When I got home and opened the box, I felt slightly intimidated by the amount of features per square inch. I spent the first few hours reading the manual to brush up on waveforms and the components of raw sound. I quickly found myself diving head first into random dabbling with the controls galore. My sounds changed! But there is plenty more going on inside of this unit.
One has to have an appreciation for analog synthesizers, moreover the hundreds of tonal permutations that are available on the Andromeda. I found myself mocking the 1980’s pop music synth lines like Loverboy’s “Take Me to the Top” and Van Halen’s “Jump.” Those are staple patches that come up in the factory presets quite often. After I called up a preset, I then had the ability to alter waveforms via the VCO’s, LFO’s, envelopes and filters. I must say that each time I turned a knob or punched a button, I created a different sound, and I mean different. This keyboard is total tonal creation tool. I was able to dial in certain LFO’s and get the vibrato to a point where my Sony MDR7509 headphones were rattling inside and out.
Andromeda allows synth players immense versatility. From a plethora of input and output possibilities, the effects, the routing, the sequencing, the layering, to look and feel, you can be sure of success with Andromeda.
It didn’t take long for me to utilize the ribbon controller and mod and pitch bend wheels. Again, this unit allows for multiple control of modulation, ie the ribbon controller (which can be split) and the two wheels. There is nothing better than being able to access a new program while having one of your hands holding down a chord. As soon as I was ready to engage the new patch, I started hitting more keys and the new patch came to life.
I would encourage keyboard players and synth enthusiasts to venture into the Andromeda for a number of reasons. For one, it is here to stay! Two, by nature of its flexibility and programmability the possibilities of sounds are endless. The semi-weighted action feels great and allows the user to run up and down the 5 octave “C to shining C” with complete and utter ease.
