Evolution...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
I know I’m a Johnny-Come-Lately to this whole Dave Smith thing, but I finally nutted up and bought an Evolver this week. It just showed up, and boy, howdy is this little guy the bomb. I’d have a hard time coming up with a better value-for-money in the music industry than the tabletop Evolver, and that’s a fact.
First nice thing I’ll note, since I haven’t really seen it mentioned in the reviews I read, is the construction quality. It is incredibly rare to be able to buy an electronic music instrument that was actually made in the USA any more, but quite frankly, I’ve seen other boxes in this price range that were far less capable that were made out of extruded plastic and sheet aluminum, so I fail to see where the cost-cutting comes in to play. This thing is heavy and is made out of thick steel. High quality pots and a nice big display. I have no complaints whatsoever about the build quality. The panel is dense, and maybe a bit tricky to read in a live situation, but that’s the only thing I could fault about the package itself.
Sound-wise, it is fantastic. The addition of the DCOs and the delay really make it sound contemporary, as opposed to other modern analogs, most of which I am not impressed with. There are some very crafty presets that make use of the feedback path of the on-board delays, and I thought of about 20 songs while I was sifting through the included sounds. In short, that’s what a new synth is supposed to do. They don’t all do it, that’s for sure.
So, I’ll have to spend a little time with it to be able to offer actual opinions about signal flow and programmability and such, but for now, it’ll set me up just right. I’m fairly happy I bought this. Go buy one now. Seriously. You’ll thank me later.
30 comments
love my evo. it's quite surprising at times and always really fun to tweak. you should get the headphone y cable thing so you can sit on the couch with it. put a dvd on w/no sound and make patches.
I made a awful decision in selling my evolver when I got my Nord G2 (which i sold to get my MS-20). Its really a fantastic sounding little synth, I'm going to pick up an MEK once i pay off my most recent Moog Music spending spree.
+ for pc users you can transfer in waveforms
i don't know if there is a mac utility...
I had 1 problem when working with an editor. When i chose a preset i saved before it didn't give me teh correct waveshape but kept returning to the same waveform as the original preset.(i made a sound starting from a preset, so something was in that setup)
Just for info
this is Dave's response which was correct:
"One possibility is that the program uses osc waveshape as a sequencer destination for wave sequencing. If so, whenever you select that program, it loads the waveshape from the sequence, over-writing the Shape parameter. Check the Osc 3 and Osc 4 Shape Seq parameters; if they are not Off, this is likely what you are experiencing."
Great little device !
Here's synchronicity for you. Following this post I made this morning on KVR:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2362076
I've been interwebbing all day trying to find the best Canadian deal around on one of these.
I think i resisted buying one mainly because it's blue, if only it was a more appealing design in black or white. Still sounds amazing and unique nonetheless.
I heartily agree with Chris as far as the value of the Evolver. This is an extremely deep synth. The modulation routing is lots of fun. Another one of my favorite things to do is use the software editor and play with the morph feature which morphs between 2 patches. You can get some crazy sounds in between those 2 patches.
I've been seriously considering getting a poly- doesn't the evolver basically have the same engine?
Hey, bought mine two days ago!
Really looking forward of getting my hands all over it.
I've had mine for about 6 months. I agree with the build quality: it is what modern gear should be built like...
My evolver has appeared in 95% of all my new songs, so yeah, i think it does sound very good :)
Btw, have you guys seen the DSI BoomChik? It's a collaboration between Dave Smith and Roger Linn, and it is a unit which appears to be a mashup of an MPC and an evolver...looks promising.
I've had one for about 3 years now and after ignoring it for a while decided to sell it. But when I got it back out to play with one last time I realized that I can't let it go!
As far as build quality, the case is obv nice and sturdy but using those plastic stickers instead of silkscreening makes it feel kind of cheapo to me.
After playing with this, I'm going to buy a BoomChik as soon as one becomes available for me to do so. I may upgrade to the PEK now, as well.
-CR
The acquiring of the new box calls for Four Furious Measures to be posted based on it!
I've been considering either one of these or the Waldorf Blofeld. Everything I've heard from this box has been uninspiring to me so far, but it's cheap enough that maybe I should give it a shot.
That's what I thought as well. I bought it on a whim, more or less. I had money set aside for the new Moogerfooger and the Eventide delay, but then I discovered they wouldn't be out for some time, so I was like "fuck it. I'm buying something."
It is somewhat complicated to get going, I'll say that much. It's like programming a Split8, except that there's about 5X as many parameters.
I'm going to pick up a Blofeld as well, almost certainly. I'm kind of a fan of desktop units now, because I can just keep 'em all on a shelf, and pull the one out I need. Takes up much less room than pretty much any other option besides software.
-CR
i was considering a PEK until it dawned on me that "poly" is not what i want or need out of this machine. a MEK might be in the future, though.
I loved my evolver. I ended up selling it because I needed a new mixer. The only thing I didn't like about it was the matrix. It grows increasingly more tedious. I don't like computer interfaces, so it ended up becoming me planning on buying one as soon as I get enough saved for the keyboard.
the evolver is definetly one of two things that are on top of my wishlist. here you find a cool editor/librarian (i think!)
