Dave Smith Instruments Mopho Reviews

4.3/5.0 based on 10 customer reviews

Sweetwater Advice

Mike Hammond

An excellent and affordable way to get a warm, fat, sweet, true analog synth! The Mopho is great for long-time fans of analog like myself and any musical artists wanting their first real analog synth to add on to their MIDI rig.

Nick Schenkel

When I first heard the Mopho, I was blown away. When I saw the price, I thought I'd finally lost my sanity! This is an unbelievable synth value. Dave Smith has done it again!

Danielle Cummings

Extremely affordable, portable, and highly addictive, not to mention an awesome sound. It's the cure for the common synth.

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Customer Reviews

Jefferson Weber
from Indianapolis, Indiana
February 4, 2013Music Background:
Composer,Hobbyist

Very compact, very Cool!

A great monophonic synth at an unbelievable price! Dave smith makes great, well built instrument and this is one of them. Sounds are super thick. The unit itself looks awesome. The yellow color is great, the display is easy to read also.you will love this synth! Buy it now!

Z
from
May 18, 2012Music Background:
Experimental music composer

Love it!

Incredible analog little synth! Thank you, Dave Smith for this gift to us!

josh
from acton, ma
October 22, 2009Music Background:
obsessive hobbyist

Choice piece of gear

stunning and addictive

Neil Barbu
from Garden City Michigan
March 20, 2009Music Background:
Pro musician

MO Pho you are

So, here I was anticipating the receipt of my new MoPho. I went online to Dave smith intruments and downloaded the manual and the editor program made by soundtower (great stuff)and read for a couple hours. Fastforward to the next day when a knock at the door came around 10:30 and lo and behold the fattest synth made booksize!!! Man is it PHAT! I had to listen to my 3" monitor speakers and thought they were going to melt!(just kidding) but what a sound!! The Pro One on steroids and shrunk down by Dave Smith himself. To hear the bass sounds this beast can dish out I eventually moved to my home stereo with 12" speakers and played a bass sound that shook the living room and half the house!!! I can`t say enough about the MoPho. I guess now I`ll have to put my Alesis Qs7 into the audio input and see if I can`t use a couple LFO`s to turn my full organ sound into The Who`s Baba O`reilly intro. you owe it to yourself to get one of these ASAP. You won`t be dissappointed unless you like wimpy synth sounds( yes, it can make those too) This is one Phat MoPho

Joey S
from Ireland
November 14, 2008Music Background:
Hobbyist

Mophocking unbelievable!!

I have spent so long playing around on softsynths never really getting the feel that I craved. I've even done things like mapping all the parameter of the pro53 to my remote 25 but it just never felt right. I saw this is a shop last Friday played around with it and couldn't believe what I was hearing, this thing is awesome. I went home and without hesitation spent the day on the internet looking for a good price. Once I had found what I was looking for I spent the money without thinking twice and I'm a cash strapped student. I've always wanted to own a synth and now I do and its a beast. Like the previous reviewer said once you take it out of the box you hit the Push It! button and endless ideas start swarming in. For the quality and the price this is a must have piece especially for synth beginners like myself.

Joe Nassar
from NYC
October 31, 2008Music Background:
Gear junkie, Pro DJ, producer and remixer

Massive ANALOG synth power for CHEAP!!!

The DSI Mopho is a MONSTER! The programablity of this synth will astound you. The small footprint is perfect for those of us that want more options in our studio, but are lacking space. The layout of this synth is perfect for live and with the 4 customizable knobs it makes on the fly tweaks a breeze. The expressibility is awsome!!!! With the aftertouch and control of glide you can really breath some character into your leads, FX and basses. The software editor makes programming a breeze. And THE SOUND? It is UNMATCHED IN IT'S PRICE POINT or anything close!!!! A MUST BUY!!

