SX-150 MARK II Analog Synthesizer

Don't click headphones into the output jack: just barely let the connector fall loosely into the hole and you'll get mono in both sides instead of mono in one ear and silence on the other.My other synthesizer is a Roland Gaia which is like this but with 3 engines controlled by knobs, actual keys and a bunch of other stuff. I wish I had this device to learn knob twisting synthesis with: this is very basic but powerful. It's a great learning tool.The built in speaker sounds horrible compared to the output jack/line out. Through the speaker this was a funny toy that got irritating fast, the output from the line out is making me order another one as a keeper (first one was going to be a gift but I really want to play with it a lot more).I hooked a guitar to the line in and heard nothing. I used an overdrive pedal to get more gain and could hear it coming through but the only knob that seem to have an effect was the cutoff, but that was before I used headphones/amp.I hooked a mono (one black stripe on the connector jack) cord to go from output on this unit to a guitar amp: awesome but loud. There is no volume control but headphone volume on a pair of huge AKG 240 gold dots and a small cheap pair of Panasonics were good (unlike the much pricier Roland which needs the volume set to 10 to be heard-i hook that to speakers and amp).Put the stylus metal point facing right. Slide it in from left going right, remove by sliding it left. I know it's silly: but if you try to take it out like a normal person you may break the retaining clip.Feel: knobs feel cheap but work. Whole unit feels like it weighs less than a single AA battery. Cheap plastic feel: but it's cheap in price and helps you learn synthesis by twisting knobs--not scrolling through boring computer menus. That's also why I like the Roland Gaia, so if you fall in love with the knob twisting simplicity and want more power move up from this to the Gaia (although it costs literally 30 times more, so is apples and oranges past a certain basic point).Check out YouTube for weird mods/circuit bending stuff people are doing with these things. Some people are installing strips on similar instruments that are a foot long and making guitar-like things. All sorts of fun weirdness.Is this musical? Through the speaker: not really. Through line out: very much so. You can select a square or triangular wave and modify them.Set all the knobs to zero except the "cutoff" which you should turn all the way up. This gets you a pure tone. Pitch env, LFO rate and LFO depth are next: play around.Don't just tap, press and hold and sometimes you can get a weird feedback that totally makes random noise after a few seconds.Attack and decay affect the beginning of the signal and the end: so for those tap, then adjust and tap again. Hold and heard the difference at the end that the new decay setting makes. The other knobs are more immediate in results. Some adjustments only affect the start of the sound when you first tap (attack).I swear the vcf button acts like it's pressure sensitive?Sometimes switching between the two different LFO waves makes no difference, sometimes it makes a wild change.You can make tones or complex signals that change and evolve over time (if you press and hold a note).And you probably thought this was just a simple noise maker (:It's also great for cheaply and easily creating beautiful Lissajou Figures on oscilloscopes:http://michaellogusz.blogspot.com/2015/07/making-waves-oscilloscopes-lissajous.html-mike from Detroit

Got it really quickly after ordering. Well designed and everything works well.Don't much like the ribbon controller.Sounds are good but lack of keyboard sucks,What makes this really cool is the line in feature. Plug in the output of a keyboard to line in and then plug output of SX-150 into an amp. Use the Cutoff and Resonance controls to modify the output and you can make a cheap keyboard sound like a Hammond B3, including key clicks. Experiment with them and use fine adjustments, because a slight adjustment can make a large difference. Fantastic! Also expand tone range and harmonics of keyboard voice. Go from wimpy to AWESOME!!The VCO and LFO sections also can affect the sound of plugged in keyboard. But the push button switches which activate them are momentary switches, not locked on/off, so you have to use a C-Clamp or something to hold the switch down, or replace them with non-momentary switches. That also kind of sucks, but it's pretty easy to work around.All around, it's well worth it to drastically modify and improve signals fed into this thing. Input into line in must be fairly high for it to work, so don't expect to plug a guitar straight into it and expect it to work. You'll probably need a small pre-amplifier for a guitar, or use the headphone or line out from a guitar amp.But the results are amazing and well worth thirty bucks. It's made my keyboards sound so good I've started writing more songs, after a years-long lapse.

Pretty cool. Easy to use. LFO Rate is fun to play with. Just received mine. Makes some pretty cool sounds fun to play with reminds me of 1980's arcade games. $20.54 bought mine from e-japan, GREAT seller I highly recommend purchasing from e-japan. Arrived weeks before earliest date (est date was Apr 13-May4 - arrived April 1).Fun to mess around with, Im sure there will be some useful applications for it when tracking with my DAW and also just for having some fun as well.Good stuff.

Edit: this thing used to be $25, and I said it was definitely worth buying. I absolutely positively cannot recommend it at $75. The plastic is sub-Happy Meal toy quality, the buttons are literally just little pieces of plastic free-floating in the encasement, and the knobs fall off if you look at them wrong. Definitely do not buy this for a child. It’ll be in 1,000 pieces by the end of the day.The sound itself is cool, if you’re looking to make noise recordings or add little odd background noises to something. It’s a fairly unique sound, but the signal is noisy.

This is a lot of fun and an incredible value - the price has come down a lot so maybe they are clearing them out to make room for something new. It’s very basic and more of a noisemaker than a musical instrument but if you have patience and a steady hand you can get theremin style leads out of it. Add a delay unit and you can make your own cheap sci-fi movie sounds.If you are electronically oriented, it can be hacked to make it more musically useful. Since I don’t trust myself with a soldering gun, I'm happy the way it is.

