Home › Forums › Help/Technical Questions › Microsynth: XO vs. Vintage

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • December 6, 2012 at 8:37 pm #82723
    CaptainMoose
    Participant

    I’m thinking about replacing my FM4 (with exp. pedal) for a microsynth, but there’s a problem. I would only have room on my PTPro for an XO model, but I’ve been reading a lot about how the new one sounds so much worse then the old. Is this true? I mean Im sure the vintage sounds better, I’m just wondering if it’s even worth buying the XO version now. I remember before I bought the worm I watched a video comparing the vintage and XO and while the old had slightly better tone, it kind of muffed up the signal even with the pedal off. I wonder if it’s a similar situation with the Microsynth?

    December 16, 2012 at 7:06 am #118538
    nneekolas
    Participant

    I have personally owned one of every era of micro synthesizer! It’s my favorite effect of all time. There were definitely differences between them, but I’m not sure if I could tell you one was “best.” Here are a few things I noticed:

    late 70s/early 80s Micro Synthesizer: The square wave was incredible! Crisp and fat sounding. The sub octave was not very present. The bypass was very bad (by today’s standards). The tracking could be quite skittish, which becomes part of the effect itself.

    late 90s/early 00s Micro Synthesizer: The square wave is a little less heavy, but the sub octave is beefier. The tracking is very good. Bypass is good. Having to use a 24v wall wart stinks.

    Micro Synthesizer XO: By far the fattest/loudest sub-octave of the three. The square wave is very tame compared to the other two and it definitely doesn’t border on a great fuzz anymore. Bypass is great and being able to use a regular 9v connection is a huge plus for pedalboards.

    So there you have it. There’s reason to own each one to me. Do you want something that rips for leads? Maybe try finding a vintage one. Do you want some very big bass and need pedal board space? The XO one is great. The one on my board is the 90’s/00s reissue, which is a good compromise between those two, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary!

    December 16, 2012 at 5:32 pm #118539
    CaptainMoose
    Participant

    I want it to do just crazy synth stuff, not for one particular sound. One of the bad things bout the FM4 is it doesn’t have much low end so that’s cool that the XO is bassy. Another complaint with the fm4 is that it sucks volume, is this true with the MS?
    Edit: also you said the square wave wasn’t good on the xo, so how’s it sound combined with a bmp?

    December 16, 2012 at 6:29 pm #118540
    nneekolas
    Participant

    I definitely noticed no volume drop with the XO micro synth. There is an internal gain pot to adjust too if you’d like more or less volume out of it. If you want to get really synthy, try putting a fuzz pedal AFTER the micro synth and make sure to have a filter pedal in your chain. It can definitely do it.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.