This thing is amazing. Haven't dived too intensely in sound design, but the presets with Valhalla plugin effects and or black hole make this thing sing. The Keynes is brilliant and I am absolutely in love with this synth. Previously experienced with System 8 JX08 boutique and sledge 2.0. This though . . . Is a thorough Yes. I love it and find it implements well with logic and my model 80/mercury's VSTs and ambient electronica cinematic sensibilities are glorious with this synth. The Keynes is a bit smaller in length than other synths, but I find that more intuitive for my smaller hands and it just fits. Sweetwater enabled my jumping on a B stock and I must say . . . the best money I spent on a synth. I play a squier jaguar and with cherry audio CR78 and when I can the TR707 cloud Roland. It's a great future for la musica!!!

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Verdict: The Argon8x is a the best value 8 voice 61 key synth out there!

I have a Sequential Take 5, and I really love the Fatar keybed on it. However, I'm learning music theory on piano right now, and need more than 5 voices and 44 keys. I stumbled upon the Argon8x, which features 8 voices and a 61 key version of the same amazing keybed.

The sounds (firmware v3.2): The Argon is digital synth. It's capable of both wavetable as well as virtual analog. The newest firmware includes oscillator freerun and vintage params amp up the analog behavior. Dial in a little spread and width, and it sounds absolutely massive. You can customize your filter type as well as the responsiveness of your envelopes (if you want them snappier choose "snappy"). The v3 library patches are pretty good, and I'm genuinely impressed by how accurately I can recreate Van Halen's Jump on the patch "HanValen Hop", which emulates the holy grail OB-Xa synth. I also really love the implementation of filter and ADSR adjustment such that when you turn the knobs, you see a graphical representation of what the filter cutoff and resonance look like or what the level is for each step of the ADSR. I wish all synths with a screen featured these simple visualizations. Occasionally patches can be too quiet, but there is a "patch gain" param you can increase which resolves this issue. The sound engine is insanely deep with many banks of wavetables, many oscillator and wavetable modifiers and a large mod matrix so you can go deep on sound design. But if you're concerned that it doesn't have enough of that analog warmth or grit, grab a desktop unit like the Pro 800, Taiga, Mother 32 or Nymphes and prop it up on the right side of the synth faceplate which has been deliberately left blank/flat for this purpose.

The build quality is phenomenal for this price: It is surprisingly heavy at 20 lbs. The chassis is made entirely of metal except for the end cheeks. The 61 key Fatar TP/9S keybed has aftertouch and is the same keybed featured in most flagship synths. Even expensive synths like the Sequential Trigon 6 or the UDO Super 6 only have 49 keys. Key action is especially satisfying because the heavy chassis absorbs key presses. I've read that some people dislike the knobs, but I prefer them to those on my Take 5. They're incredibly smooth and have no wobble. In a forum, Modal support has shared that these are high durability Bourns rotary encoders. Given the robustness of the rest of the chassis and the top tier keybed, I believe that all the hardware was deliberately chosen to be of the highest quality. The build quality and 61 keys alone makes this a worthy entry in any studio even if only as a midi controller. Only con here is I'm not so fond of a joytick over pitch and mod wheels (and I disliked it on the minilogue XD as well).

I find the effects section to be good, and it's modulatable. You can run 3 effects at once, so if you needed chorus, delay and reverb with params stored per patch at a gig, it's convenient. In fairness, most of us prefer to collect external boutique effects anyway.

The main con of this synth is the interface. There are too many shift hold combos for core functions. I would love to have more immediate access oscillator waveform banks, turning on the arp hold, turning on and selecting a sequence, or choosing a wave mod. Menu access is just weird - I know how to use the menu, but I genuinely don't know how to enter it without touching a knob first. While there are an abundance of knobs and buttons on the panel, the bottom row is very unintuitive. The most important rule of synthesis is that when you turn a knob, you must also be pressing a note to hear the effect, and this isn't possible with some of these interface combos. It just doesn't have the immediacy of a Take 5 or Minilogue XD. But, I also don't think it's a dealbreaker given the value and sound of this synth.

