Futureretro XS

flextone · Joined: Jun 03, 2008 Posts: 38 Location: Berlin

Hey guys,

I am thinking of getting this baby and as I don't have any distributor where I live I can't really get much of a good idea on how it sounds, only from the demos on FR's site, which are impressive indeed. My question is for XS owners, can it get fat and low? all the demo's sound very vintage rolandish but a little too thin, is this because of the compressed audio format? Also, can it produce clean sounds? the demos are very aggressive and I read a few people talking about this but I believe it is down to how you program it.

So,

XS users, please help...

CexMax · Joined: Dec 12, 2007 Posts: 4 Location: Roma

Hello Flextone,
sorry for my bad english Crying or Very sad

, so i try to explain my experience. Years ago i sell my arp odissey, it's my first analog synth.

Now....
I buy a new xs few months ago.
The sound i'ts really bigfat , modulations are very easy to learn.
I love the semi-modular options, and the filter saturator it's really monster.
The XS sound into the mix lead and clean.

My impressions 1 a 100%:

Basses ................90 %
Lead ...............100 %
Fx ...............100 %
Pad.................... Shocked

no i'ts a mono synth.

Finally , excuse me for sintetic review but i'dont know a lot word in english.

Smile

flextone · Joined: Jun 03, 2008 Posts: 38 Location: Berlin

CexMax,

Thanks for the mini (mini) review Smile

The reason you chose to give bass only 90 and not 100 is what i am afraid of, but I am sure I will love the XS. I also have a FR Revolution so they can make sweet analog love together.

Anybody else wants to comment on the XS's sound?

MyPasswordIs123456 · Joined: Nov 05, 2007 Posts: 25 Location: account is locked

I tried it in a local shop. It certainly sounds fat and low. No doubt about this. The youtube demo I've heard are very bad quality recordings. They sound like a handheld camera mic was used.

Clean it is not, the filter is very aggressive and quite noisy. It distorts very nicely and the sound character is great for acid music. I liked the fm it's very usable and sounds just right. But the lack of more sine and triangle waves means fm is quite limited. Other than that, it's a very good monosynth with a few unconventional features.

As CexMax pointed out, I don't think you'll get good pads sounds out of it. Theres just not enough features for them and the filter is not suited to these sounds. However I found the acid bass to be the best sounds I could get out of it during my 20 min. tryout. I couldn't play leads on it because I was using a sequencer only.

Overall it's one of the best monosynth I've tried, and the sound is quite similar to the vostok I tried at the same shop.

flextone · Joined: Jun 03, 2008 Posts: 38 Location: Berlin

Well, I got it yesterday, and I understand why you could think that it is dirty-acidy. The "problem" is that people tend to turn up the volume of the oscillator to full, and this distorts the filter stage. Turning the volume on the osc only half way yields very nice and clean results. The sound is really special and extremely raw.