Melbourne Instruments NINA: The Motorized Future of Multi-Timbral Synths is Here!

[@christopherventer6391]

I've been playing the NINA for about a month or so, now, and it's quickly become my favorite synth. The workflow, sounds, and depth of sound design are just fantastic.

[@StoreDJ_online]

great to hear!

[@drofdissonance]

😍

[@dancarter5595]

I love the motorised knobs, but I'm sold on the sound and multi-timbrality. Incredible!

[@fiscaldisco5234]

Amazing. Having motorized encoders on a hardware synth sounds like a dream

[@StoreDJ_online]

Definitely try one if you can!

[@myyoutubeprofile-c3u]

Very cool and proud this is Aussie

[@RikMaxSpeed]

I got a lovely demo of this synth at SuperBooth - everybody’s talking about the motorised knobs, but the killer feature is actually how good it sounds! This is a really brilliant synth, the motorised knobs are just the icing on the cake. 🎂

[@chrisstaubyn]

I love my NINA! Awesome synth with plenty of promise.

[@StoreDJ_online]

Congrats on picking up a amazing instrument! Enjoy!

[@SkeleMusic]

Its a chunky unit! Love that

[@chrisstaubyn]

It's hefty and built solid.

[@toddtrillo7445]

it is such a beautiful rich sounding synth , you should be proud alright , been Australian , its a fine piece of equipment , would love one .loved your demos and sounds you created on it , absolutely awesome

[@Synthshop]

The minute the Fairlight was born was the moment Australia was put on the permanent world's synth map. Some great tech comes from down under.

[@MiamiVisor]

Impressive synth, especially from a small company, very cool.

[@mamakuproject]

Best aussie dude for the job. Amazing synth

[@StoreDJ_online]

haha cheers mate!

[@mamakuproject]

@@StoreDJ_online love your music and demos earther

[@Standard.Candle]

excellent teaser! I'd love to see more content on this beast in the future, you never touched on the stereo anti-phase capabilities of the NINA. The panning section especially (now that the manual is out) seems crazy powerful if I could only figure it out. I want to hear a 360 degree pad chord with a slow spin, and shown how to do it plz! :)

[@StoreDJ_online]

Thanks! It's always tough to cover everything in a single video, the 'spin' function is a dedicated knob on the panel, so super easy to turn that on. It's a very dramatic effect, bit over the top for most sounds, but yes on pads it works great! There's further panning settings in each layer's settings, one mode spits voices across the stereo field as it cycles through them (pretty sure that's in use on the lead line in the intro sequence), very cool for wide stereo arps!

[@Standard.Candle]

@@StoreDJ_online Oh there's just too much to cover with the NINA full stop :) This is by far the best, most well-produced video I've seen so far on this synth, hoping that you do more. As for the spin, yeah I love it on my NINA, it's so realistic it can honestly make me dizzy, like legit dizzy. What I'm on about is how to achieve +/- 200% panning in spread, which puts the range into anti-phase. Normal panning will only go as far as 100% L or R, but with modulation you can extend it to %200, where it starts wrapping around you. I've been reading the manual which just came out, and this to me feels like a big deal, but the explanation in the manual makes my head spin a bit. You should take a peek yourself and see if you can make heads of tails of it. I'm not well-versed in modulation, so it's all a bit foreign to me, I just want to play with the notes spaced evenly (or unevenly) in the "200%" +/- stereo field, because I bet it sounds incredible.

[@StoreDJ_online]

Ahhh i see! The manual wasn't out when we shot this video, we'll have to check it out!

[@skippyfast5115]

thanks mine is coming next week:)

[@javiceres]

Sweet!

[@gwads5404]

what a great sounding (and looking) synth!!!!!

[@StoreDJ_online]

agreed! It's a beast

[@FutureLust]

Those unison sounds got me making faces like I ate sour candy. Nice intro too

[@NickHchaos]

Don’t ever remember seeing a modern mostly analog poly with cv in, that’s amazing in and of itself, that combined with the multitimbral layering characteristics would seem to start to put it in some sort of weird Matrix 12 territory.

