Studio Pics

Nice wood panel and C64 keyboard overlay.

@Himelstein

your room looks like a synth shop

  On 3/31/2021 at 5:42 PM, Himelstein said:

It’s a little messy right now- I’ve been going thru an old Windows xp desktop backing up old songs, so it’s in the way. Also my good cassette deck is out for repair, pedalboard is out away, I have some Yamaha he monitors to replace the bx5s (just too lazy) and several modules I need to install and move around (also lazy), but this is close to finished. 
 

I also have a sort of “live instrument/toy/video game playroom” in the room nextdoor with acoustic instruments, amps, tape stuff, and a piano in a different room.

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Holy shit you haven't got enough gear!!! Damn and I thought I was a gear nut!!!

Hibernating

Things were a lot less cluttered before I started livestreaming...

  On 3/27/2021 at 6:38 AM, Kid Lukie said:

 

my little microboy set up.

Sometimes pulling the studio apart and playing with a simple sub-setup is nice ~

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How you finding the Microcosm?

I’m interested in it myself, it looks and sounds cool what I’ve seen. 

  On 4/1/2021 at 4:41 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Hibernating

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Sleep well pupper

  On 3/31/2021 at 5:42 PM, Himelstein said:

It’s a little messy right now- I’ve been going thru an old Windows xp desktop backing up old songs, so it’s in the way. Also my good cassette deck is out for repair, pedalboard is out away, I have some Yamaha he monitors to replace the bx5s (just too lazy) and several modules I need to install and move around (also lazy), but this is close to finished. 
 

I also have a sort of “live instrument/toy/video game playroom” in the room nextdoor with acoustic instruments, amps, tape stuff, and a piano in a different room.

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That’s is ace but would make me anxious thinking I’m about to start a domino effect with transformers

  On 4/1/2021 at 4:41 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Hibernating

 

Things were a lot less cluttered before I started livestreaming...

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I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make dust covers where I fasten Velcro to the corners of the ceiling and also to bed sheets. Originally I started sewing the Velcro on and that shit was brutal, so now I’m gonna safety pin them to the sheets. I really don’t know what else to do. I definitely see some really cool shit in your studio, the gear that isn’t asleep, that is!

@Grain Bastard- yes, it’s definitely nerve racking! In my old studio I used a bunch of big “restaurant racks” or whatever you call them, and they would wobble and knock over toys all the time. Back then it really looked like a synth shop, or maybe a pawn shop, haha, @xox

  On 4/1/2021 at 4:51 PM, Grain Bastard said:

 

That’s is ace but would make me anxious thinking I’m about to start a domino effect with transformers

After years dealing with big tube amps I'm still always amazed how little power most gear actually draws (I had it all running from a metered UPS for a while so I could check the draw pretty easily, although now the stuff n the left side is on a different circuit because the outlet was more convenient). Everything in the photo I posted plus off-camera a 12u rack of synths and another rack with a reel to reel, half a dozen cheap effects units and two samplers (akai S5000 and S612) draws around 350 watts, plus another 250 or so for the computers.  By comparison, my space heater draws 700-800 watts when it's in the low power, "energy efficient" mode, and the middle of the road heat gun I use for shrink tubing draws 1500w.

I think to risk tripping a breaker with synths you'd need a bunch of 70s analogs and a mixer that costs as much as a small house.

  On 4/1/2021 at 5:55 PM, TubularCorporation said:

 

After years dealing with big tube amps I'm still always amazed how little power most gear actually draws (I had it all running from a metered UPS for a while so I could check the draw pretty easily, although now the stuff n the left side is on a different circuit because the outlet was more convenient). Everything in the photo I posted plus off-camera a 12u rack of synths and another rack with a reel to reel, half a dozen cheap effects units and two samplers (akai S5000 and S612) draws around 350 watts, plus another 250 or so for the computers.  By comparison, my space heater draws 700-800 watts when it's in the low power, "energy efficient" mode, and the middle of the road heat gun I use for shrink tubing draws 1500w.

I think to risk tripping a breaker with synths you'd need a bunch of 70s analogs and a mixer that costs as much as a small house.

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That is an awesome answer dude and very good advice
 

My anxiety was more to do with the toys falling over like dominos rather than fiery studios.... like ‘real’ anxiety  

seriously though the wiring situation is something that I do need to address in my hovel of a studio. Too many extension leads.... 

  On 4/1/2021 at 4:51 PM, Grain Bastard said:

How you finding the Microcosm?

 

I’m interested in it myself, it looks and sounds cool what I’ve seen.

hey mate. Good question!

I love the Microcosm. I'm really about bang-for-buck hardware, and this thing is certainly that. Yeah, nice phrase looper, but damn it has a lot more going for it.

