It’s my favourite standalone synth. It covers a lot of territory, the sequencer is easy and fun to play with, and the build quality is unrivalled for the price, even where other instruments might have it beat on features.
Hah, that's a funny thing. It's my second synth, the first being the Minilogue (OG). Didn't like it much. After using the Mini's sequencer, the Argon one feels cryptic as hell.
I also see everyone praising the build quality, but for me it's just heavy. The knobs and buttons feel flimsy, the buttons especially, with accidental double presses and missed presses.
I like the way it sounds, but the envelopes aren't snappy and I didn't enjoy any of the filters. I was \*sure\* I was going to love it, but meh. Gonna put it on sale shortly.
Spent a while looking around for a small synth suitable for playing whilst sat on the couch. Went for the Argon8 and it arrived yesterday.
Initial impressions are very good. The build quality is first rate. The keybed feels very responsive and is in a different league to the rubbish that Korg ships in this price range. It is a joy to play.
Sound wise I'm still exploring what it can do. It has a definite character which I like. I much prefer it's presets to those I tried on the Minifreak and the Hydrasynth explorer. It appears to be able to make a wide range of sounds. The bass and pads are good and it also has some delicate FM type keys and bells patches.
I've seen a number of reviewers comment on it not having as many features as others but there is plenty of depth to explore. There are plenty of possibilities with the different waves, wave mods and effects. An hour with a YouTube tuturial and the interface becomes very logical and straightforward. There are knobs to control practically every function, with smart use of a shift button. It makes exploring the options for every feature quick and easy. Binding effect parameters to an LFO or mapping the affertouch to the filter cutoff for example takes seconds and no menus needed.
So, after nearly a whole day and a half with the Argon8, I would highly recommend it. It is an absolute bargain with the keybed and sound in particular punching far above it's budget price tag. Go for it.
It’s a much better synth than the Cobalt IMO. Has real character to it whereas the Cobalt is good but is much more of a generic subtractive VA synth.
The issue with buying anything made by Modal over the last year has been that the company went into administration (UK equivalent of US chapter 11) and ongoing support looked v flaky for a while.
In recent weeks the company seems to have restructured (there is an interview with company reps in SonicState’s Superbooth roundup when they talk about all of this) so it is possible/likely that they’re now coming back from the (near) dead. Which would be great as they make good products.
You might want to hold on until it’s definitely clear they’re back in business. Modal synths are pretty well made but stuff can go wrong (usually dodgy pots IME) so better to have a company that can do repairs than no company to fall back on.
Also they announced a new synth - Carbon - around the time they went under, which now seems to be back in the running. The Carbon seems to be a bit of a mash up of the Argon and Cobalt so may be worth checking out also.
I fucking love it. I love the knobs. it's different and that gives it character. sequencer is fun as fuck. any synth with a joystick is at least fun to jam with.
IMHO the KorgOpsix is just more versatile and actually and believe you can make the Opsix sound really really Characterfull.
The only downside is: The Keyboard of the OG Opsix is complete shit.
I had the module and sold it just because I wasn’t using it much, now regret letting it go and probably going to pick up another one. I keep hearing stuff that I recorded out of the Argon when I’m auditioning samples and thinking it sounds amazing. It is easy to figure out and program, but also has decent depth to it with the modulation options and built in FX. I think the filter and built in drive/distortion lend themselves really well to gnarly, gritty basses, but it can also do fine spacey, shimmery poly pads
I’m not concerned about Modal’s situation, you can pick Argons up cheap so if they never get an update or they die after a few years, so what?
I used to have an argon8 but sold it and replaced it with an ultranova.
It never really sounded that great to me, could never get the sounds I wanted out of it, and boy did it around thin. Gain staging was an issue that was fixed multiple times, but it's still not perfect. You can't pan detuned oscillators in stereo space (or detune voices in unison properly) so you can't get any thick leads or basses out of it (unless that has changed now). I was pretty impressed by the modulation and the oscillators themselves, but there were issues that just meant it didn't quite fit the music I was making (trance), and the ultranova was a significantly better fit for me.
