Deluge 1 Year Review - Would I Buy It Again??

I've been using the Synthstrom Deluge for just over a year now, would I buy it again?
#synthstromdeluge #deluge #synth #review #synthreview #groovebox

[@RSKT_music]

I went to bed last night thinking I might do a review of the Deluge after owning it for all this time, and then woke up to this! Haha, I might wait a bit longer then. Great points you're making here ❤

[@oaklandghosts0510]

😂😂😂 “great minds” and all that 😉cheers mate!

[@AeonHorus]

Hahahaa Brilliant!

[@jono_young_music]

As a complete noob to anything but guitars and upright piano…….this spaceship has taught me so much. Great video dude ✌️

[@oaklandghosts0510]

I feel completely the same! It’s totally changed the way I write and think about making music. Thanks for watching!

[@actorjohanmatsfredkarlsson2293]

It is also an Open Source platform, which means it's gonna have long life span with community updates.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Yep! And even before it went open source Synthstrom was regularly updating the firmware for free and vastly expanding and improving upon its capabilities. I’ve got no problems supporting a company like them.

[@NoiseCommander3DS]

I love that they keep improving that single machine instead of abandoning it like most other companies do.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

💯makes it really easy to support a company with that mindset!

[@lessefrost]

So so so tempted to go in on this. The DAWless workflow is amazing. I love hardware synths and it seems like an amazing "brain" that will grow with my setup, a fantastic song composer, and absolutely amazing performance device. Gotta get my hands on one sooner rather than later.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Highly recommend it. That's exactly how I use it. As the brains of the dawless half of my studio. I more often than not use it as my main sequencer, but it's an excellent drum machine and synth on its own too. More often than not, I'm using my external gear to just compliment what I compose on the deluge. Amazing Little box that only keeps getting better!

[@401dB]

Excellent video, my friend! Keep it up.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers 🙏

[@cadetesespaciales]

Great video! Thanks for sharing your experience...I'm on the fence on the Deluge....it's a tad north of my budget...but well see...

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Admittedly, it is a bit pricey but I’d say compared to other gear it’s comparable, and with all it does-frankly blows the competition out of the water. And the company and community is so great and fully dedicated to adding features and prolonging its use. Highly recommend if you can swing it!

[@a9www]

What the heck, this video will probably change my life substantially and sustainably. Thank you, thank you for introducing this fascinating almighty instrument.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

You won’t be disappointed! It’s fricking awesome! Plus… lots of blinky lights! 😂

[@mrclaytron]

Of all the music gear I've owned, the Deluge is my absolute favourite. I've had mine since 2017, and its still super inspiring and fun to use. I upgraded to the OLED display last year, and just love it. I really hope the awesome open source devs can manage to somehow create a way to easily automate the export of arrangement stems... Its my only real frustration point (I like to finish and polish my tracks in Ableton - currently exporting individual tracks from Deluge is about as nightmarish and cumbersome as can be imagined haha - I solo each track one by one, and internally sample back to SD card... but even so, considering how awesome it is in other regards, I guess I can continue to make do with the manual export process 😊). Nice video - and yeah, I totally agree with you!

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Totally agree. This is my biggest gripe too. I think it’s a hardware limitation tho because we’re def not the only ones that want this and the community devs have def looked into it.

[@vacances4999]

Gotta love the blinky lights.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

GIMME ALL THE BLINKIES!

[@RonCavagnaro]

Id buy again!!!!

[@duncan-rmi]

I did- two here! 🤘

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Hey Ron! Man I’d buy it again tomorrow if all they did was update the CPU and add an easy way to stem out tracks. Who am I kidding. I’d buy it again anyway!

[@oaklandghosts0510]

@@duncan-rmihell ya! Awesome!

[@RonCavagnaro]

@@oaklandghosts0510 lol yeah im dawless these days so i do all the daw stuff in external gear! Just sayin lol

[@oaklandghosts0510]

@@RonCavagnaroI’m ‘mostly’ dawless - but I still like to final mix and master in a daw. Better plugins, plus that’s the only way to share tracks with my band mates in a space we can all work on a track. I don’t mind tracking everything individually into my daw.. but it is definitely time consuming and cumbersome.