Overall, I think the Argon8x is terrific. It is built like a tank. I think its true sonic potential was unlocked too late in firmware 3, and by then it had fallen out of the hype cycle. But I think it's a powerhouse that enables tons of sonic exploration. I definitely recommend checking it out.

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This is my first review on Sweetwater and I'm hoping it helps somebody else out. I was excited to get this keyboard. The output is VERY low. I had to crank the preamp on my Model 24 to 3/4 just to get the output from the Argon8X to register -12db for recording. A recent update to the firmware was supposed to fix this issue - it didn't. I didn't know about this issue until after I bought the keyboard. I noticed the low output before I updated the latest firmware. After updating the output did not change. You suppose could raise the volume digitally in a DAW after recording. This is not an option for how I like to record since I don't use the computer until the final production process for mastering in Logic. I don't know why this was allowed to exist as a finished product from Modal Electronics. Besides this major issue, the Fatar keyboard is nice, knobs are a little cheap, waveforms sound good. I had reasonable expectations for this keyboard - it was promptly returned.

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I bought the Argon8x after a lot of research. A lot of demo videos used patches that didn't wow me, but I could tell the fundamental sound of it was good, and it intrigued me. The main thing that really impressed me immediately was the quality of the oscillators themselves. A lot of synths (real and virtual) have weak sounding oscillators but make up for it with a lot of features, so they are still good. But the Argon8x oscillators just sound great. It didn't have some of the features that other synths have, but its core sound is just amazing. I expected it to be a 7 out of 10, cool looks and maybe a limited sound pallette. But I was pleasantly surprised that it gets astoundingly good sounds. The onboard effects are passable, but most people these days will have tons of great VST effects plugins anyway. Good effects turn the already great Argon8 sound into something amazing. And I love the user interface. Everything about this synth is polished. The ModalApp makes sound design even easier. Highly recommended.

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This is follow-up to my original review now that I've had a chance to get to know the Argon8x. When reading this, remember that this is an $... synth, so compromises are to be expected. Overall, I am happy with it. It is quite capable and sounds pretty darn good.

There are several limitations and feature omissions (which may be addressed by future firmware updates. I am using the latest v2.2 firmware):

- envelope attack time seems a bit sluggish. Hard to get a snappy attack.
- envelopes to not offer looping and any other advanced triggering modes
- while the mod matrix is deep and nicely designed, there are a limited number of useful mod sources. In particular, there are only 2 LFOs. A third one would be really useful for more complex evolving sounds.
- there is no dedicated noise source. You have to sacrifice on of the wavetable oscillators to get noise.
- using the joystick can be tricky, since it combines modulation with pitch bend on the 2 axes. Need to be precise to actuate modulation without getting some pitch bend and vice versa.
- keyboard velocity curves seem too light. I need to set Very Heavy to get any velocity nuance at all. No calibration method.
- a few performance-oriented functions (e.g. sustain note) require a Shift key because they are set to be secondary functions. Tricky to actuate while playing. At the same time, those buttons' top-level functions are assigned to things you might only use during patch programming.

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I've playing with the Argon8x for about a week now. It's a lot of synth for money. Here are my early impressions ...

Pros:
-Great feeling keyboard. Plays fast and smooth.
-Solid build.
-Logical user interface, but deep complexity almost requires programming using the Modal App (see Cons below)
-Great introduction to wavetable synthesis. Can create wave shapes that are impossible with an analog synth
-Lots of sonic sculpting capabilities.
-several filter types that easily morph from low-pass to high-pass to notch
-Rich modulation matrix.
-3 simultaneous FX
-versatile polyphonic sequencer
-decent Modal App for control over USB
-good MIDI implementation
-Bright screen
-dimmable screen and LED controls

Cons:
-sounds digital (high quality, but will never be mistaken for a Moog)
-filter and envelopes aren't as snappy as an analog synth
-due to the complexity of all the sound and modulation options, programming using the UI is cumbersome. Hard to remember all the button shortcuts. Fortunately the Modal App works well for this.
-wall wart power supply

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