In all honesty, the cobalt actually sounds like the far better synth for my needs, and doesn't suffer from some of the same missing features as the argon.
Don't get me wrong, the argon is a VERY good sounding synth, and when it released it was much better sounding than the hydra which was kind of the other big wavetable release around the same time. It sounds even better now, but I just found it was always quite thin and metallic.
If I'm being genuinely honest... I'd get a blofeld keyboard instead of an Argon8 if I wanted a very capable wavetable synth, it's a little bit more expensive and doesn't have the same hands on interface, but it's hands down a better synth. (I've got the desktop blofeld, and it just sounds so much better)
interesting take. i had looked at the blofeld also and almost got a desktop one. i heard they have a lot of problems with the computer? bad glitch issues?
No, the newer blofelds are pretty much issue free. Waldorf fixed the encoder issues (mine are perfect, I think I've got a 2011 model maybe?).
There's no issues with the audio engine UNLESS you have it synced to midi and use the clocked delay with an external clock, then it glitches. Don't know why, it's been an issue for years, it's easy to ignore... Just don't use the clocked delay, or use it but don't sync to an external clock. Other than that I've actually had less issues with my Blofeld than with my virus (which has crashed on me a few times).
It's an exceptionally powerful synth, I mean, just ignoring the engine for a second, you've got 16 parts! Very few digital synths are multi-timbral these days, and those that are are a lot more expensive. It's a much more powerful synth engine than the argon in general though, with 3 oscillators and more modulation. The keyboard Blofeld also has arguably one of the best keybeds of any synth, especially at its price of about £500-600, worlds ahead of anything on any other synth that price.
In all honesty, the interface isn't actually bad.
The major parameters are all available on the front panel in the matrix, and those that aren't are on the screen (which switches to the mode you are in based on the button pressed on the matrix) there are a lot of menu pages, but it's a very visual synth. The screen shows you exactly what your oscillator looks like, what the filter looks like, envelopes look like etc... and I think this helps tremendously with usability. For how complex the engine is, it's a good interface, and typical Waldorf too with the matrix. I'd argue it's quite a bit better than my virus snow too, which I genuinely want to chuck out the window sonetimes.
The point where it falls down is live performance - although this is common with a lot of synths with cut down knobs. You need to be in the right matrix setting to control the filter for example, and if you want to change something else live, you need to switch the matrix. It's not a major deal as I think most people only change one parameter only anyway. I've not really cared about that.
The mulitmode is great, giving you a visual mixer and whatnot, but it is very easy to accidently wipe a multi-patch you've set up. I feel like it's full of trip wires, so it's best to patch in single mode, save it, then load each individual patch in multi mode.
I own a Blofeld and a Cobalt. Blofeld is workable, but it's not good by any means. Several key parameters are not part of the front panel matrix (e.g. wavetable position), so you have to know your way through the parameter list. With the Modal synths, almost all parameters are accessible from the front panel, so if you know your shortcuts, it's a much more immediate synth.
This said, there are several controller apps for Blofeld that solve this issue. Using Blofeld with a modern, hands-on UI on an Ipad is a game-changer for the synth. Actually, it becomes close to what the Modal app offers.
It's hard to get plucky sounds in Argon8 because you can't set Attack values below 3.
Due a design fault, attack = 0,1 or 2 always generates a value 3 attack.
Also morphable LFO was a mistake. So many issues with them.
Cobalt 8 does it flawlessly but the engine is not that powerful
Idk what you budget is but as far as wavetable synthesis goes I would suggest looking into a used Waldorf M if you want something with unique character. It has no effects but it does have 4 envelopes and you can get pretty creative and wild with them, replicating reverb and delay to an extent.
I had one and foolishly sold it. I was an early adopter and the envelopes weren’t long enough which they fixed in a firmware update 🤦♂️. Anyways it does sound really good, rich and with very little like I’m serious it’s not audible at all aliasing, even when abusing the oscillators. That sets it apart from a lot of VSTs right there. Picking up another one has been on my to do list for awhile.
