Pulse 2 : Affordable Analog Synth

For what you get, the price of this unit is really good. It is built like a tank, and I really like the format. Small and practical! Using the USB, the computer recognises it immediately (I use it with Ableton Live and that works like a charm).

A drawback of the format is of course that every knob has several functions. This is made very easy with the matrix on the front panel. However, I feel this could have been further improved by developing the display a bit further. The display is really big, but sadly most of the time it is only used to display the preset number. I think it would have been better if it gave a bit more visual feedback on the functions (for example, a graph with the ADSR). I think this is a feature on the Blofeld so it clearly can be done... As I said, this is my first synth and for a beginner the layout maybe isn't the best.

It does sound really good! Definitely for leads and basses it's great. Although it is a monophonic synth it can do some polyphonic sounds (!?) but it is clear that the volume reduces when more than two notes are played at the same time.

So all in all, a very affordable, good sounding synth, with a few small but ignorable drawbacks.