COBALT5s // Testing Modal's Metal // Review, Demo and Walkthrough

[@christiand8243]

Nice sounding little synth, thanks for the demo!! Great 👍👍👍

[@decibel.sintetico]

I love my Modal Cobalt 5S. It's a synthesizer that's really fun and sounds very expensive. It's definitely not an all-rounder and there are some things that annoy me a bit (the resonance filter and the envelopes), but there are some things it can do better than any other synthesizer. It is particularly suitable for pads and ambient sounds. And it has a really great arpeggiator. All in all, a very good sounding synthesizer in this price segment that I can recommend to everyone.

[@soniklink-WKD4496]

If the Intro is anything to go by, then 'Enough Said!'. Sounds awesome, a bit more exciting than the Take5 in my eyes :)

[@christdolphin69]

insane statement

[@chrisbrouns3593]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'm feeling much more comfortable with the new synth. My first Modal. You have gotten yourself a new subscriber here. :)

[@paulguy2545]

I’ve just ordered mine from Andertons Music and am SO excited for when it arrives!! Thanks for the walkthrough of this impressive synth 👍!

[@StarskyCarr]

Glad it was helpful.

[@apislapis]

Modal aren't daft, giving you this before the release, I'm sure your fab demo will sell quite a few units Starsky. I love the form factor, as I can store it in my rack of synths with my Refaces and 80s Casiotones...a CasiOBALT... and pull the Cobalt5S out of the rack when I fancy a noodle. Nice work, it's on my wishlist of fun keyboards.

[@Answersonapostcard]

Honestly one of the best sounding synths on the market at this price point.

[@stevencohen5116]

Enjoyed the run down! Thanks. I got the Modal 5s a few weeks ago, and am really enjoying the versatility the oscillator’s have in tandem with the Algorithms. People probably won’t realize how experimental you can get with the algorithms and wave modifiers. I’ve been quite surprised at how good the synth sounds in general, I would have settled for plenty less. It’s really worth experimenting with, and this is an easy synth to experiment with. Now I have to get into the sequencer, Arpeggiator and modulation routings. Nice work there at the end, the pattern reminds me of the end of Yes’s Starship Trooper.

[@Individual_two]

Nice review! This synth is a good little package for less than $499US. This should compete well with other similar synths like the Korg Minilogue and Roland JD-Xi. Each one brings something a little different to the table for the home studio user who is strapped for space.

[@wavesequencer]

Sounds good to me - a good starter synth.

[@EaselCat]

Sweet!

[@AndrewLeSynt]

grabbed one in switzerland which was on sales right now for 275 bucks - brandnew ❤❤

[@fortheloveofnoise]

gawt dayum what a steal!

[@Жан.джазмен]

Shortcut to glide options: Push Patch knob and turn Mix OscDrift Knob

[@GerenM63]

Thanks for the great run-through! So intriguing! I was almost set on a Cobalt8. Could you say how the keys compare with the Arturia Keystep 37?

[@StarskyCarr]

Just as good. High quality keys.

[@Жан.джазмен]

Is it possible to control the Morphing shape voice by the LFO's or envelope?

[@Жан.джазмен]

The aswer is "YES"

[@samprock]

I do enjoy what you do on the channel Mr Starsky! Real neat songs you play on this video too! Especially like jamming "the interesting one there" at 44. I was making alike sound with various synth in my tracks al the time. Also reminds me of Cause&Effect Electronic '90's band. Modal owes you my C5S order to your work :) When Cobalt 8 came out (with app/vst on top of other) I only wished it to be smaller, fit into Keystep body. Here you go, with ability to tweak sequencer/arp on a fly, that Arturia can't make somehow. Real nice lil synth package. And thanks to comparing to P5, which budget went to Buchla for me, with Sub37 and PolyBrute it covers my studio, now will add-on small mighty machine feeding 80's child dreams.

[@StarskyCarr]

thanks its nice to hear the demos are useful... nice set up you've got there as well

[@randomguy-dy3uy]

New to synths, question. Can the cobalt 5s play a smooth washing bass chord progression, and then I play some lead over that? also could i turn the volume up and down on the bass example? sorry but i don't know the keywords for this with regards to synths.

[@StarskyCarr]

what you're talking about is keyboard split - one sound on your left hand another on your right. This would be a bitimbral synth (2 sounds) but synths that can play multiple sounds are multitimbral. But to answer your question, no this can't do it.

[@vishnudh1216]

Would there be any significant advantage in getting Cobalt 8M over the 5s other than the key bed

[@StarskyCarr]

the 8 has a slightly more complex engine, plus 8 note polyphony. They're very similar, but you might miss the 3rd LFO and extra FX. I'd be happy with either tbh.

[@woodswalker88]

@@StarskyCarr I would like to sell my 8M & get the 5s! Because....I want the keys!

[@mauchkimberly]

According to bobeats, the xy pad takes up 4 modulation slots. You didn't seem to indicate this in your review. Can you clarify the use of xy as a modulation source (for 2 modulations i guess, or can you set it to modulate 4 things? Does it take up half the modulation slots? Thanks, and thanks for the demo.

[@StarskyCarr]

It actually takes up to 5 if you use the z axis as well. But you don’t have to use the + and - it’s just adds flexibility. So you could have 8 parameters controlled by punching it upwards. You still have 4 free for aftertouch velocity y+ and note. But if you did have 6 mods in the sound you would be limited with what additional you could add via the XYZ pad.