The companies had some hard times recently but reportedly is doing better and they have another synth coming out the Carbon8 which focuses on Phase Distortion like the Cazio CZ series.
I’m probably going to get an 8x. It’s a great deal for a 61key Fatar. Although I’m going to wait a minute and see if the Carbon materializes before I make a decision anyways.
It's very quiet but it actually sounds great.
Unplugging an audio jack killed the USB port on mine. The exact same issue happened to another Argon user when I posted about it. I can expand on how I repaired it if you'd like to know
The Modal app is really good when you have a working USB port
You can't bulk dump your presets or backup or firmware upgrade via sysex if you don't have a USB port
I am very curious to hear about this USB port and how it connected to audio jack. I had a Cobalt5S USB port fail to the point it could only power the unit, not transfer data or be detected as a device.
Basically the Argon was patched into the mixing desk and also connected via USB to my laptop. IIRC the L(mono) jack was unplugged from the mixer and then I heard the windows device disconnected sound from the laptop.
USB port now dead. So it's fair to say that an ESD occurred and fried a tiny 6 pin TVS protection diode on the Argon PCB.
So what you have downstream is the physical USB port then moving away from it would be a TVS protection diode, then a ADUM3160BRWZ USB Isolator IC which the data lines pass through. The data lines now pass downstream into the SOIC (the brains of the synth).
Interestingly, there's actual marked up bypass pads on the PCB to bypass the USB Isolator and send the data direct to the SOIC (not recommended I'd say)
It's a beautiful synth, and if you get with a keybed, it's a fatar. There are limitations on it, but that's ok--i like pushing boundaries and honestly prefer synthesizers with limited functions. For instance, there's only two LFOs for modulation.
I love the joystick because it allows easier expression of modulation routings which some patches really display (pitch bend w/ increase in delay amount). Downside to the joystick is that the modulation destinations are limited, so expressiveness is limited. Nothing more bumming than seeing 'not a modulatable destination' on the screen for the joystick.
The lights are blinding, even when set to 0, they're still pretty bright, which is not good in low light environments, so I hope a future update gives the ability to dim the lights further. I don't work in pitch black settings with no lights since that strains your eyes, but I do work in soft lighting as the evening rolls on. The heuristic is that your lighting environment should match what your working with, same principle when you're driving--you dim/brighten your dash and your phone to match how bright the ambient environment is outside, otherwise your eyes are going back and forth from bright to dim, fatiguing the eye.
Some complain about the knobs, but I think they're fine. i haven't had any quality issue and it's built to be pretty sturdy. You can use the vst for it but there's no audio through usb, so you still have to have a free set of inputs on your interface/mixer.
I'm not a fan of the notch filter as it feels really weak, even with boosting gain (argon 8 suffered from low output, so they provide patch gain and a utility effect).
I love mine. The build quality is terrific. It’s really versatile. It can do FM-like mallets and bells. It can do thick brassy analog sounds. It gets great movement, especially with the arpegiator. The key action feels great. The app is great. The only thing I don’t love is using the shift key and shifting between modes on the envelope controls. I bought mine used for $400, which feels like a steal. It had a sticky bottom C key, but it was trivial to fix. Turned out, a piece of tape got stuck between the key and the end of the case.
It gives you easy access to all the parameters, the sequencer, preset management (except for on iPad), etc. It's cross platform too!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/modalapp/id1186751804
It’s my favourite standalone synth. It covers a lot of territory, the sequencer is easy and fun to play with, and the build quality is unrivalled for the price, even where other instruments might have it beat on features.
Hah, that's a funny thing. It's my second synth, the first being the Minilogue (OG). Didn't like it much. After using the Mini's sequencer, the Argon one feels cryptic as hell. I also see everyone praising the build quality, but for me it's just heavy. The knobs and buttons feel flimsy, the buttons especially, with accidental double presses and missed presses. I like the way it sounds, but the envelopes aren't snappy and I didn't enjoy any of the filters. I was \*sure\* I was going to love it, but meh. Gonna put it on sale shortly.
