Dunno if it’s been said here, but you shouldn’t be going into the A4 thinking it’s a moog or a brute. It’s very delicate in it’s sound. It has some aggression when pushed, but I think it lends itself more to fx, pads and soft leads best. I make techno predominantly and I think it excels greatly at this task. If I made prog rock I’d own an Odyssey or a Moog instead. Depends on what your goal is. (I have both a moog and the a4 heh)
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no no… it can scream and wail like a punk rock banshee… without any external fx
probably the most “edgy” sounding synth ive ever used, actually - even more so than the Evolver and other DSI stuff
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Hmm.
Remember this: Moog / Roland / DSI all had Landmark records which solidified specific synth sounds into musical history.
The 303 was not necessarily “good” sounding until acid was invented. … And now people are simply cloning the musical functionality of that synth.
Therefore: the A4 is in a pioneering stage. It’s distinctive sound is quite unique. It totally “feels” only like an A4 and it has a scary depth to it.
SO, be the person who defines the Landmark A4 sound for future generations instead of imitating the legacies of the past.
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so much <3
The problem is there isn’t a signature A4 “patch” yet. You hear a Moog and you know it’s a Moog. Same with TB-303, DX7 etc…
The issue may be that A4 is so versatile. Someone needs to come up with a patch for A4 that when you hear it, you can say “Hey! That’s a A4”.
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Started a thread on here a few years back about the Feedback Osc on the A4
Some pretty unique sounds come from using that, Osc 2 as a modulator and the Filter1/drive. A feedback path is some thing not a lot of other synths offer. Have seen it in things like Massive, but I can’t think off hand of many hardware synths that have it
Anyways worth a look
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I think the A4 really excels at that kind of retro vintage sound. Especially ones that emulate out of tune oscs with vibrato. Kinda like that Com Truise sound. All of it is possible with the A4 with no problems.
Considering “signature sounds”.
I think the “Transistor Pulse” waveform gives us definitely sounds, which are typical for the A4, because other synths just don’t have it. From my experience I can tell that the “unsymmetrical” waveshape sounds quite different, depending on the position of the pulse width setting. This is exaggerated by PWM.
The second page of OSC2 provides many more cross-modulation capabilities then other synths …
The option for feedback to OSC1 or chaining two or more voices is also very different from other synths …
Just as an example … without any FX I got extrem snaring formant-like sounds, which brutally cut through any mix.
IMHO it’s only about to explore and exploit all the options, which are unique to the A4 to come up with “signature” sounds … and there are many 
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The feedback and cross modulations are exactly the features that offered me the most interesting sounds so far. Together with the filter overdrive.
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Thanks for the summary report.
I think I’ll make a small collection of INIT patches of slightly modulated waveforms from these simple ‘flavor enhancers’ to create easy starting points for patch creation.
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Except for the TB-303 and all of its clones…
Really? Didn’t know this. 
It’s never to late to learn new things 
Edit: couldn’t stand it … was very curious … so I took an oscilloscope to my A4 … maybe somebody is interested too:
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Transistor Pulse = 0 (middle)
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Transistor Pulse > 0 (near the right limit)
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Transistor Pulse < 0 (near the left limit)
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This is great! I’d love to see the other waves at this level of detail!
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If you also do one of the “proper” pulse wave, you’ll see that it’s much straighter.
On the TB-303, the square wave is derived from the saw with a minimum of components, that’s why it has a somewhat unusual shape and sound.
this track was made ONLY with A4 … plus some Ableton FX … TrabanT A4 banging techno! … this aint dull, is it?
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This post on another thread may be of casual interest to some folks on here … it’s connected to this debate about the nature of the A4’s perceived sound character … chip in 
I owe the A4 for 2 years now, and for the last year i have been digging the sonic possibilities of this machine. For my part, i love the flexibilities available, there are multiple modulation sources that allow deep evolving sounds, but i have also come to feel that there is a silky thicknes missing on the pure oscillators sounds (no modulations, filters, or FX)…
I think the core sonic aesthetics of this synth, are somewhere between atmospheric and melancholic sounds, rather than deep and thick basses or leads.
What do you think?
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I’ve come to view it as my ‘do it all’ synth. But I’ve been working hard to mimic classic analog synths for my project over at www.newwavepresets.com.
I thought like you when I first heard the factory sounds that it leans toward being good for ambient but … I found that there is a lot more.
The basic oscilator waves are just the same as almost any analog synth. In fact when I listened to just 1 saw on my Prophet 6 and compared to 1 saw on the AK it’s quite identical.
One tip is to build up a large group of ‘basic waves’. I view it as my own personal ‘wave table’ On the A4/AK I start with one of the basic wave shapes and apply AM and get as many different waves as possible and save all the interesting variations. I go back and use these as starting points to build presets from. And I repeat this process with other modulations too, like FM. After getting a bank of various waves you have a ‘color pallet’ as it were to paint new sounds from.
For a nice bass I like the combination of a square wave and a saw. And on the square use PWM.
Exactly what leads, basses do you want to make? The A4/AK can do almost anything!
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The combination of filters, modulation, the sequencer and of course the FX make the sound on this box. Sometimes i get out a massive sound, a sweet-smooth sound, a silky sound, an aggressive sound or a mixture of all above mentioned. Sometimes i sit in front of it and think during twisting the knobs - WTF - it’s better to turn it of.
Anyway, to me it sounds great but patches need love. Some basics are the special envelope-types used on the filters - the way they are interacting together. Changing the shape of the tri-wave to a more saw-like-wave is also an option.
Maybe some hardcore-purists are moaning about the pure sound, but there is the FX-section and it is an integral part of this machine, so use it and you will be surprised.