I ordered the Zynthian v4. 1 kit a few days before, it should arrive here in Germany tomorrow. I’m very excited…
I was researching a while for a small and usable solution to get a sampleplayer for Mellotron sounds and loops, maybe some synth sounds and others, also to use in live gigs with my band.
I’ve had a V-Machine a few years ago, a neat little device, but finally I was very unhappy with that. This thing was slow, loud and complicate to operate. So this was way too unreliable to use live.
A few weeks ago I came up with the Raspberry Pi and tried something out, but I don’t want to tinker much, in case of less patience…
Then I discovered the Zynthian and the complete Zynthian Kit and I think I found it, the Swiss army knife of my dreams.
So I can’t await to receive the Zynthian, I hope it will be reliable enough to use in live gigs as a additional instrument aside to my stage keyboard.
But I will try out and let you know…
Also a newbie and posted that I have ordered my kit too.
Mine should arrive in the UK on 30th Nov (edited as I originally put Dec!) so I have a whole week to wait!
I have actually tried with just a Pi4 and HiFiBerry DAC + ADC Pro and am impressed with the results which is why I decided to order the kit.
I guess we’ll both be engrossed in using our new kits quite soon hopefully.
UPS had revised the shipping details yesterday eve, the Zynthian will arrive tomorrow, not today…
But I just looked, it has arrived meanwhile in Frankfurt in Germany, so it will be here tomorrow in fact (I hope).
Mine has now been revised to be 1st Dec but has moved from Barcelona to Corbeil Essonnes in France today, so getting closer, bit further north and then the English Channel…
Have fun!
I am a former v-machine user as well. Actually was quite happy with it, despite obvious shortcomings. I used it a lot for the vb3 organ simulation, which is still great.
But Zynthian has proved to be better. Mainly use it for Pianoteq and the Mellotron soundfont. I have also played around with ob-xd and it’s a really really good synth vst. For me, these three instruments are more than enough. Everything else is a huge bonus.
I was playing around with it a bit, it sounds really great, although the encoders are a bit wobbly and inaccurate. Maybe I will change them in the future but for now they will be ok.
I put the Zynthian together in my actual live setup (which is in fact actual without the Poly D above) it fits perfect.
Yes, the bottom Keybord is the VOX Continental 61, a Stage Keyboard made by Korg.
The handling is similar to a Nord Electro, although you can’t load any custom samples on the VOX.
after some little reading in the Wiki about the usage in the last few days, today I had some space to try some things out with the Zynthian.
And what should I say: I will getting more and more fascinated by this little tiny box.
First of all I installed Mellotron samples on the machine to get my little Mellotron expander (and the biggest reason for me to getting the Zynthian).
Then I added some reverb (mostly necessary for Mellotron), played some chords with my beloved mix choir sample and recorded it with the Audio Recorder in Zynthian.
Then I turned my chair, got on the Computer and downloaded the Audio file via WiFi from the Zynthian. A complete workflow, without need of any DAW recording on the computer or anything.
Here it is, the Mellotron closing section of Genesis’ “Afterglow”, similar how Tony Banks played it live around 1976/ 1977…
I hope Mr. wyleu will be satisfied.
Anyhow, I have and will figure out so much more on the Zynthian. But I can say for now, for me it’s a very mighty machine with much capability for doing my music.
I easyly installed “TaijiguyGigaTron Switched” via WebConf. This contains a bunch of Mellotron instruments which you can toggle between with the lower octave of the keyboard.
I personally prefer to use a volume pedal rather than a touch sensivity.
For some sound modulation an aftertouch keyboard can be very useful for me.
But in case of volume I feel more safe to have the control with a volume or expression pedal.
It arrived on Monday (the original date!) but UPS only seemed to realise that was going to happen in the early hours of Monday morning, when I was (sort of) in the land of nod! Why this wasn’t flagged earlier is strange as it been in the local depot since Saturday morning, baffles me. Fortunately I was able to change arrangements I had made based on their earlier (lack of) information!
I managed to get it all assembled on Tuesday and all seems to be working well through headphones. I do love the display and being able to use the controls dedicated to the functions.
I haven’t had a chance to try through decent amplification yet though.
Soon hopefully!
The reason for my reduction in enthusiasm and time to follow what’s going on, has in the main been due to the current lunacy in the UK regarding our response to “that” virus, and the day to day effect on our lives, but that’s not for this site! Lol!
That said, I’m very pleased to see you’re enjoying your Zynth and enjoying exploring it!
I hope to get to that very soon, and thanks for asking!
Cheers
You are very restrained not to rip off the packing! 
)
. Where did you get your Mellotron samples from?