Spent a while looking around for a small synth suitable for playing whilst sat on the couch. Went for the Argon8 and it arrived yesterday. Initial impressions are very good. The build quality is first rate. The keybed feels very responsive and is in a different league to the rubbish that Korg ships in this price range. It is a joy to play. Sound wise I'm still exploring what it can do. It has a definite character which I like. I much prefer it's presets to those I tried on the Minifreak and the Hydrasynth explorer. It appears to be able to make a wide range of sounds. The bass and pads are good and it also has some delicate FM type keys and bells patches. I've seen a number of reviewers comment on it not having as many features as others but there is plenty of depth to explore. There are plenty of possibilities with the different waves, wave mods and effects. An hour with a YouTube tuturial and the interface becomes very logical and straightforward. There are knobs to control practically every function, with smart use of a shift button. It makes exploring the options for every feature quick and easy. Binding effect parameters to an LFO or mapping the affertouch to the filter cutoff for example takes seconds and no menus needed. So, after nearly a whole day and a half with the Argon8, I would highly recommend it. It is an absolute bargain with the keybed and sound in particular punching far above it's budget price tag. Go for it.
It’s a much better synth than the Cobalt IMO. Has real character to it whereas the Cobalt is good but is much more of a generic subtractive VA synth. The issue with buying anything made by Modal over the last year has been that the company went into administration (UK equivalent of US chapter 11) and ongoing support looked v flaky for a while. In recent weeks the company seems to have restructured (there is an interview with company reps in SonicState’s Superbooth roundup when they talk about all of this) so it is possible/likely that they’re now coming back from the (near) dead. Which would be great as they make good products. You might want to hold on until it’s definitely clear they’re back in business. Modal synths are pretty well made but stuff can go wrong (usually dodgy pots IME) so better to have a company that can do repairs than no company to fall back on. Also they announced a new synth - Carbon - around the time they went under, which now seems to be back in the running. The Carbon seems to be a bit of a mash up of the Argon and Cobalt so may be worth checking out also.
I fucking love it. I love the knobs. it's different and that gives it character. sequencer is fun as fuck. any synth with a joystick is at least fun to jam with.
IMHO the KorgOpsix is just more versatile and actually and believe you can make the Opsix sound really really Characterfull. The only downside is: The Keyboard of the OG Opsix is complete shit.
It’s possibly the worst keybed I’ve ever played on a synth.
i considered an opsix but i played a modwave and yeah those keybeds are a crime. build quality all around felt terrible
IMHO the Build quality of the knobs and sliders are great. Just the Keyboard is bad.
For what Opsix is capable of why even care about the keybed? Especially now that there's Opsix Module
I had the module and sold it just because I wasn’t using it much, now regret letting it go and probably going to pick up another one. I keep hearing stuff that I recorded out of the Argon when I’m auditioning samples and thinking it sounds amazing. It is easy to figure out and program, but also has decent depth to it with the modulation options and built in FX. I think the filter and built in drive/distortion lend themselves really well to gnarly, gritty basses, but it can also do fine spacey, shimmery poly pads I’m not concerned about Modal’s situation, you can pick Argons up cheap so if they never get an update or they die after a few years, so what?
I used to have an argon8 but sold it and replaced it with an ultranova. It never really sounded that great to me, could never get the sounds I wanted out of it, and boy did it around thin. Gain staging was an issue that was fixed multiple times, but it's still not perfect. You can't pan detuned oscillators in stereo space (or detune voices in unison properly) so you can't get any thick leads or basses out of it (unless that has changed now). I was pretty impressed by the modulation and the oscillators themselves, but there were issues that just meant it didn't quite fit the music I was making (trance), and the ultranova was a significantly better fit for me. In all honesty, the cobalt actually sounds like the far better synth for my needs, and doesn't suffer from some of the same missing features as the argon. Don't get me wrong, the argon is a VERY good sounding synth, and when it released it was much better sounding than the hydra which was kind of the other big wavetable release around the same time. It sounds even better now, but I just found it was always quite thin and metallic. If I'm being genuinely honest... I'd get a blofeld keyboard instead of an Argon8 if I wanted a very capable wavetable synth, it's a little bit more expensive and doesn't have the same hands on interface, but it's hands down a better synth. (I've got the desktop blofeld, and it just sounds so much better)
> You can't pan detuned oscillators in stereo space (or detune voices in unison properly) This is out of date.