[@duncan-rmi]

try the open-source OS; there's a 'keyboard' of 4x4 pads for the kit now, so that you have access to 16 velocity levels per sound. game-changer.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Yup! Ive played with it a bit. Definitely awesome. Especially for drums. All the things the community devs keep coming up with blow my mind!

[@FelipotheMiraculous]

Bro! I appreciate your content. Tell me if you see any Downgrades when Iam about to use it for creating music in 432/444hz. Does it have a fine tunning option? Or Am I limited only to my samples and can or cannot I use automatic scales on the device?

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Hey thanks for the feedback! You can transpose anything on the deluge (samples or oscillators) so while I haven’t experimented with 432/444 myself, my understanding is that standard tuning is 440 and 1hz= 4 cents. So if you wanted to play in 432 you’d detune everything by 32 cents for example and then you could still play everything in scale mode as you normally would and it’d all be tuned to 432hz. I don’t *think* you can do this globally.. so it’d require a little prep on a per track basis before you start, but totally possible!

[@197979jones]

I had 2 and sold both. Constant crashing with samples, my SD card dropped inside the last one and an insane amount of menu diving/short cuts. Its definitely one for the dedicated. The only good thing about it was the grid and arranger. But i find the Oxi One far more powerful for midi programming and its a better/sleeker built unit.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

I was definitely intimidated by menu diving/shortcuts at first but I’ve found both to be less intimidating in practice. The OLED screen def helps… can’t imagine menu diving on the old 7seg - but things are laid out really logically whether you choose to use shortcuts and treat it like kind of a modular system patching this to that - or if you menu dive. For example if I’m on an oscillator and click the select button it immediately brings up a list of things I might wanna patch that too and continues in that manner down the chain. Sucks you were hitting crashes. I haven’t had any problems with that myself, but I did upgrade to faster and bigger sd card. I’ve got a pretty big sample library I’ve collected over the years. The oxi one is def a sleek unit and I hear it’s an excellent sequencer, prob best in class- but that’s all it is. While the deluge is def my main sequencer, it also does so much more so they’re hardly comparable.

[@197979jones]

@@oaklandghosts0510 The problem with these all in one units is being confined to its eco system. There are no multiple outputs for tracking out nor any octabridge type software to track out individual outputs. You cant really use external effects. Fraustrating. So yeah - it may do 'more' but is only really king of its own hill. Oxi One with a multi part desktop synth (like the Roland 04HD) is far more powerful in terms of sound palette and tactile hands on fun. Anyhow - its great we have these choices but the Deluge is a big thumbs down for me.

[@197979jones]

@@oaklandghosts0510 Not sure why my comments keep getting deleted. Anyhow - what lets the Deluge down is the all in 1 ecosystem. No multi outputs, nor clever octabridge type mutli track export. So the Deluge may have more options than the Oxi but is only really king of its hill.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

@@197979jones💯 agree on lack of multi-track export. That is by far my biggest gripe and prob its greatest flaw imo. I tend to think it was designed as a live performance instrument and that was just an oversight but it’s a big one! If I was an only sequencing external gear, I’d almost def be getting an oxi. And there is def something to be said for Jack of all trades = master of none. It def doesn’t make sense to use the deluge as only a sequencer for the reasons you pointed out, but for me using it to sequence external gear was just a happy extra. Because it can do so is really just a reason (for me anyway) not to buy another piece of gear that does the same thing. Actually most of what the deluge does was a happy extra for me. I really only bought it thinking it’d be a cool lil portable sketch pad and found it to be much much more capable. In the end it’s all about finding the right gear for your workflow and what you hope to achieve tho, so I’m glad you’ve found what works for you!

[@likestarsatdawn]

I'm very torn between this and a Squarp hapax. My main concern is the ability to easily transition between songs in a live setting and general playability/ groovability. How does the deluge work for transitioning between tracks?

