zynthian-sys VS Rack

There's a bunch of people doing some pretty amazing synth builds with the Raspberry Pi -- the Zynthian crew [0] springs to mind.

Basically bring your own USB midi keyboard / controller - these tend to be cheap, but also engender very strong opinions, so there's some distinct advantages to having them as separate components, but with the synth box being much more portable than a laptop or desktop.

As to the Korg Wavestate - on this side of the pond (AU) it has an RRP of A$1500, though street pricing is around A$1000.

[0] https://zynthian.org/

Another option might be to get a Raspberry Pi and a USB audio interface to run Zynthian. Zynthian can be built from scratch with a TV, mouse and keyboard. You will need the USB audio for a line input from your amp. Heaps of DIY learning building your own Zynthian. You can scale up to the full hardware kit if you like what you see.

I suggest something Raspberry Pi based, Zynthian for example. It's the total opposite in this regard, allowing so much freedom and possibilities that it can get overwhelming.

There are several great RPi synth projects around, including mt32-pi, mini-dexed and samplerbox, but they're all intended for headless use (or with a tiny embedded display). The outlier in that respect AFAIK is Zynthian: https://zynthian.org/

Exactly opposite situation in my case - my Ubuntu Studio rig has been rock solid for tracking and many projects .. but the good news is that even if, for whatever reason, you can't qite grok things to be as productive as a pro Ubuntu Studio user (hint: you can) we have all the good things happening in ZynthianOS to explore, anyway - and this just wraps up the same essential goodies into a hardware device that is push-button-user friendly:

http://zynthian.org

And of course there are bleeding edge lessons learned, applied in things like monome, etc.

Zynthian is a good option but a bit hard to get your hands on in the silicon supply chain crisis.

Zynthian is a good one to add to this list.

You might get some more traction by integrating a Raspberry Pi in a eurorack adapter (or RPi Pico) with some sort of CV interface and leveraging an open source project like Zynthian.

VCV Rack - Modular Synth

> It’s haven’t bought any Modular’s yet but I’m really looking forward to getting into other on the new year.

http://cardinal.kx.studio

https://vcvrack.com/

The former is libre and gratis, runs as a standalone or plugin and in the browser!! and is based on the latter.

Ther former has a libre and gratis standalone version, the plugin version is non-gratis.

A music synthesizer. It's a pathway to learning electronics, music, and the nature of sound. There are cheap kits, cheap synths, lots of kinds of synths, and there are much more complicated and expensive systems you can grow into. You can get software synths also, VCV Rack is a free though complex one:

https://vcvrack.com/

However I'd recommend an inexpensive hardware one with real knobs you can turn, like one of the Korg Volca series:

https://www.korg-volca.com/en/

Recording the sounds can lead into exploring all the concepts and gear involved in recording and mixing music. It's not mutually exclusive with doing other things also, you can play with both synths and computers and being involved with something artistic can add dimensions to and an escape from the nature of classwork/work.

Some other suggestions: gardening, high voltage electronics (with lots of supervision), electronics, photography, movie making, ham radio (gnu radio), show lighting systems (there's more than disco lights, robotics is involved), robotics, acoustic instruments (guitar, piano, flute, drums), sensors (you don't necessarily have to know electronics, get a data logger with built in sensors), weather monitoring/forecasting, hydraulic systems (with supervision), wood working, metal working, 3D printing, bird watching, painting, minibikes/small engines.

What really opened my eyes was the Nord Micromodular; it taught me what I just described. It showed me how limited other synths were - but that limitation was a trade-off because it's much faster to make something on a fixed-structure synth than on a modular, in most cases. Nowadays, you can use https://vcvrack.com/ instead of a small limited box that needs Windows 98 to run the editor on.

Also I would suggest the paid version of VCV rack which works as a VST too ( the free version is just stand alone ) Expecially when experimenting with modular ( believe me, it can save you a fortune whilst you learn what different modules do ) I would also recommend Omri Cohens Youtube channel for learning this too.