Phara-O Mini Analogue Synthesiser
(Behringer)
We don't do reviews of gear in Outsideleft. Well, we do, but not often, as it can all get a bit nerdy. But we talked a bit about guitars with The Nightingales recently, so I thought I would redress the balance by talking about a synth that has come out recently. 'So what?' I hear you say. New gear comes out all the time, so why should you care? It's what you do with it, right? Yes, of course, but you need instruments and inspiration and a new bit of kit can maybe help with that. Usually that comes at a hefty price, but recently mini synths have been bringing the cost right down, as long as you don't mind the small size. I covered some of that back in December when I wrote about Micro Machines, in particular one that German company Behringer put out (the JT4000 to be precise). Now they have done it again, but not quite as micro this time, as the new Egyptian themed Phara-O (see what they did there?) is twice the size of the JT4000, is polyphonic and fully analogue, and is even more packed with features for a very small amount of £s. Whereas the JT4000 had an arpeggiator and pulse width modulation, the Phara-O doesn't, but instead boasts a sequencer, has three oscillators, and a digital delay built in. It has full Midi so you can hook it up to an external keyboard to play it or to a computer to control most of the functions, sync input and outputs help to keep the sequencer in time with a drum machine or similar, and there are plenty of knobs to twiddle. Twiddling knobs is important. Diving through menus is always an inspiration killer, so go with knobs if you really want to enjoy messing about with any synth. Ease of use is the name of the game here, along with portability (it's easily small enough to slip into a bag and take with you) and it takes only minutes to pick up the basics. The following video is of my first couple of minutes twiddling with it fresh out of the box and only using the sound straight out of the synth (no extra effects added). It can, of course, do a lot lot more than this, but the point is, it's easy to get good sounds out of this pretty quickly.
Although you can tweak pretty much anything here from the front panel, there are two knobs in particular worth highlighting. The scale knob allows you to step the pitch up from a bassy rumble at 32' (synth scales are always based on organ pipe lengths!) right up to frequencies only a bat could hear at 1'. The other rotary knob worth a special mention is the one that selects polyphonic, unison, octaves, fifths (which is great), ring unison and ring polyphonic. That's a massive range of sounds right there. Then there is that sequencer. 16 steps, with 10 memories to store them in, but crucially you can record the movement of every knob so it feels less mechanical and repetitive. 'Motion Sequence' they call that and it's a good feature. The keyboard is actually very responsive for a small touch sensitive strip, but it is still small and it is easy to hit the wrong note if you are not careful. As I said, you can hook up an external keyboard easily enough, so I would certainly do that before recording your tinkling.
Above all, though, how does it sound? That's the important bit, surely? Suffice to say, for such a small unit, it sounds huge. Analogue has that quality and power, which is why it is still popular and the Phara-O doesn't disappoint. LFOs and filters are really important here and the Phara-O has a great filter ('legendary low pass' as Behringer puts it) and an LFO with three waveforms to choose from. Effects are essential to make synths sound good and the Phara-O's built in digital delay adds an extra dimension to how this sounds. You can, of course, add more effects if you feed this into a mixer or pedal board, but it's a nice touch nonetheless. It is powered by a USB C type connector, so will work off a laptop, power bank, or phone charger. No battery option, though, which is a pity. Criticisms? An arpeggiator would have been nice, as would pulse width modulation, but at this price (around £80 new) you can hardly complain. Finally, there is the look. As it's name suggests, it has an ancient Egyptian themed design and is adorned with Egyptian god images and a sort of pyramid design printed in gold on black. It looks good! It's made largely of plastic, with a metal face place but feels solidly built and is a decent weight, so no worries there.
All in all, you can't really go wrong at his price, even if you just mess around with it for a bit then sell it. However, it is a serious musical instrument too, and with a few good ideas you could certainly create something worthwhile with this.
Essential Information:
You can find this easily enough online from all the usual sellers (Thomann, Sweetwater, Gear4Music etc) for around £80 or equivalent and there will no doubt be a few turning up used on Ebay and Reverb before too long as well.
