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Before i bought the R3 i saw a video on youtube of a guy playing the synth through an electro harmonix pedal which had a tube and planned to try it at some point. Anyway i picked up a pedal for it yesterday with a tube and have been running the R3 through it today and it's quite a transformation. Just running the oscillators with no fx sounds great and i can get some really nasty bass out of it. :evil

It's much quicker to find a useable sound without using the fx so it's given the synth a new lease of life and a lot more scope for sound design. The pedal is an akai shred-o-matic which is a tube/solid state hybrid distortion. You can switch between tube/ solid state or mix the two together so it's capable of a wide range of tones. Apparently they were blowing them out a while ago and you could pick one up for $50. Don't seem to be many about but worth grabbing if you can find one. I think it's worth putting it through a tube pre or some pedals if you're not totally happy with the sound. I know one crticism is that it sounds too clean. Well the pedal has taken care of that. It know sounds more like it's predecessor, the microkorg.

im planning on running my R3 through my KP3 and then into an electro harmonix 2880.

once i get the R3 of course...

That will no doubt open up a world of sonic possibilities. got me thinking about getting a mini kp now and running the right channel through that.

The pedal gives the R3 a nice edge that you can't really achieve with the built in fx, you can really dirty the sound up. It's a good pedal, really didn't know what to expect but gone is the nice polite sound of the R3.

I bought it to see if i could get a bit more grit out of the R3 as much as a test as anything else; i was contemplating getting an analog synth and part-xing the R3 but i like it overall, it's a good controller and the midi interface is really useful. The arp, mod sequencer and multi modelling make for a pretty versatile synth but it's maybe just a bit to clean and digital and the fx can only take it so far. Running it through the pedal has made a big difference.

So i'll keep the R3 and get a mopho if anything (i still have an itch for an analog synth), the two would maker a great combo.