hate to start one of those vs. threads but I'm in serious need of opinions...
Currently I have a roland sh-2 which I love. What I love about it is how warm and fat it sounds and I LOVE the square wave. I'm huge on the square wave detuned square wave lead, which the sh-2 does quite well.
I have an opportunity to sell my sh-2 and pick up a odyssey for not much more.
It's a mk1 odyssey and everything works, no cv/gate mod but I'll get that done.
is there anything I would miss from the sh-2?
I have a jp6/ p5 /mopho /xoxbox and pretty well set up eurorack modular.
My biggest concern is that the mk1 odyssey covers all the ground of the sh-2, how does the square wave sound on the odyssey compared to the sh-2.
any insight would help, I need to make this decision soon.
Truth is I would love to keep the sh-2 and buy the odyssey but can't afford it right now.
Odyssey is one of the best monosynths (of duo!) around.
As mentioned before, it has great routing and features.
PWM, Hipass filter, Ring Mod, Sync, S&H, duophonic (which is very cool on ring mod sounds) and a great basic sound.
Nothing wrong with the SH2 but for me, the ARP wins.
The SH-2 is beautifully built and reliable, the ARP is poorly built. The ARP is a far better performance synth and has more mojo and features, it is an archetypal lead synth that is nearly impossible to beat sonically for lead sounds. I have a couple of Odysseys, I miss my SH-2, it went places that the ARP could not in bass world, and it is completely without the annoying mechanical and electrical quirks that drive APR owners crazy. You must have both.
triez is right though about bass... i havent compared the 2 side by side but the sh2 seems fatter and tighter. however, you can do so much more with an odyssey. personally, id ditch the sh2 and get the odyssey.
mini
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The SH-2 is beautifully built and reliable, the ARP is poorly built. The ARP is a far better performance synth and has more mojo and features, it is an archetypal lead synth that is nearly impossible to beat sonically for lead sounds. I have a couple of Odysseys, I miss my SH-2, it went places that the ARP could not in bass world, and it is completely without the annoying mechanical and electrical quirks that drive APR owners crazy. You must have both.
I agree that the Roland is a solid build but my odyssey has very few issues. Never serviced and not pampered. Everything works fine. Reliable and even the sliders have held up well.
My first Synth was a white-face Odyssey and I wish I still had it. One of the all-time best mono-Synths. One of the greatest Sample & Hold implementations plus Lag, and High-Pass Filter. Very few, if any, dual-oscillator Mono's can equal the early Odyssey.
triez is right though about bass... i havent compared the 2 side by side but the sh2 seems fatter and tighter. however, you can do so much more with an odyssey. personally, id ditch the sh2 and get the odyssey.
mini
This is interesting, I really do enjoy the tightness of the sh-2 but I wonder if the arp can come somewhat close also how much cross over would I have with my modular and arp?
Is the arp sound a lot more dirty than the sh-2 / hard to fit in a mix?
My first Synth was a white-face Odyssey and I wish I still had it. One of the all-time best mono-Synths. One of the greatest Sample & Hold implementations plus Lag, and High-Pass Filter. Very few, if any, dual-oscillator Mono's can equal the early Odyssey.
I prefer the black ones personally, but YES, an Odyssey is so flexible and powerful.
As you say, the S&H with Lag is totally cool..
i def prefer my mkI ody over my sh-2 anyday. Way more powerful synth architecture. soundwise, not really identical. Arp's all sound very characteristically arp to me for some reason. Very nasally or something. I have been talking about selling the sh-2 forever, so yeah. Sh-2 was like the poor mans minimoog. Arp odyssey was like, direct competition to the minimoog. Different class altogether, imo...
as for the odyssey revisions, they all sound very ARP, but the best thing is to find one with the 40235 filter, then you get the best of both worlds. Not very common, though you could build/upgrade one yourself. the MKI odyssey has a slightly less stable oscillator board compared to the MKII/MKIII, but in practice it probably doesn't matter if it's calibrated and maintained. The MKI also has the original S&H circuit, which sounds crazy awesome. They "improved" it later on, apparently to tame it a bit, but I kind of like the extremeness of the original.
biggest thing for me ATM is that I really want to add the free-running LFO mod. Otherwise, the lfo retriggers on every key press, which is annoying sometimes.
This led me to another question. for direct tone/sound how do they compare?
I'm worried a lot of people love the odyssey for its complex modulations...I'm worried I'll have a cross over in complex modulation sounds with my modular...maybe I'm over thinking though!
truth is the odyssey for me would be used mainly as a bass synth first then for other things
This led me to another question. for direct tone/sound how do they compare?
