Elektron-Users

hello all, i have read other things on other forums about this synth but this community is a little closer knit and i know most of your alls gear preferences so i wanted to ask for opinions here. has anyone on here heard the andromeda and what is your opinion, are they worth the 1600 ebay prices? i have an omega 8 and i love it, but i would like a little more polyphony and some keys for multi tasking on the road. thanks for the info...

Personally I was hugely disapointed , firstly the build quality was awful just plug in a midi cable and you feel like you gonna break the thing. The lfo's sound rubbish (do not go fast enough and are not smooth). If you have ever owned a memorymoog or the like will be disapointed big time. The filters do not sound bad. After two weeks the screen broke (funny enough exactly the same thing happed to my alesis quadraverb after a couple of years) so I took it back and got my money back. So for sound : 4 out of 10 for build quality : 0.0001 out of 10.

Man, that is the first really bad review I have ever seen regarding this synth.

Hugely dissapointed with the Andromeda....... means he only played with the presets. That's the only explanation. It's a great synth. I still can't decide between this and a poly evolver.


Thie stability of the oscillators in the new poly synths are a huge improvement over vintage. A vast majority of memorymoogs out ther don't even work properly and never did. That stability does make the newer synths sound a little too clean, but that's easily solved by running the output through an analog phaser (small stone) or a dirty filter (sherman).

run anything through a sherman. it rocks.

sensorium wrote:
Hugely dissapointed with the Andromeda....... means he only played with the presets. That's the only explanation. It's a great synth. I still can't decide between this and a poly evolver.


Thie stability of the oscillators in the new poly synths are a huge improvement over vintage. A vast majority of memorymoogs out ther don't even work properly and never did. That stability does make the newer synths sound a little too clean, but that's easily solved by running the output through an analog phaser (small stone) or a dirty filter (sherman).

Or you can just turn the tuning off all together on the Andromeda and let if drift like a vintage analog on a hot summer's day

Oh yah, and the obligatory A6 demos:

http://www.wohmart.com/a6/audio/

http://www.quandace.com/demos/F5D_Andromeda_demo2_1.mp3

http://home.online.no/~tom-rf/A6/

I really hope to own one of these some day.

sensorium wrote:
Hugely dissapointed with the Andromeda....... means he only played with the presets. That's the only explanation. It's a great synth. I still can't decide between this and a poly evolver.


Thie stability of the oscillators in the new poly synths are a huge improvement over vintage. A vast majority of memorymoogs out ther don't even work properly and never did. That stability does make the newer synths sound a little too clean, but that's easily solved by running the output through an analog phaser (small stone) or a dirty filter (sherman).

I certainly didnt play just with the presets or I wouldnt have even bought it if that was the case, the presets are just laughable.

I am pretty sure I got to the core of it one day I think I spent about 18 hours on it....

Anyway I have owned over 40 synths in the past 15 years and its just my point of view I am sure there plenty of people that like it.

True the memorymoogs were unreliable (unless you have a lintronics version) but my point is the SOUND shits on it from a huge height. The very fact that they were building the andromeda influenced by the curtis chip says it all.

for a fair and accurate review check here:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr01/articles/alesis.asp

he also mentions the lfo speed :

"The only unexpected limitation is the maximum LFO speed. At just 25Hz, it's simply not fast enough for some applications"

yep 25hz is rubbish!

I have to say I have alot of respect for what they tried to do with the andromeda tho and I like the layout.

f451 wrote:

sensorium wrote:
Hugely dissapointed with the Andromeda....... means he only played with the presets. That's the only explanation. It's a great synth. I still can't decide between this and a poly evolver.


Thie stability of the oscillators in the new poly synths are a huge improvement over vintage. A vast majority of memorymoogs out ther don't even work properly and never did. That stability does make the newer synths sound a little too clean, but that's easily solved by running the output through an analog phaser (small stone) or a dirty filter (sherman).

I certainly didnt play just with the presets or I wouldnt have even bought it if that was the case, the presets are just laughable.

I am pretty sure I got to the core of it one day I think I spent about 18 hours on it....

Anyway I have owned over 40 synths in the past 15 years and its just my point of view I am sure there plenty of people that like it.

True the memorymoogs were unreliable (unless you have a lintronics version) but my point is the SOUND shits on it from a huge height. The very fact that they were building the andromeda influenced by the curtis chip says it all.

for a fair and accurate review check here:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr01/articles/alesis.asp

he also mentions the lfo speed :

"The only unexpected limitation is the maximum LFO speed. At just 25Hz, it's simply not fast enough for some applications"

yep 25hz is rubbish!

I have to say I have alot of respect for what they tried to do with the andromeda tho and I like the layout.

Where did you read that the design of the Andromeda was influenced by Curtis chips? From the sound of the thing, I would say that their goal was to put the voltage controlled circuitry of Moog Oscillators and Oberheim and Moog filters into chip form.

sensorium wrote:
Hugely dissapointed with the Andromeda....... means he only played with the presets. That's the only explanation. It's a great synth. I still can't decide between this and a poly evolver.

Definately go for the Poly Evolver KB. I've had Andromeda quite a few years now, and I also have 2 basic Evolvers so I think I know enough to recommend the Evolver KB. Even the basic E's seem more flexible than the Alesis. Sound is one thing you can't compare though, they're both a lot different from each other, you should try to find a place where you could test em side by side before buying.

I am a bit dissapointed with the A6 also. The layout is terrible, I mean very terrible, it almost hurts my eyes to even look at it. So is the OS and menus' layout. I hardly ever touch it anymore cause it takes a lot of time to get "that sound" you're looking for. Its filters are very nice and the overall sound is nice but I could probably get results faster with a doepfer modular than this. :-D