Studio Pics

Yeah, it can be surprising sometimes what the best part of the track turns out to be. In the track I wrote last week, Signal, I started off with a Jamie Principle style simple arpeggio running through it. Musically, it was the least interesting part of the track, just 3 notes repeating, for a very basic sort of polymetre that's so popular in simple acid house. But once I'd wired up a patch for it, with a slowly evolving acidline style patch using a Putney style filter I recently got, then run it through some effects, it really came to life and became a prominent, interesting part of the track. Which shouldn't surprise me at all, as acid house has always favoured slowly evolving timbres over the actual music for where the interest lies, kind of by definition. But I still wasn't expecting it to sound as good as it did, much better than the more musically interesting channels in the track.

(I don't mean to say anything bad about acid house here. I love a good acid house track. But there's only so much people can concentrate on at once, so the more timbrally interesting an instrument gets, the less musically interesting what it's saying has to be, for balance. That way, the listener isn't overwhelmed with too much to concentrate on at once. That way jazz and modern IDM lie, and only other musicians like listening to those.)

WATMM: We Are the Modular Makers

im actually a bit ashamed of my current 'studio' (read: room) as its a wire hazard

and mine must be nothing compared to other peoples!

I have been dreaming of a way to have a room of patchbays, with electrical points littered about so i could just pick up my fx boxes and elektrons ans synths and just move them around easily.. at the mo everything is spaghettied with everything else. i think im going to do that sometime.

moving things around to a 'work table' would really benefit me - i sometimes like working with small amounts of kit at one time

  On 6/23/2015 at 4:33 PM, ZoeB said:

 

(I don't mean to say anything bad about acid house here. I love a good acid house track. But there's only so much people can concentrate on at once, so the more timbrally interesting an instrument gets, the less musically interesting what it's saying has to be, for balance. That way, the listener isn't overwhelmed with too much to concentrate on at once. That way jazz and modern IDM lie, and only other musicians like listening to those.)

always a balancing act, moreso with modular... very easy to just randomise the randomisation

  On 6/23/2015 at 9:13 PM, lala said:

always a balancing act, moreso with modular... very easy to just randomise the randomisation

Ha, I'm really tame for a modular user in that respect. I like having options, and being able to think laterally about a patch, such as adding a BBD chorusing type effect to some oscillators before filtering and attenuating it, because that makes sense in my mind... but I never did get excited about making completely automated systems with my synth, or wiring up especially complex patches. I usually tend to wire up reasonably simple, straightforward patches that only sometimes take real advantage of being modular in the first place. I only got an LFO again the other week! Usually I just prefer to ride the knobs manually. Live tweaking's half the fun. :)

ive been listening to your music and i can see/hear that..

ok, heres mine:

current room. i hate it. need to get out asap.

Ms20 mini (dont like it, i need to get the one with both filters)

PRO-2
SH101

euro frankensynth and Macbeth mk1

Midas desk F32

Dual osc X0Xbox with I/O mod
lots of TC gear for some reason - CCC/M300/M3000/Voiceworks
Aphex exciter
Lexicon PCM70
Sherman Filterbank 2
Yamaha TX81Z
RYTM
A4

korg monotron delay <wicked bit of kit btw

And this is my latest way of learning kit - ive got an old pedestal that my current things go on, instead of, say leaving the fx in a corner racked up and hard to get to... much much better for me to be productive on!!! so:

Octatrack

Fireworx

It's working!

  On 6/25/2015 at 9:51 AM, Gocab said:

It's working!

thanks. I am finally getting happy with my output (if it was me you were reffering to)

Got myself a little reverb box. So far only used it with the Jen but it's pretty rad.

ive never seen one of those.. i remember art from the 90's.. always really garish artwork

so many of you have Yamaha TX81Z. it's gotta be good, huh.

btw. lala: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Lalafell

its a name my ex called me, she was Japanese

also im one of those really un-mad people that like to tell everyone how absolutely crazy and off the wall they are

I'm sorry.

why? my mood is 80% you havent got anything to be sorry about

Damn, nice stuff lala.

How are you finding the Venice?

I love the Venice

Really nice eq & pre-amps, super flexible..channels always send to the daw. I can press a button and receive from the daw for vst or FX processing. 6 aux, 4 groups and 2 matrix (not sure how to use those best yet)

As for the sound, its darker than I'm used to. warm. But I can achieve such a punchy sound I'm really happy. punchy like kraftwerk tour de France drums.

Makes mixing so much fun. The monitoring is weird because it's a live desk but I don't know any others so ive got my head around it.

Only thing is my computer mixing usb and firewire isn't straightforward.. I pc.. But it's possible.

Just mixing a snare and kick with a decent room reverb has got the pow I've been after. Bliss

All my songs use it in my sig if you want to hear it

And just buying an SSL G4000 clone for the 2 buss

I need some eq or exciter and compressor action there and my sound will

Improve ten fold

I hope. I'm after some dry crisp high which is also glistening wet.lol

lala, I think your studio is the only one I've ever seen that has the potential to be super awesome, yet it's for some reason covered in a thick layer of dust, with gear just laying everywhere. Or maybe others who have dust-covered studios just have shitty cameras. Anyway, man..... Your studio is like a beautiful woman who doesn't bathe or dress well.

I'm being complimentary, btw! Sorry, no offense intended. Except... The dust..... It's like an IDM Superstar was abducted by aliens, and the room was left untouched for ages.

All right, enough.

tell me about it!

i bought this little badbwoy specifically for this purpose

but put a deposit on a flat today with my bestest music buddy so in a few weeks im outta here!

Hurrah for cleanliness and organization~!

  On 7/2/2015 at 8:22 AM, lala said:

tell me about it!

 

i bought this little badbwoy specifically for this purpose

The only place in the internet where you get peer pressured into buying a vacuum cleaner to clean your electronic music dungeon

hyper lol.

pahahahaha

maybe i will post a picture of my studio through deepdream to be well current

from that i then thought was maybe a metasynth image but deepdreamed with it only knowing the spectrum of another tune/tunes so it does weirdness

everytime it recognises an amen type break it puts a new amen or something

fractal fucking amens zoomed into it

Got me a SQ-1, it's great fun.

There's a little acid noodle on my soundcloud.