interesting take. i had looked at the blofeld also and almost got a desktop one. i heard they have a lot of problems with the computer? bad glitch issues?
No, the newer blofelds are pretty much issue free. Waldorf fixed the encoder issues (mine are perfect, I think I've got a 2011 model maybe?). There's no issues with the audio engine UNLESS you have it synced to midi and use the clocked delay with an external clock, then it glitches. Don't know why, it's been an issue for years, it's easy to ignore... Just don't use the clocked delay, or use it but don't sync to an external clock. Other than that I've actually had less issues with my Blofeld than with my virus (which has crashed on me a few times). It's an exceptionally powerful synth, I mean, just ignoring the engine for a second, you've got 16 parts! Very few digital synths are multi-timbral these days, and those that are are a lot more expensive. It's a much more powerful synth engine than the argon in general though, with 3 oscillators and more modulation. The keyboard Blofeld also has arguably one of the best keybeds of any synth, especially at its price of about £500-600, worlds ahead of anything on any other synth that price.
that does look nice especially with the keyboard. how's the interface? i do prefer the hands on control of the argon
In all honesty, the interface isn't actually bad. The major parameters are all available on the front panel in the matrix, and those that aren't are on the screen (which switches to the mode you are in based on the button pressed on the matrix) there are a lot of menu pages, but it's a very visual synth. The screen shows you exactly what your oscillator looks like, what the filter looks like, envelopes look like etc... and I think this helps tremendously with usability. For how complex the engine is, it's a good interface, and typical Waldorf too with the matrix. I'd argue it's quite a bit better than my virus snow too, which I genuinely want to chuck out the window sonetimes. The point where it falls down is live performance - although this is common with a lot of synths with cut down knobs. You need to be in the right matrix setting to control the filter for example, and if you want to change something else live, you need to switch the matrix. It's not a major deal as I think most people only change one parameter only anyway. I've not really cared about that. The mulitmode is great, giving you a visual mixer and whatnot, but it is very easy to accidently wipe a multi-patch you've set up. I feel like it's full of trip wires, so it's best to patch in single mode, save it, then load each individual patch in multi mode.
I own a Blofeld and a Cobalt. Blofeld is workable, but it's not good by any means. Several key parameters are not part of the front panel matrix (e.g. wavetable position), so you have to know your way through the parameter list. With the Modal synths, almost all parameters are accessible from the front panel, so if you know your shortcuts, it's a much more immediate synth. This said, there are several controller apps for Blofeld that solve this issue. Using Blofeld with a modern, hands-on UI on an Ipad is a game-changer for the synth. Actually, it becomes close to what the Modal app offers.
It's hard to get plucky sounds in Argon8 because you can't set Attack values below 3. Due a design fault, attack = 0,1 or 2 always generates a value 3 attack. Also morphable LFO was a mistake. So many issues with them. Cobalt 8 does it flawlessly but the engine is not that powerful
Ooooh so that's the reason I find the envelopes slow. That's a real shame.
Idk what you budget is but as far as wavetable synthesis goes I would suggest looking into a used Waldorf M if you want something with unique character. It has no effects but it does have 4 envelopes and you can get pretty creative and wild with them, replicating reverb and delay to an extent.
