I recently go into production on Renoise, I have samples which I use, but I have no equipment to create synths, I don’t want to use digital synths because I believe that a analog synth is better to use for experimentation.
Preferability under 300 USD, and similar in sound to “Traditional Synthesizer Music” by Venetian snares, I really liked the sound of the synths in that album.
For those types of sounds have a look ‘n’ listen on YT for Behringer Crave and Model D. They’re very capable machines in the right hands. Love mine. If you’re lucky you might be able to grab both for under $300.
You may save up your spending and get a free modular synths vst like cardinal if you want experimentation since you may have as many oscillators and fx as you want.
If you know that the trick to get the analog sound is mostly about saturation and drift, you can easily emulate that on most of the synths using random LFO and a bit of soft clip.
Like @slujr have mentioned, I actually want to know a bit more of your thought process to that conclusion since for 300, digital or vst might be a better fit. If you are on reverb, with 300, you can only get:
Most of the options here within the budget are monosynths. While they look fun, I think cardinal, noise maker, or even vital can do the same if not a lot more for free, and being more experimental if you go in depth for the modulations, while saving your pain on setting your hardware.
(To admit, I don’t really know what I’m talking about as I’m new to music production in general) I thought an analog synth could be better for experimentation as such as I could record the synth, and then edit the audio on Renoise. Also analogue music equipment for me, it “feels” better, I feel like sometimes digital music can sound “too perfect” and it can put me off from it, so that’s why most of the electronic music is either 100% analogue, or uses analogue + digital software. I’m heavily inspired by Venetian Snares and he uses analogue + digital, so I’m following the footsteps of his work flow.
I have used VSTS before, as I produce in Ableton, but for me it feels off and limiting, Renoise is almost entirely (correct me if I’m wrong) is sample based so for instruments I thought I’ll use analogue synths for it, I just really dislike digital vsts, some a good, digital effects vsts are good, but digital synths and other instrument vsts I don’t like.
What about analog synth modeling like diva or Legend? They are vsts that try to capture the analog kind of sound, with additional features. They both have trials so that you may test around the synth as much as you want.
You may test yourself with some blind test between a plugin and the real synth, let see what you think about the following videos and see which sound you think it is analog.
I can actually tell for the second video, but I do think some of the vst these days can be very close to the real analog synths, while the remaining is how you express, program, and perform with your synths.
Surge XT is a free VST and, honestly, could easily be the only synth you’ll ever need. It can sound very “analog” especially with the drift slider moved up. Your intentions are solid, but I think you might have been swayed by the idea of analog being “better” than digital - usually as a way for the person saying it to justify their consumerist purchases of high end synths. I think Behringer just announced a mini Model D, will be very inexpensive and a good test bed for that sort of sound.
Seriously though, grab Surge XT and get engrossed in it.
Renoise is a modern tracker, you can do everything with samples, but you can also use synths mainly. Using VSTs isn’t limiting at all, using hardware in connection with a DAW is harder. But if you prefer to go that way, you will have to check every hardware solution that’s in your price range of 300 € max by yourself. So obviously going to a store and try playing or watching videos about sound demos is what you need to do in order to find what you’re looking for. Examples: Behringer Pro-1 (177 €) Behringer Pro-800 (249 €) Behringer MS-1 MKII (219 €) Behringer Model-D (199 €) Roland S-1 (189 €)
Or buy used hardware. You might also need an additional MIDI keyboard.
But if you just want to copy the equipment of Venetian Snares, check his gear.
haha, this is true since I used to bought a microfreak wanted to do a dawless set up with raspberry pi with SunVox as a midi sequencer, along with my two refaces, but there are already so much wiring for the audio and midi while these wire are thick and long. As a result, I just gave up and just write everything on the tracker alone, with vsts if needed.
Wait, this is a good deal for an 8 voice analog poly, and the form factor is small. I am kinda interested for this one! I heard some people complained the membrane button during its first release, but I don’t mind that considering that price.
For sub $300 you’ll probably end up with analog monosynth from Behringer. Those are fine if you have an idea what you want to achieve with your set up and what sorts of sounds you are looking for. You mention Venetian Snare so I think you would like to add some effects like reverb of delay to your analog sound, right? Do you know how you’re going to achieve it? Do you know how you’re going to mix it up with other sounds coming purely from Renoise? (As I guess your analog synth won’t be the only source of sounds, right?).
Bear in mind the Behringers are mostly monophonic, you won’t be able to do chords, perhaps duophonic at best (unless it’s PRO-800) and there are no effects - no delay, no reverb - bare filtered oscillators buzz. Also - no stereo - all in mono. Solution to this would be to equip yourself with some cheap guitar pedals (also from Behringer - they are absolutely fine with synths). And - no presets (again, unless PRO-800) so you would have to snap a photo of the panel state to be able to recall it later or use one of those overlays to mark the knob positions.
As recommended by others - you can experiment with vst’s first. If you fancy a piece of hardware - you can buy a midi controller and map the knobs/faders to the vst of your choice for more hands-on experience.
Behringer Neutron is probably the one you’re looking for, semimodular and really gritty sounding with some half decent effects built in. Try looking for one of those in the used market