I’ve preordered a Dirtywave M8 which seems like an awesome piece of gear and it’s got me really excited at the prospect of using interesting dedicated hardware machines that I can take to the park or mess with on the sofa.
The obvious ones I’ve come across so far are:
- Korg Volca range
- Roland mini synths and aira compact ranges
- Teenage Engineering OP and POs
But these all seem a little uninteresting to me and just rehashed tiny versions of older gear and/or aimed at lo-fi producers.
Some less obvious ones that have my attention are:
- Monome Norns
- 1010music lemondrop, fireball & razzmatazz (not battery powered but easily powered by a USB powerbank)
- Bastl microgranny and kastl
- Korg NTS-1
- Korg Monotrons
- Audiothingies Micromonsta 2 (again not battery powered but can be via powerbank)
Are there any you know of that fit the bill?
I agree with @segfault that the Syntakt (and Digitakt) fit the bill very nicely. The first two weeks I owned the Syntakt, I spent the whole time exploring it from my couch.
I gotta say, while the S-1 is technically a “rehashed” SH-101, it’s a phenomenal device and I feel that description does it a slight disservice. Four voices means you can do some great pads, and the waveform chop function really pushes it into new territory.