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Admittedly, I haven’t used the deluge to perform a live set. I HAVE recorded live performances of single songs into my DAW as opposed to spending time arranging them traditionally and I can say in terms of playability and grooveability it’s excellent. I’m of the opinion it was actually designed to be used as a live electronic performance instrument more than how I use it (as basically a DAW.) song mode is great for que Ing and firing your tracks and there’s also grid mode which is more like an ableton style launcher if you’re more familiar with that. You can even arrange in the arranger and hop into song mode at anytime (it’ll loop whatever was currently playing) if you wanna solo or build drops/extended bridges/things like that. I can’t speak to transitioning between songs, but loading another one is lighting quick. I know there’s loads of people that use it in a live setting that might have better answers for you. I’ve heard of a few that use 2 deluges to better build transitions but that might be edge or extreme cases.

[@mrrafsk]

Deluge will switch between different songs instantly at the end of the loop.

[@willswitchcraft]

Aside from the fact that mine just died, and it cost me over $600 to repair (not including shipping)......I do still love mine, and I've had it since 2018...........it just keeps getting better.......................

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Ooof. Ya that’s rough. I guess that’s def a drawback from buying from boutique company halfway across the world…

[@willswitchcraft]

Yes, in the end, the repair shop I'd shipped it to had to order a complete main circuit board from Synthstrom......The bummer is that I rarely even move my Deluge, and have always treated it really carefully, so I felt that the problem was a freak thing, not related to my usage......C'est La Vie.....

[@Thejjone]

I have OP-z, OP-1 and several POs, I love the OP-1 and POs while OP-z always been a steep learning curve to me for some reason. Could the Deluge be considered a more intuitive and powerful OP-Z kind of device?

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Similar vein for sure but yes to both. Much more powerful (and keeps getting improved and updated via open source firmware) and WAY WAY WAY more intuitive. There’s a bit of a learning curve for the mod matrix, but as far as the sequencer, piano roll, etc. it just works exactly like you’d expect it to.

[@Thejjone]

@@oaklandghosts0510 thank you! and is the new display on the Deluge making a difference? or the old one is good enough?

[@oaklandghosts0510]

@@Thejjone​​⁠when I bought mine it shipped with the OLED screen. I think the old school 7 seg one looks super cool but I’d HIGHlY recommend getting the OLED screen. It’s way more useful and practical in a production setting having clear info displayed to you.

[@SmallWorldBigThings]

Yep! My centre piece of my setup. Only one instrument that for sure will stay with me forever. BTW: you can mimic velocity sensitive pads with a newest community software update - there is a mode where each "pad" is represented by a few physical pads (with one colour) and depends where you press you have different velocity.

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Same! def the centerpiece and one piece of gear id never give up! I’ve used the velocity mimicking in the community firmware on drums but haven’t given it a go on synths yet. I’ll have to try it out! Cheers!

[@synthejayzer]

The other gear is collecting dust in my studio

[@oaklandghosts0510]

Seriously man. Other than the other synths I have rigged up to it- same!

[@evilsock420]

I will never sell my Deluge. The company hit the product perfectly. They don't try to squeeze every last dime out of You by putting out newer and better versions. They just upgrade the software to this one and send you a new faceplate or display. All companies should be like this

[@AeonHorus]

I just want to add.... Would you buy it again.....? Hmmmmm??? Welll... Maybe yes, no, not sure, probably not but maybe lol The REAL question here should be ... Would you sell it? That is an absolute and resounding NO! I was thinking on it, I even wrote the ad.... But I just couoldnt do it, it's just quite, plain and simply ... TOO MUCH BLOODY FUN!!!!!!

[@oaklandghosts0510]

💯😂 def would NOT sell it. Like you said.. it’s too bloody FUN!

[@melokit-music]

i buy one. Three years after i buy a second one. in LoVe with it ❤

[@oaklandghosts0510]

So what you’re telling by me is… in 2 more years I’m buying another one? Haha. Sounds good! ❤