[@alexandrebaroni1057]

I´m really interested to know how the Keybed compares to Arturia KeyStep models (that I have and like). I loved to have a small Synth and a MIDI controller on the same package. But Keybed is very important to me (the feeling, travel, implementation.

[@StarskyCarr]

They’re very similar tbh. The keystep action is a little lighter but the keys are a few mm longer maybe 2or 3mm.

[@tyromelive2851]

The on/off switch is a game changer 😀

[@StarskyCarr]

Haha.. it's on the back and the words popped out!!

[@davidking6750]

The lack of that is a total turn off :D

[@sodiumlights]

why doesn't it come in orange? daftness aside, ace honesty as always, thank you x I s that top panel metal or plastic? Keybed as good as the Refaces?

[@StarskyCarr]

I think its all polycarbonate but not 100% its not metal. I don't want to hit it hard enough to scratch it! Pretty sure it polycarbonate though but could be wrong.

[@sodiumlights]

@@StarskyCarr thank you.

[@borututuforte]

It's digital. 5 voices can't be the maximum because of a CPU limit in 2022.

[@wavesequencer]

It could well be a CPU limit - especially if they add a lot of oversampling.. It's not running a Intel or AMD chip in there, it's probably a relatively low power embedded ARM core CPU .. although you have to wonder if they really sourced a different part for this vs the original Cobalt to save money (since using the exact same platform would be less work/economies of scale), or maybe they just removed features/voices to differentiate the product line. (Having said this, embedded CPUs usually come with a range of memory size and clock speed options with pin/instruction set compatibility - so it could be a easy 'drop in' replacement to reduce cost.)

[@borututuforte]

@@wavesequencer I'm definetly not an expert here, but I own an Axoloti Core which is a freely programmable board with an ARM microcontroller (STM32F427 at 168Mhz). Polyphony depends on your patch, the number of elements like OSCs, Filters, Envelopes and so on. Most of the time you'll reach 4 to 6 (sometimes more) voices - but that's by putting together different pieces of code made by people on the internet and probably not comparable to the more optimised code of a market-ready device. There are probably much more capable ARM microcontrollers around already and let's not forget that digital synths already boasted massive polyphony in the early 2000s (like Novation K-series or Access Virus). So even if the 5 voices are because of processing power limitations, I think the price should reflect that.

[@wavesequencer]

@@borututuforte Thing is, the digital synths in the 2000s had quite weak digital sounding filters and very noticeable aliasing - and to make really good sounding tones and filter emulations which avoid those issues does require significantly more processing. As for price, I think polyphonic synths at this price point are incredible value for money considering inflation vs 90s/2000s pricing I would be interested to see a tear down anyway to see what kind of CPU is there - a job for Marcus Fuller maybe. Personally I would recommend the Hydrasynth explorer or Minlogue XD over this simply due to the interfaces. With these price points, I think the prices are mostly reflecting the cost of the tooling/chassis, PCBs, development, logistics and marketing costs.. the CPU is/has to be a tiny fraction of all all that.

[@donnied8127]

Nobody noticed that it looks are "inspired" by the original Novation Bass Station

[@roncolem4558]

And look about as bland too lol!

[@jonfromtheuk467]

Hard to compare a £379 synth with a P5! :-)

[@StarskyCarr]

Of course.. it wasn't a full blown comparison, just a little test I like to do - and as I said it was all done from memory rather than a side-by-side comparison. But I threw it in to show it had a nice overall tone.

[@jonfromtheuk467]

@@StarskyCarr no problem - just a mildly humorous comment my end.

[@je7647]

whats the retail price

[@jonfromtheuk467]

£379

[@GerenM63]

And, for the US, Sweetwater is advertising that it will be $449.

[@KiR_3d]

It would be cool in late 90s. Now I know few free VST plugins that sounds not worse than this VA synth. The filter model sounds pretty boring. 36:12 - clearly a parody on Prophet-5 :D I've couldn't complain if my ears weren't "trained" to compare to the analog synths. But once you "know the truth", it's irreversable.

[@BoyXx76]

I like my Cobalt8, it's very versatile and fun to use. BUT the filter lacks character. Also the envelopes just don't sound good to me - I tried so many different envelope modes but I like none of them.The oscillators are not free running (especially noticeable when using drift in unison) and the effects sound so cheap. Maybe they'll fix some things in software updates...who knows. It really could be a great synth, but in it's current state...it's not.

[@StarskyCarr]

I don't think it lacks character - I think the character is of a well behaved gentleman! I love the balanced phase double notch. Very OBish ... not many would say they don't have character - but its definitely not aggressive to punchy.

[@googlepigs7027]

So then...this is really a controller, but you need a computer to run it ? I'am a newbie, thats why I ask.

[@StarskyCarr]

No it’s a fully featured synth. The app is only for editing. You don’t need the app - but it’s handy to see what’s going on in a patch and for deep editing.

[@googlepigs7027]

@@StarskyCarr Thankyou !

[@DaraM73]

A great shame they’ve gone tits up.

[@fortheloveofnoise]

Have not, new synth at NAMM 2024.

[@HornieCow]

sounds muffled, Theres notting interesting in that cobalt. dont like the small keys but the size is ok'ish.

[@maccagrabme]

Might be the mix as mine sounds very clear and interesting, very inspiring to my ears esp when running through a delay it sounds great.

[@theouterplanet]

Dang bruh