I gave this 5 stars because it was everything I expected it to be. The item cost me just over $30 Australian dollars delivered to my door. The delivery was prompt (about a week) and it was packaged well...The unit is not sturdy at all and the knobs can be loose or sticky, when messing around with synths the feedback from the knobs can contribute to the overall experience, that said, it all works and the stylus makes it easier to use than my monotron.As for the sound, I was surprised that it actualy sounded quite good!The monotron sounds better... But it was also more than double the cost that the Gakken was delivered (got it from a pretentious overpriced DJ store).I only brought this item because I was interested, overall I am impressed. The Gakken shortcomings do not outweigh its strengths at all.

Perfeito

Great little synth if you can get for a reasonable price (say, under $30). Has headphone and audio out (as I recall), cutoff, res, two waveform LFO with rate and amp adjustment, an LFO trigger. The synth is interesting in that it only has a ribbon controller at the bottom and a wand to trigger the ribbon. So the output frequency is not stepped into typical keyboard keys. You can therefore make nice theremin-style sweeps with this synth. It's a fun toy. A bit flimsy on construction, but again, at this price, that's what you are (not) paying for. The synth however is a lot of fun and works fine. I let my young kids play with it and if they break it, no biggie. They love the sounds.

arriva, compro le batterie lo accendo ci gioco 5 minuti ma in realtà sono passati 3 giorni. ero gia "che m**** si scaricano subito le batterie".Batterie brutta bestia dai tempi della macchina telecomandata, questo dispositivo magico non ha l'allaccio per un trasformatore BISOGNA MODIFICARLO QUINDI PERDERE LA GARANZIA.è un bellissimo giocattolo che vi rende autistici quando lo usate, è mono non stereo quindi sentirete una sola cassa quando lo usate collegato.l'ingresso input non serve quasi a una mazza, non pensate di attaccarci strumenti, vi fa da equalizzatore blando.quindi ricapitolando i difetti:batterie - non allaccio al trasformatoreuscite mono non stereoingresso input semi inutilepregi:apre porte sensoriali quantiche

For under £20 its a no brainer.This is not going to be a replacement for a full sized synthesizer, but its the most sonic fun in you fist that you are going to get for under £20.Don't expect to be able to reproduce any sound that you can think of, that's not what it is about, but it doesn't take long fiddling with the knobs to get something usable, and then another one, and another.The keyboard is more fiddly that a stylophone oe even a Korg Monotron, but the little performance buttons on the left hand side make it extremely playable, especially the "Modulation" button which is touch sensitive and allows you to smoothly introduce vibrato on demand.The VCO Controls have a good range and my only quibble is that it is limited to 4 octaves and you cant switch it down a few which would make a killer bass synth.Envelope generator is just fine, although the attack/decay controls only work in single shot mode, which can annoying but not a show stopper.The filter has a good range too, but for me this is the weak spot, winding the resonance makes is scream and howl but to me its a bit harsh and distorted so use it sparingly.As a hand held device the speaker is more that adequate, but put it through an external amplifier and it sounds as good as something five times the price. Put it through a valve guitar amp and you have some seriously powerful sounds at your disposable.I use mine through a Zoom MultiFX pedal unit to add a bit of "European Valve" distortion, spring reverb and tape echo which take me straight int into Hawkwind territory. I reckon I could do 80% of the "Audio Generator" sounds from their earlier albums with one of these, no problem. And I do :-) Dik Mik would have got through dozens of these.One final word of caution, the original Mk1 was designed to be modified, so various connection points were clearly labelled on the PCB so the schematics were made freely available along with dozens of web sites showing various hacks. Unfortunately although the PCB is marked with as before the schematic was not released so hacking is a bit more of a jump int the unknown.Do I like it? Yes I have three, along with a modest collection of full sized synthesizers. This wont replace them, but then you can't easily play a Juno-106 sitting on the toilet. :-)

Un super petit synthé qui coûte vraiment pas grand chose. La section est LFO est redoutable et permet des délires sonores assez poussés. Le filtre est pas mal aussi, même s'il manque de puissance (mais il existe une possibilité de gonfler la résonance en maniant le fer à souder, j'ai pas encore essayé). L'enveloppe, malgré son minimalisme, est tout aussi intéressante et rajoute des possibilités d'édition non négligeables. Les boutons VCF et LFO sur le côté permettent de booster le filtre ou le LFO le temps de l'appui, très utile en live.Mais ce qui est le plus intéressant selon moi, c'est qu'on peut très bien l'utiliser comme module externe d'un ordi ou d'un synthé, le stylet agit tout simplement comme une entrée CV/Gate ! Alors bien sûr il faudra tâtonner un peu, mais il existe un logiciel qui permet de transformer votre carte son en convertisseur CV/Gate et de piloter le SX150 (Silent Way). N'hésitez pas à chercher un peu sur le net pour ça.En gros, au vu de son prix, de ses possibilités sonores et de la possibilité de le piloter via un sequencer externe, je lui mets 5 étoiles, et ce malgré son boîtier et ses boutons qui semblent un peu fragiles. C'est pas tous les jours qu'on trouve un synthétiseur analogique à ce prix là.