Yeah... I've been going back and forth a lot. I know I can do everything in software, but I think I am beyond the age of "can learn anything", and need to fall back on knobs and dials. I need the visceral effect of twisting a knob and hearing the LFO warp and change the tone...

So the Behringer Poly D is the one I'm going to get this week. I've held off for a while, not wanting to pop $650 on something from Behringer (who, as a company, I hate with a passion for what they've done to the industry by knocking off leading products and making low-budget copies) ... but they have really hit it with this Moog ripoff.

The addition of the fourth oscillator, and the simplicity of the sequencer were really the selling points for me. Plus, apparently the build quality is significantly better than the Behringer I knew 20 years ago, and this synth is really well built. And, it is also configurable. You can get into all the pots on the back and become a hardware geek if you want to...

But I also have my eyes on the Moog Werkstadt-EXP-01. Which is one hell of a synth for $200. And while I love supporting Moog, it does require you to have a pretty rich mental map of the inner workings of a synth to be able to really make it work.

But the Werkstadt is a true synth in the old-world style of being modular hardware that you actually BUILD and can mod and buy components for. Which is a really exciting thing for me, once I get my head around the Fisher Price... erm... Behringer Poly D and learn how to make a synth do my bidding. :-)