Wesley Dysart
from Atlanta
October 16, 2008Music Background:
Engineer, Keyboardist, Producer, Live PA

This little box is amazing, you need to buy yourself one

This is my first analog synth. I spent two hours playing with it the night it arrived. There were things in my studio vibrating that never did before. There are types of sounds I'm finding myself jamming on that I never liked the digital emulations of. The tonal capacity of this thing is mind blowing, from speaker-damaging bass tones to vintage & modern sounding lead sounds with TONS of expressive possibilities. It's also got plenty of quirky patches & sound FX. I haven't delved into editing yet, but out of the box it's easily the most fun I've had playing in years. The endless encoders are kinda annoying, but the price paid for this level of sound quality crushes any little gripes I have. You should have a good MIDI controller for playing anyway, the knobs are just fine for editing, perhaps even better suited. Yeah, I just can't say enough good things about this unit, mine is number 43, I'm proud to own a piece of Dave Smith gear. I'll probably write him a letter. If you don't have an analog synth and you wanna get in on the fun this is it, look no further. I haven't seen anything else for sale offering this much quality for so cheap. I'm hoping other companies take note!

Dereck Blackburn
from Philly PA
September 28, 2010Music Background:
Musician and Recording Engineer.

Amazing synth for the price.

First the pros: Sounds amazing. If you have been working with softsynths as I have for years instead of hardware, you will immediately know the difference. All the knobs needed for the beginner are here and for the intermediate to expert everything else should be pretty intuitive. Solid yet lightweight construction. Great looking box. Again, this little booger sounds fat fat FAT. From warm ambient sounds to space noise in no time. Very musical.

The cons: Midi setup between Sound Editor and Midi USB keys still have bugs. Manual is nice but could be a little more helpful and laid out better.
The keyboard version is out so if you are a serious tweaker, save your cash and get that instead.

Master Payne
from Jacksonville,Florida.
October 10, 2012Music Background:
Church Musician.

Good,but could be alot better.

I wanted something for bass and leads that was cheaper than the Slim Phatty.Well,I found it to be more of a gripe than useful.

First off,i'm a computer musican,so I needed something with analog.Well,I was sick of having all digital tracks,so I wanted to add some true analog flavor.The sounds sound sort of analog,but my TI2 Virus came too close.I could'nt find a reason to keep this unit after discovering this.This unit uses digital oscelators,so even this unit isn't true late 70s analog and it also uses a budget chip.I understand old analog had tunning issues,but this sound doesn't even come close to old analog or the Prophet 5 sound.

The soundtower software sucks.It's full of bugs and issues.
No power off switch.
No usb port.
Not enough control on the unit.
Sound libray is good,mostly bass and leads bravo.
Couldn't get it to work right half the time with Ableton.
Not enough of the sweet spot when you're making a bass sound.I found it to be almost right or too much.

This review will make alot of people mad,but i've been useing synths for 30 years,and the mopho doesn't even come close to true 80s analog.DSI added too much modern flavor to this synth.I think you're better off with plugins or a Mogg minitaur or slim phatty.

Kyle Geiger
from Fort Wayne, IN
August 16, 2010Music Background:
Pro Musician

Very difficult to program and navigate

This synth is somewhat of a one trick pony....which is fortunate due to the difficulty of programming this synth. The software that gets pushed (3rd party freeware, not supported by Dave Smith) is super buggy and lacks a two way communication between the software and hardware, only allowing messages to be sent to the synth.

All this being said, the sounds that come out of this thing are super thick and chunky....great for basses. I just don't like any synth that is so hard to program away from the preset sounds.

inSync Review

Danielle Cummings
2-09-2009

How many of us have used only software synths and never touched a real analog synth? When you think analog synth, you generally think of expensive panels full of switches and dials... something that you would never get your hands on unless there was one set up in a music store. Worry not, because Dave Smith Instruments has come to rescue you from the digital doldrums.

The Mopho (short for MonoPhonic) has a 100% analog signal path that is a direct descendant of a single voice of the DSI Prophet 08. It comes with 384 built-in programs, which are fully customizable and programmable, just by turning any of the control knobs on the surface. I spent several hours trying out different programs, and adjusting each and every control. Within just one program, I produced an amazing variety of sounds. I also loved the built-in arpeggiator and sequencer, especially when I plugged in my MIDI controller keyboard and began to play with the pitch and mod wheels. Don't have a keyboard? There's a handy little "Push It!" switch on the front that triggers notes and latches on sequences. You can have plenty of fun with just this box and some headphones. If you have an external source of audio, you can also use the Mopho to process it. I tried out a guitar with some interesting results.

If you're looking to score some great analog synth sounds contained in a highly portable (and affordable!) box, look no further than the little Mopho.