Mopho Keyboard from DSI

By Paul Dakeyne

January 18, 2010 | Posted in Music Technology

Dave Smith Instruments has launched its new Mopho Keyboard version at the NAMM 2010 show. We’ve been long term fans of the original Mopho and its four voice sibling, the Tetra here at Musical Notes so the arrival of this unit will no doubt cause similar excitement.

The original yellow peril Mopho grabbed the single-voice architecture from bigger brother, the Prophet ’08 and added two sub-octave generators (one per oscillator) for additional floor quaking bass prowess. It also featured a dedicated audio input, bringing the flexibility to feed sounds from external gear into internal processors and use feedback effects to output some subtle or extreme distortion results.

The new Mopho Keyboard adds those wonderful ‘all important’ parameter adjustment knobs and switches and bolts the lot onto a velocity sensitive, after-touch capable and weighted keyboard. The Mopho itself is a unit that almost ‘demands’ the exploration of its hidden depths in a real, tactile manner and now the addition of such hands-on control will accommodate this – and then some.

Dave Smith has really listened to Mopho user feedback here and made the new keyboard version small and ‘backpack’ portable. Squeezing a DSI Tetra in there too means that the user can get a massive five voice polyphonic synth armoury, easily carried and set-up on stage or for studio sessions. Also, a gratefully received ‘carry-over’ from the original Mopho is the ‘push-it’ button which allows latching of a sound, sequence or patch to leave both hands free for some serious tweaking and experimentation.

Other than taking a look yourself at our previous DV247 blogs and reviews on both the DSI Tetra and the original Mopho, the above is about all we currently have on this all new keyboard Mopho… Oh, aside from the fact that Dave Smith himself used two physical demo versions at NAMM to poll user preference on the unit’s colour flash: Yellow or Black?

And by the way Mr Smith – What is happening regarding that much discussed collaboration with ‘Mr Linn’ on that ‘oh so special drum machine’ we’re salivating over? C’mon, spill the beans.. Until then, we’ll keep ourselves amused with the Mopho Keyboard.

About Paul Dakeyne

Paul Dakeyne has written 592 post in this blog.

Paul Dakeyne is a DJ/Producer who has dedicated the past two decades of his life to dance music production and DJ'ing. For six years, he toured globally for the world famous Ministry of Sound and has played DJ sets for the likes of U2 and for the legendary, Kraftwerk, Although remixing around 250 records in his career, as an artist in his own right, Paul landed one of dance music's seminal crossover moments with his "18 Strings' monster hit by Tinman - scoring a UK top ten in 1994. He also co-wrote and produced the music for BBC's Watchdog and Crimewatch when they were both revamped in 2001 and '06 respectively. His other career highlights have included an A&R stint for Mercury Records, lecturing in 'DJ culture and music technology' and creating mash-up mixes for Radio 1's, Chris Moyles. Paul joined the DV group in 2003 leading to his role as blog and feature author here at the DV Mag.

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Tags: DSI, Mopho, Mopho keyboard, Tetra

1 Comment

One Response to “Mopho Keyboard from DSI”

1. George says:

   March 12, 2010 at 23:56

   Any idea on when will this arrive to UK??

     George

   Reply