I'm worried a lot of people love the odyssey for its complex modulations...I'm worried I'll have a cross over in complex modulation sounds with my modular...maybe I'm over thinking though!
truth is the odyssey for me would be used mainly as a bass synth first then for other things
i usually prefer the arp tone. However, for me, I don't like the sh-2 as a bass synth, I've always liked it with some LFO on the osc, doing warbly leads. Sure, it can do bass tones, but it always sounds so washed out to me. I generally prefer crunchier almost digital sounding bass, ala mks-50/mks-80/pro-one/p5, or flat out funky bass, ala minimoog....The arp, not usually my bass synth pick either, but it's more than capable of it, especially the funk, go listen to some Stevie if you wanna hear some arp funk. the 4023 filter is probably most similar to a SEM in 12db mode, it's not a 24db moog filter and it's not a 24db 4-OTA filter like roland IR3109/CEM3320/SSM2040. It will scream when you turn the resonance up, rather than get quiet.
I do love my p5 for bass. a la minimoog though... I can only imagine this sounding lovely. I'm sure the arp though can give the minimoog a run for its money, it was intended to at the time of release...is it able to at all?
I think I might just have to get the arp and if i don't like it sell it and get a sh-2 again or a moog source or something. It's always a journey with synths!
I'm sure you have, its completely done on an arp 2600, drums, bass, sampled to make chords, lead. I absolutely love that detuned square wave lead, I get close to it on my sh-2 but doesn't have that "glassy hallow" sound as it does in this track. I'm thinking a odyssey mk1 could get me close to that sound forsure but is it extremely far from the sound of a 2600? Despite the features on the 2600, more looking it at a strict sound point of view , filters, eg, vco sound.
Love my Odyssey! Basswise there are thicker sounding stuff out there, but play around with the slight ring mod on tuned intervals and you´ll get great edgy bass. I had St.Eric from Dordrecht do a few mods, the hipass bypass was essential. Normally if you have your hipass slider all the way down, it will still cut off quite a lot of bass.
I had St.Eric from Dordrecht do a few mods, the hipass bypass was essential. Normally if you have your hipass slider all the way down, it will still cut off quite a lot of bass.
Can you comment further on this? I asked my tech about doing the hipass bypass on my Odyssey and he didn't think it was worthwhile. He's mostly an amp tech, but he's worked on several Odysseys so I trust his opinion. But the opinion of a synth player a slut is even better.
I'm also curious about that one. I think the free-running LFO mod is probably a lot more critical, at least for me. I would like to hear more about the hipass mod.
heres a link to just the arp avatar (odyssey) bits. also includes roland sh-101, roland re-201 and help from an oberheim mini-sequencer. the oberheim xpander in the background wasnt being used.
3.18 is where my odyssey comes in. It does all the fat pitched stuff (tweaked live by Miss Parker who I did the song with)
Before that it's Serge and ARP 2600
Disclaimer: It's a black one with a factory modded second filter..so multimode, but the hipass is intact and doesn't seem to thin it too much
also great video dlmorley & minime123. I have actually seen both your videos prior to this thread when I was just searching through youtube! I actually stumbled across your arp 2500 video dlmorley the one with the 808...man that thing sounds amazing and it influenced my choice on the odyssey. Obviously won't sound close but it still has that arp tone.
I think if I can still get the arp I'm going to sell my sh-2 this week and pick it up. Worst case is I'll sell it and get another sh-2 or something else, the gear voyage continues
The Oddey goes to more places. Distinctively different sound. They both sound amazing. I'd go for the ARP without even thinking about it. It's in a different league. To get into that territory you would need to go SH5.
im glad you enjoyed my avatar videos. but i wonder why you didnt mention my highly amazing arp 2500 video? its the best arp 2500 video on the entire world wide interwebs (sorry, morley)
im glad you enjoyed my avatar videos. but i wonder why you didnt mention my highly amazing arp 2500 video? its the best arp 2500 video on the entire world wide interwebs (sorry, morley)
mini
lol, that sounds like the sound my car makes when the door is open
hahaa just noticed the top comment on the video said the same thing :P
Could someone post a clip of an MKI with the envolopes moddded? I need some snap in my bass.
Here´s a MKII that has modded Lfo and envelopes.
Apparently some mods are not possible for MKI. I really hope that the LFO and Env mod ARE possible for the MKI because I REALLY dig mine and it would be so great to have these mods for it.
minime123, that's an awesome video. I wish it was longer!
analogholic, do you have those mods done? they look cool. But i'm curious about the envelope mod... I was told the arp odyssey has super snappy envelopes?!
Yeah, those mods look like a neccesity to me. I am slowly begining to like my Odyssey more and more but the slow envolopes bug me. Funny thing is in a mix I really do not need snappy envolopes most of the time and will dial the attack back letting the drums provide the fast transients instead. My issue at the moment is that I own only 2 synths, an Xpander and a Odyssey, both with slugish envolopes. I have found that the AR envolope on the Oddy seems to be faster than the ADSR.
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