moosers
Published on 09/01/11 at 09:37
Critter and Guitari's Pocket Piano is a very unique electronic synthesizer. It really is small, although I don't know that it can fit in your pocket! A number of months ago a friend of mine showed me this and I was immediately intrigued by it. It can get some really cool sounds in some very interesting ways. I don't own one of these for myself yet as they are currently sold out, although I hope to grab one in the near future. As far as physical characteristics go, it's just got a 1/4" output and can be powered by either a nine volt battery or power supply. The Pocket Piano has six modes, and in each of them the parameters will change a bit, so there is a ton of room to get different sounds. The different modes include a 2 octave arppegiataor, a vibrato synth, and a mono FM synth in addition to a few others. It also has a built in speaker and the way you play it is unique as it doesn't have keys, but rather has buttons to hold down.
UTILIZATION
It definitely will take a little bit of use to get completely comfortable with the Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano. The manual or some sort of guide will be absolutely necessary, as each of the six modes has it's own parameter make up and it's essential to know what each will do while you're in certain modes. It will also take time to get used to playing it with the buttons, as I didn't get it right off the bat. However, once you mess with it a little bit, I think you'll find it to be pretty intuitive.
SOUNDS
The sounds possible with the Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano are varied and some quite unique. I really like the sounds here as they are unlike other synthesizers and span a wide array of different types of sounds between the six different modes. My favorite modes are probably the arppegiators as I guess I'm just a sucker for that kind of tone. Having said this, I can find applications for pretty much all of these modes as they all have their cool things about them.
OVERALL OPINION
The Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano is one of the coolest synths that I've seen in a long time, and not to mention one of the cheapest. Critter and Guitari are not a big company and it seems like these are probably hand made for the most part, although I could be wrong about this. The Pocket Piano can definitely bring you hours of fun and can be a great tool in the studio for getting unique synth sounds. The price is what ties everything together here as it's super cheap being less than $200 US dollars. The price could go up though as they are currently out of stock on these! I'm hoping to be able to get one soon!
UTILIZATION
It definitely will take a little bit of use to get completely comfortable with the Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano. The manual or some sort of guide will be absolutely necessary, as each of the six modes has it's own parameter make up and it's essential to know what each will do while you're in certain modes. It will also take time to get used to playing it with the buttons, as I didn't get it right off the bat. However, once you mess with it a little bit, I think you'll find it to be pretty intuitive.
SOUNDS
The sounds possible with the Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano are varied and some quite unique. I really like the sounds here as they are unlike other synthesizers and span a wide array of different types of sounds between the six different modes. My favorite modes are probably the arppegiators as I guess I'm just a sucker for that kind of tone. Having said this, I can find applications for pretty much all of these modes as they all have their cool things about them.
OVERALL OPINION
The Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano is one of the coolest synths that I've seen in a long time, and not to mention one of the cheapest. Critter and Guitari are not a big company and it seems like these are probably hand made for the most part, although I could be wrong about this. The Pocket Piano can definitely bring you hours of fun and can be a great tool in the studio for getting unique synth sounds. The price is what ties everything together here as it's super cheap being less than $200 US dollars. The price could go up though as they are currently out of stock on these! I'm hoping to be able to get one soon!