[@NatLifeSounds]

That's a real deal. I feel bad when I am always trying to remember how I recorded my preset on Peak before, when I was loading it again

[@gmo2932]

Oh man, I was sold once those knobs moved 😅

[@skippyfast5115]

Ok as you may like this synth also check its Austrian VA brother called MayerMD900 extended Virtual Analog (XVA) Desktop Synthesizer

[@Digithalis]

Cool! Nina like Ninja ;-)

[@drofdissonance]

😳

[@jjmathewson2160]

@ Store DJ, how would you describe the sound of the synth? Curious if we were to remove the motorized knobs, whether the synth stands on its own against the other 10+ voice analog polysynths out there?

[@StoreDJ_online]

It's going to come down to your personal taste, it's quite different in character than, for example, Sequential synths which tend to be very bright sounding. NINA is generally quite smooth and silky sounding (and wide, stereo VCAs!), with plenty of grunt when required for heavier sounds. A lot of that probably comes down to the ladder filter, it's in the same ballpark as Moog gear, but implemented differently, giving it a character of its own. Hope that helps!

[@modularsoundbath]

Thanks for the video, I wish you could go more in depth on setup of layers, can you have them be sequenced by separate midi channels?

[@StoreDJ_online]

Yes, that's what Mike's doing in the intro sequence, lead on MIDI channel 1, bass on channel 2, chords on channel 3, arp on channel 4. Layer setup is super flexible, assign however many voices you want on each layer, what midi channel, what note range (for split keyboard use), poly or mono, what output you want that layer to come out of etc. It's very simple to setup, no manual checking required 😀

[@TwoThreadsAhead]

This thing looks and sounds amazing! Stumbled across it by pure mistake and i am flabbergasted at the fact that i haven’t seen more coverage on it tbh. Also, I’ve been heavily considering getting some of those Neumann 20 headphones you have on but dont have any physical references for them. I wanted to ask are they worth the price point ? And would you recommend them as a viable mixing substitute to some 7” studio monitors in a small room

[@StoreDJ_online]

You'll likely start seeing more on the NINA, they've only just started shipping out the first run! re: Neumann headphones, all the team here love them, superb quality, very comfortable and a beautifully balanced sound. Being worth the price-point is pretty subjective, but we can comfortably say they'll last a VERY long time, and it's unlikely you'll be disappointed. For mixing-down tracks, probably the Neumann NDH-30 open back headphones are more ideal, open back cans give you an experience more akin to monitors. That said, if you want the sound-isolation of closed back headphones, the NDH-20s are certainly up to the task. In an ideal world, you'd have both monitors and a nice pair of headphones for cross-checking, but you can get pretty far with good quality headphones these days.

[@TheSnowLeopard]

This looks very good, but is far too expensive for me to buy.

[@btaylo24]

That price ...Gulp!

[@devondetroit2529]

Probably because of the useless motorized faders.. They should do a version without them for sensible people

[@flyingfrogofdeath9616]

​@@devondetroit2529 I wouldn't say they are useless (on a hardware synth it can be extremely finnicky and frustrating to lose parameters - its actuallypretty fantastic) but they are most certainly not commercially viable at this current production cost. They do not justify the price at this cost but I appreciate this is not a product that would be possible 5+ years ago. In fact I believe its the massive increase in tiny motor production fuelled by drone production that made this synth possible. 3-5 years from now the production cost would likely make this synth a lot more affordable. I also think they have chucked an extra chunk of cash on the price for the USP alone.

[@StoreDJ_online]

It's a premium pro-level device, no arguments there, but there's a number of synths sitting in the same price bracket. Considering the 12 analog voice, 4 part multi-timbral spec and boutique manufacturing, we'd argue they've done very well with the price tag.

[@FUNKINETIK]

@@StoreDJ_online I agree with you, I’ve been following the development of the Nina since it was first shown at NAMM. I was blown away by the sound then, and this demo shows that really well. I connected Melbourne Instruments a while back to wish them every success, they’ve worked incredibly hard, dedicating so much energy into the synth. It’s ground breaking - I Love it so much I’d drive my 40year Old Bedford ex-ambulance the 12000 plus miles to Melbourne, help the guys design and construct a building to make them in and work for zero cash long enough to earn a Nina. P E A C E : )

[@brandonmacdonald7802]

Hopefully comes with a good warranty, lol.

