With the Take 5Sequential presents a polyphonic analog synthesizer with an assertive sound and some finesse. The five-voice instrument is equipped with a pleasantly playable, velocity-sensitive 44-key keyboard from Fatar and furthermore has channel aftertouch. Even if there is a visual similarity to the Pro 3 from the same company, the Take 5 is pleasingly independent in its sound and characteristics and at the same time combines some details of current Sequential synthesizers. A nice detail is the vintage control, which shifts the accurate and precise circuits (oscillator drift, filter, envelope behavior...) to the component-related inaccuracies of old synthesizers. In this way, the best possible vintage sound is achieved. Since the Take 5 has all sound-relevant parameters on the control panel, operation is easy after a short familiarization period. Only for a few actions the easy to understand menu has to be used.
Powerhouse from retro to modern
Two analog oscillators with continuously crossfading waveforms (sine > sawtooth > square > pulse) form the basic framework of what the Take 5 shapes its sounds from. Hardsync can be switched between both tone generators and FM can be dosed from VCO 2 to 1. In the mixer the sound generation is completed by a sub oscillator with square waveform which follows the pitch of oscillator 1 and a noise generator which adds white or pink noise depending on the knob position. The nice basic sound is processed with a characterful 24dB Lowpass filter, which turns out to be revision 4 of the popular Prophet-5 filter. It packs a punch, goes low and has a well controlled resonance. In addition, the Drive control can be used to subtly overdrive the level going from the mixer into the filter.
Effects
The final touch is given to the sounds by the two digital effect blocks. The first one can be configured with Stereo Delay, BBD Delay, Tape Delay, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Ring Modulator, Rotary Speaker or Highpass Filter, the second effect block is designed as pure Reverb effect. The last link in the signal path is an analogue distortion unit, which turns even the most subtle sound into a real beast.
Modulation and Playing aids
The two LFOs seem to be identical at first sight, but have different ranges of action. The Global-LFO is applicable to the whole Patch, the Voice-LFO is active per voice. It would be conceivable, for example, that the Global-LFO is used for vibrato effects and the second modulates the filter with slow frequency and Wave-Reset. Two ADSR envelopes are hardwired to the filter and VCA, but can be assigned to other destinations. The envelopes' control times range from crisp and percussive to floating and ambient. Other sources and destinations are linked together in the modulation matrix. This way you can create far more complex sounds than the control panel would suggest. Modulate the waveform of oscillator 2 with aftertouch, vary the Filter-Decay per note with a random parameter or adjust the level of the noise generator with the played pitch - this and more is hidden under "MOD".
Playing aids & memory
As a classic playing aid, the extensively editable arpeggiator must of course not be missing and a polyphonic sequencer with up to 64 steps per Patch is also on board. 256 user and factory sounds each offer access to a sea of sounds and are at the same time inspiration for new sounds. Optionally to the stored sounds there is the Panel Mode. If this is activated, the Take 5 sounds like it is set at that moment. Thanks to Keysplit, a second sound is playable in the lower keyboard range within the five-voice polyphony.
2.0 Update!
Das Software-Update v2.0 bringt noch mehr kreative Möglichkeiten in den Take 5. Dieses kostenlose Update verdoppelt den Speicherplatz für User- und Factory-Presets auf jeweils 256 Stück. Zudem enthält das Update neue Synthesefunktionen und Effekte wie Envelope Repeats, LFO Slew und einen Tape-emulierenden LoFi-Effekt, der dem Instrument einen besonderen Charakter aufprägt.
The sound quality and the build quality of this synth is top, but after playing for 3-4 minutes it got out of tune while playing. After doing the recommended general reset the tuning is set back to original, but only after 2-3 minutes the device is again out of tune. It is a known issue but not as frequent as in this case and I can't use it this unstable. I returned the synth with great sadness.
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