews here at Outsideleft.  Well, we have done the odd guitar pedal in the past, but I came across something recently, via Ancient Champion, that really took me aback and I felt was worth sharing.

Software synths have been around for a long time now. Once they were seen as replacing physical synths completely, but the human need for something to touch and fiddle with surpassed that, and even music software companies like Arturia eventually began to hanker after the physicality of a keyboard you could actually play, knobs you could twiddle, sliders you could slide, and synths that arrived in a box, not as a download and produced the Minibrute analogue monosynth.

However, good things come in small packages, as the saying goes.  That is certainly true when it comes to synths.  The desire to create a truly stripped down, and shrunk, hardware synth drove forward innovation in what could be delivered in a package that would fit in a pocket. Starting in 2010, Swedish company Teenage Engineering produced many sophisticated, but minimal, synths that often looked for all the world like pocket calculators, but with a Swedish IKEA style design twist.  They weren’t that cheap though and I baulked at the cost for what looked like something that didn’t cost very much to manufacture.  Then, Japanese industry analogue veterans Korg brought out the battery powered Monotron series, with the original Monotron (released in 2010), the Monotron Duo (released in 2011) and the Monotron Delay (released in 2011). These all consisted only of a voltage-controlled oscillator, voltage-controlled filter, a voltage-controlled amplifier and a low-frequency oscillator and were tiny and toy like in appearance, yet were capable of producing powerful, and release worthy other worldly sounds using their diminutive built in touch keyboard. The real revolution, though was the price.  For under £50 you could get true analogue synthesis and a built-in digital delay, played though an internal speaker, headphones, or fed into a mixer, in something you could easily slip into a coat pocket.  I have two of these myself (the Monotron Duo and Monotron Delay) and they really put the fun back into making electronic music, which often seems to get unnecessarily over complicated and technical.

Then, along came German company Behringer to really shake things up.  Already legendary (or what passes for legendary in synth circles) for producing fully featured and improved, yet still faithful to the original, full-sized copies (clones) of classic analogue synths at affordable prices, as well as desktop versions, they are hated by vintage instrument purists and synth snobs, but loved by those with shallower pockets, who just want to have a true old school analogue synth experience. There are a few concerns about their alleged business practices too, but one thing they are very, very good at is breaking established industry practice.  That, they did, with what they claim is the smallest fully featured synth in history, the JT 4000 Micro.  At just 13cm x 9cm and weighing just 150g, it certainly is micro, yet packs in (deep breath); a 16 key touch and velocity sensitive plate keyboard, 4 note polyphony, 32 pre-set sounds (which you can overwrite with your own sounds), two oscillators with a bunch of waveforms (Saw, Supersaw,  Square, Pulse, Triangle, Noise) and a 2-operator FM engine, along with two LFOs, an Arpeggiator (with 3 patterns + a Hold function), and a neat little OLED display that also shows you the waveforms changing as you edit them. You can alter all of the pre-set sounds or make your own, whilst listening on headphones or connecting it up to a mixer, powered speakers, or amp. With the latest Firmware (a download that adds extra features and upgrades without your having to replace the synth) update from the Behringer website you also get a bunch of additional functions such as Hold, Octave and Chord Select, and Arpeggiator Latch.  Trust me, those are worth having. It is virtual analogue rather than true analogue, but the sounds are really good, you get digital FM sounds too, and the keyboard is actually very responsive for something so small.  You can plug it into a PC to use an external keyboard through a micro USB connector, which also powers it (no batteries needed) and means you can control it from your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation - muso jargon for recording and sequencing software).  Sounds expensive? Try £39.99. Seriously!  You can get a midi version for an extra tenner too.  That is insanely affordable for something with this much packed in.  

There are other models available from Behringer too, also based on classic 80’s synths (The JT4000 is based on the Roland JP-8000 from 1996).  At £89 you have the JT Mini, based on Roland's legendary Jupiter 8, and also the Pro VS Mini, based on Sequential Circuit's Prophet VS (£77 for that).  That last one was the first of their mini series of synths, and they have a stack of others waiting in the pipeline.  Aside from the Korg Monotrons, another famous synth name, Moog, have the Mavis, a modular desktop synth you build yourself.  When I say "build", you don't need to solder anything or even have any knowledge of electronics.  You just snap components together and off you go.  That clocks in at a steeper £220, but trust me, that is cheap for a Moog synth.  There are others on the market of course, including a whole range from Teenage Engineering and the pocket sized Aira Compact series from Roland.

One thing is for sure, despite their teeny size, these are serious synths that offer more than the once mighty synths of the 80's eg the space gobbling, hernia inducing, 14kg, 1 metre long Yamaha DX7 , with its 61 full sized keys and impenetrable operating system.  One things for sure, there is a limit to how small these can get, unless we evolve tiny little fingers to operate the buttons, but for anyone tight for space, light on budget, or on the move a lot, micro synths are surely the way to go.

All images by Alan Rider.