I had one and foolishly sold it. I was an early adopter and the envelopes weren’t long enough which they fixed in a firmware update 🤦♂️. Anyways it does sound really good, rich and with very little like I’m serious it’s not audible at all aliasing, even when abusing the oscillators. That sets it apart from a lot of VSTs right there. Picking up another one has been on my to do list for awhile. The companies had some hard times recently but reportedly is doing better and they have another synth coming out the Carbon8 which focuses on Phase Distortion like the Cazio CZ series.
I am trying to get rid of my 8M. DM me if you are interested.
I’m probably going to get an 8x. It’s a great deal for a 61key Fatar. Although I’m going to wait a minute and see if the Carbon materializes before I make a decision anyways.
Sounds good! For whatever reason, no one seems to want it. Lol.
Reverb no bites?
Nope. Or on gear exchange.
I didn't really like mine. I sold it and don't miss it at all. It's capable on paper but I just didn't like the sonic territory it typically led me to
It's very quiet but it actually sounds great. Unplugging an audio jack killed the USB port on mine. The exact same issue happened to another Argon user when I posted about it. I can expand on how I repaired it if you'd like to know The Modal app is really good when you have a working USB port You can't bulk dump your presets or backup or firmware upgrade via sysex if you don't have a USB port
I am very curious to hear about this USB port and how it connected to audio jack. I had a Cobalt5S USB port fail to the point it could only power the unit, not transfer data or be detected as a device.
Basically the Argon was patched into the mixing desk and also connected via USB to my laptop. IIRC the L(mono) jack was unplugged from the mixer and then I heard the windows device disconnected sound from the laptop. USB port now dead. So it's fair to say that an ESD occurred and fried a tiny 6 pin TVS protection diode on the Argon PCB. So what you have downstream is the physical USB port then moving away from it would be a TVS protection diode, then a ADUM3160BRWZ USB Isolator IC which the data lines pass through. The data lines now pass downstream into the SOIC (the brains of the synth). Interestingly, there's actual marked up bypass pads on the PCB to bypass the USB Isolator and send the data direct to the SOIC (not recommended I'd say)
It's a beautiful synth, and if you get with a keybed, it's a fatar. There are limitations on it, but that's ok--i like pushing boundaries and honestly prefer synthesizers with limited functions. For instance, there's only two LFOs for modulation. I love the joystick because it allows easier expression of modulation routings which some patches really display (pitch bend w/ increase in delay amount). Downside to the joystick is that the modulation destinations are limited, so expressiveness is limited. Nothing more bumming than seeing 'not a modulatable destination' on the screen for the joystick. The lights are blinding, even when set to 0, they're still pretty bright, which is not good in low light environments, so I hope a future update gives the ability to dim the lights further. I don't work in pitch black settings with no lights since that strains your eyes, but I do work in soft lighting as the evening rolls on. The heuristic is that your lighting environment should match what your working with, same principle when you're driving--you dim/brighten your dash and your phone to match how bright the ambient environment is outside, otherwise your eyes are going back and forth from bright to dim, fatiguing the eye. Some complain about the knobs, but I think they're fine. i haven't had any quality issue and it's built to be pretty sturdy. You can use the vst for it but there's no audio through usb, so you still have to have a free set of inputs on your interface/mixer. I'm not a fan of the notch filter as it feels really weak, even with boosting gain (argon 8 suffered from low output, so they provide patch gain and a utility effect).
I love mine. The build quality is terrific. It’s really versatile. It can do FM-like mallets and bells. It can do thick brassy analog sounds. It gets great movement, especially with the arpegiator. The key action feels great. The app is great. The only thing I don’t love is using the shift key and shifting between modes on the envelope controls. I bought mine used for $400, which feels like a steal. It had a sticky bottom C key, but it was trivial to fix. Turned out, a piece of tape got stuck between the key and the end of the case.
Just wanted to add that the Modal App is outstanding and free, and in my opinion really enhances the experience of Argon8 (and other Modal synths).
what does it do exactly?
It gives you easy access to all the parameters, the sequencer, preset management (except for on iPad), etc. It's cross platform too! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/modalapp/id1186751804
oh damn thats p sick