[@KiR_3d]

Can it use one part for drums, one for bass, one for arp and one for pads? A kind of a "groove box".

[@chrisstaubyn]

Yes, If you don't mind using different MIDI channels for each sound.

[@KiR_3d]

@@chrisstaubyn I think it's not compicated (if you're running a DAW especially).

[@StoreDJ_online]

with some tricky programming you could probably get different percussive sounds happening across the note-range on a single layer. It'd be a solid test of your sound design skills with only a low-pass filter on this synth, but if you're happy with 808/909-style kick drums it wouldn't be a problem

[@KiR_3d]

@@StoreDJ_online yeah, not having a HP (at least) isn't very good. It's strange BTW that for a such versatile synth it wasn't included. Maybe some wavetables can virtually help here.

[@mikeb2575]

Why didn't they just do knobs like most synths so when you turn them it just carries on from where it's supposed to be i.e. Wavestate for example ? - it would save a lot of money and I can see major problems with the motors failing after a few months, especially if you change parts while turning a knob ?

[@christopherventer6391]

They are not motors in the sense of having a direct physical drive like a motorized fader. They are fully magnetic and don't have any actual contact inside because the values are read optically. You really can't break them in the way you're thinking and there's not much that can actually wear out. It's all just magnetic fields moving the encoder.

[@CoolColJ]

@@christopherventer6391 sounds like dirty and glitchy knobs won't be a thing for this synth.

[@NatLifeSounds]

But I just checked the price, wow, guys it's crazy 😧

[@Somewhere_sometime_somehow]

Beautful sound and brilliant lay-out but.. those orange buttons really are bit of an eyesore for me. Making them white, grey or black would probbly solve it.

[@EarlyMist]

Going to have to agree on the colour scheme.

[@StoreDJ_online]

Red, black and grey colour scheme looks pretty bad-ass to us, but each to their own. Could probably source some black keys and replace them if you wanted to

[@mamakuproject]

It looks and feels real good (to me)

[@imola8]

wow, what a brutal sound! not a big fan of motorized encoders though. they will break and make the synth unaffordable.

[@StoreDJ_online]

yeah it sounds huge! Skepticism of the motorised technology here is understandable, but expected life for a brushless optical drone motor is around 10,000 hours of flight time, and we witnessed their rigorous high temperature stress testing at the workshop. They're not selling something they don't have full confidence in, that's for sure

[@imola8]

​@@StoreDJ_online looks like they know what they are doing for sure. i would love it for the sound alone.they should consider to build a speced down version of this synth.

[@jdmjesus6103]

Drone motors are pretty cheap actually, it shouldn't be a concern, it's just different. Seems like a good idea to me

[@dyscotopia]

I was about to regret the deepmind desktop I have sitting in an unopened box, then I looked up the price and felt better. The Nina is a beautiful instrument with a great sound and useful gimmick tho

[@MrJ-b1n]

Looks and sounds good but the price... What the hell. Guess it's the problem with making anything in Australia

[@lukehopper7847]

🤗 Promo`SM

[@user-kx5fs9jy1g]

If anyone is interested, I am selling one of these in excellent condition!

[@Strages_Powers]

$5595 yeah absolutely massive

[@devondetroit2529]

No doubt it sounds great, But why the motorized knobs? Its just a gimmick.. They will no doubt go wrong and need replacing after a time and are no doubt vastly more expensive than standard knobs

[@StoreDJ_online]

Spend some time with one and you'll find the motorized knobs anything but a gimmick! They're so good! With 500 times the life of a standard potentiometer it's hard to imagine they'll give you any grief

[@javiceres]

@@StoreDJ_online Wow

[@erkydi]

release one without motors, itll sell

[@MrTimewindx]

Demonstrating a Polysynth without keyboard??? OK!!!

[@celtislam]

how fkin much???

[@olivierf.4931]

Incredibly too expensive.

[@Rid-iculo-us]

Way too expensive