Sequential Fourm | Ambient synth performance

video upload by Jay Hosking

"Please support my work on Patreon: / jayhosking
A live synthesizer jam performed entirely on hardware, with the Fourm at the centre.

The amazing Devin Belanger (‪@devinbelangermusic‬) aka Miles Away (‪@thisismilesaway‬) was kind enough to lend me his Sequential Fourm. Thank you, Devin! If you haven't checked out Devin's amazing channel or his music, please do so!

The Fourm is Sequential's entry-level analog polysynth, as far as I can tell. It has four voices, which is somewhat limited but OK for many circumstances, and sounds (to my ears) as good or better than any other Sequential synth I've personally owned. (Note: I haven't had a Prophet 5/10 and Devin swears by that thing.) So if the sound and a decent workflow are all that matters for you, and four voices is enough, then this thing is a no-brainer.

That said, its main feature is its poly-aftertouch keybed, which allows for you to modulate sounds by pressing into each of the keys. I love polyAT, and the Hydrasynth's polyAT keybed was tremendously inspiring to me. That said, I really struggled to get the polyAT to feel right for my playing. The biggest issue was a discrepancy between how the black keys responded versus the white keys. For the white keys, I could get a great linear aftertouch response, but with the black keys, it would often quickly ramp from 0 to 100 in a way I couldn't control. This could be something I get better at, or maybe it's this particular unit, or maybe it's just an issue with my skills. But ultimately, I found that the polyAT wasn't for me.

The sound, however, most certainly was. This thing sounds amazing. Here, I ran it through the Walrus M1 Mk2 (for auto-panning) and the Empress Reverb (for reverb), and then into the Soma Cosmos for looping. The first half was the more traditional "song" aspect, but truthfully, the second half wandering was my favourite. I could listen to a synth like this all day.

Thanks for listening.

Recorded live to a stereo output, with EQ, compression, and limiting on the master.

https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com"