-> http://www.psicraft.com/
How does the digital HP filter sound? I've always liked the LP -> HP sound, but if the HP filter is crap it sort of kills the effect.
damn you!
I've wanted an Evo for some time now...3 years? Have they been out that long? Anyway, between the sounds I've heard and my own in-store experiences playing around with one (desktop and MEK), I've had this one at the top of my list for a long time. Actually, I'm surprised CR didn't jump on that shit a lot earlier...
I think Dave has proved that it's not just having a good concept/design, but you actually need to know what the fuck you're doing if you want to produce a really good synth (ahem, Roland, are you listening???). It's like Mr. Smith took a look at the crappy plastic "groovebox" things out there and said, "fuck, I can best that shit with one hand behind my back".
Anyone want to give me $500? :-)
I have a PEK and I love it to death. My other synths are getting lonely because I spend all my time on it now. It's just so intuitive to come up with new sounds on it's hard not to love. There's just something about good hardware that soft synths can't take the place of.
I'm also excited about the Dave Smith/Roger Linn collaboration that's supposed to be coming out.
I have a PEK and wouldn't be the same without an evolver. However the MEK/desktop is still an awesome choice if you just use it for tracking.... I personally love sitting down and banging out some chords with the poly though and having the flexiblity to have 4 sounds running. Folks hem and haw over the "digital signal flow" and all but at the end of the day the evolvers give you the flexability to make of them what you will.
A true instrument.
I've owned one for a while. This is probably totally unnecessary for all you hard-core folks, but I got tired of reading posts from confused new users about how to use it and bemoaning the spartan manual that came with it, so I wrote the "Complete Guide To The Evolver":
http://www.carbon111.com/evolverguide.pdf
(Not my site, Carbon is hosting the file)
the HP filter is really just fot tirying things up. it can be pre/post distortion which is helpful. either way its useful as you can get some truly huge subs once you start messing w/the envelopes.
using the sequencer as a modulation source is great fun too. the matrix doesn't bother me at all. i got used to it really quickly and like having everything right under my fingertips. i dont have to reach for anything. just press a button adn turn a knob. it's pretty fast. i guess i'm a weirdo though.. my first synth was a yamaha CS1-X.
Love my desktop evolver. Unlike many users, I don't mind the matrix at all. I pretty much program it with closed eyes!
Speaking of construction quality, the knob caps are kinda loose and come off too easy and I don't think that I'm the only one who has this problem as I've seen way too many evolvers with missing knobs...
Feature-wise, I wish it had some sort of a sequencer play mode (backward, random, forward-backward, etc.) am I alone on this?
I'm a huge Evolver fan too. The best thing I ever did was to upgrade my desktop version to a MEK. I'm not bemoaning the desktop at all. It's incredible bang for the buck, but the keyboard version is SO much nicer to program. Very few menus and all the important stuff has its own knob or button. I create WAY more patches with this than I ever did with the desktop.
Only trouble is, the minute you get a MEK you start lusting after a poly ;)
re: the highpass,
The sound is fine but the major problem with it in my opinion is that it's on a different row from the lowpass frequency knob. So not only can't you tweak both parameters at once (which of course you can't do with any evolver params) but you have to hit the shift button to edit it. To me, adjusting the highpass and lowpass frequencies together is most of what makes a hp-lp combo fun and interesting.
Well, I'll say this much: after a couple days, and to back up what nousrnm just said: this is a programmer's box, not a tweaker's box. The tabletop model is simply not set up very well for live tweaking. I believe I alluded to the Split8 in an earlier post. Programming it is like programming that. Or a DW8000. Not too easy to do live. If one was concerned about live knob twiddling, one should seriously cowboy up and get the MEK.
Obviously, you can just automate the stuff you need in the studio, which is my context, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
-CR
tobybear makes a great little midi vst plug-in called "N2CC" that i use all. the. time. with my evo.
http://www.tobybear.de/p_midibag.html
it converts incoming midi note values to a corresponding CC value. i use it in places where i would have previously had to use the evo's onboard sequencers (which can be a pain to program, even with the pc editors)..
you can use it to, say, control the pitch of each individual oscillator.. or the waveshape.. whatever.
i use it in energyXT in conjunction with XT's arpeggiators. fun stuff. it's a midi plug, tho, so you need a host that'll support it.
I guess I need to finally get off my ass and buy the upgrade chip. CC support would be great since I'm still stuck with the original sys-ex only Evo and I've never actually automated the thing or tweaked it with an external controller.
I've had my desktop evo for 2 years now and have said since I bought it, I've said that is was the best $350 I've ever spent.
re: CCs and tweakability-- The chip upgrade is definitely helpful, as you can, with a midi fader box, tweak more than one parameter at a time. This includes tweaking HP and LP at once.
re: Highpass filter-- I recently discovered in a session of using my evo as a stand-alone drum machine (not the easiest thing to do, but fun nonetheless) that once the HPF is engaged (i.e. a value of at least 1) there is already significant roll-off of the lowend. I'm talkin' around 90Hz at a 12dB slope. The problem with this is that to have the HPF modulated by any source, it has to have a value of at least 1. So, if you want a patch that has modulated HPF, you better not want any deep bass to come through at all. This fact somewhat dimmed my pseudo-drum machine tweaking fun as I could not get both deep kicks and thin highhats.
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