It's excellent for textured soundscapes, sonic washes, wall-of-noise, and experimental effect combinations. The major drawback is that I'm finding it's really only good for ambient, so if you're keen on that it's not really a Con. Just don't buy it expecting to do rhythmic stuff stuff all that well, unless you're just straight using the phrase looper with little or no effects. Though I did hook it up to a drum machine and it did some crazy rhythmic stuff from that, though at times the flutters of effects it creates can be a little too randomised and unpredictable. Again, not really a Con if you're going for something outsider and experimental. The microcosm loves highly resonant sound sources and goes wild when you feed in something that peaks really high (stringed instruments, percussive hits, 303 whistles)

The re-imagining of loops and sounds is something to behold with this device. True to name, you can really find unique microcosms of sound from reinterpreted recorded material. Pretty clean sounding. You've probably seen a lot of videos demonstrating it with guitar, and its really made for that. I've been using it with synthesizers and it's a little bit of a fiddle, but once you spend some time with and tightly dial it in... yeah... fucking amazing.

Overall, pretty solid box! I love adventuring into weird sounds and ambient stuff more so than composing anything, so this thing is the best FX box I could have possibly purchased. Have considered purchasing another one so I can have two separate instruments run into them for more weirdness overdubbing.

  On 3/27/2021 at 6:38 AM, Kid Lukie said:

 

my little microboy set up.

Sometimes pulling the studio apart and playing with a simple sub-setup is nice ~

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How do you like microcosm

  On 4/4/2021 at 4:32 PM, sheatheman said:

How do you like microcosm

look at the previous post in this thread.

Chroma Cauldron Video Comber kit showed up today, so it's time to start putting together a small modular video system.  For now I'm not interested in going for LZX format and I'm focusing on modules that work on color composite video, since my main interest is running found footage through multiple feedback loops in parallel between two mixers, with different kinds of processing inside the loops.  Getting started by cannibalizing my little audio system for power, rails and some modulation sources.  Wave Comber build should take a couple hours this afternoon, and after another paycheck or two I'm going to design a proper Eurorack panel for that 3trinsRGB+1c breakout box.  Rack that whole thing in a second row (the R_E_C_U_R on the lower left can sit down below where the 3trins is now) and then long term, probably in early fall, I'll build the Ming Modular World Core I've got boards for sitting in the closet.  Not sure where it will go, though, since the rack doesn't have space for a third row (especially since at that point I'll probably need to add an RCA patchbay or a second matrix switch) and I don't have space for a second rack.

In the long run the mult and possibly the ADSR will come out as I build more useful video-specific things.

Probably the best answer would be to get a 2u rack case to hold the Raspberry Pi rack (not in shot) and put a drawer in it to hold the controllers associated with that, and then make a simple desktop enclosure for this rack 9with a better, fully internal power supply - I've already got a spare PCB so I'd just need a trasnformer and parts) so I can put it on top of the 2u case. Will be a while until that happens.

@TubularCorporation love that joystick! 

btw... how many records do you have? listening them or just collecting (coolecting)?

  On 4/5/2021 at 7:22 PM, xox said:

@TubularCorporation love that joystick! 

btw... how many records do you have? listening them or just collecting (coolecting)?

I don't know, a couple thousand.  I do listen, although not so much to that shelf since I started livestreaming, because everything I use for that got set up in front of it.

I worked at a record store for 7 years in the 2000s during the big vinyl crash (and one at a thrift store, where at least 30% of them came from) and I'm working in records again since covid, so with a few exceptios they were well below market value even then (much less today).  I.E. a stack of about 25 M-/M-, first press Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass LPs for a dime each.  That sort of thing.

I've got maybe 10%-15% of them catalogued on Discogs so fat and its estimated median value is already at least 6 or 7 times what the whole collection PLUS the turntable, speakers and amp cost. It's nuts how much records go for these days.

In a roundabout way that joystick even comes from the record shop.  I got an MG-1 for $25 when I worked there, and then a few years ago I swapped it with a friend for his Mother 32.  He ended up selling it to buy modules, and then last fall he wanted a Mother 32 again and I wasn't using it much, so he gave me that joystick and $150 for it.  So in the end everyone was well off (he got the Mother32 for $300 originally and sold the MG-1 for more, so we both ended up making a bit of profit somehow and then this winter he even got another MG-1 for free).

  On 4/5/2021 at 7:28 PM, TubularCorporation said:

I don't know, a couple thousand.  I do listen, although not so much to that shelf since I started livestreaming, because everything I use for that got set up in front of it.

 

I worked at a record store for 7 years in the 2000s during the big vinyl crash (and one at a thrift store, where at least 30% of them came from) and I'm working in records again since covid, so with a few exceptios they were well below market value even then (much less today).  I.E. a stack of about 25 M-/M-, first press Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass LPs for a dime each.  That sort of thing.

 

I've got maybe 10%-15% of them catalogued on Discogs so fat and its estimated median value is already at least 6 or 7 times what the whole collection PLUS the turntable, speakers and amp cost. It's nuts how much records go for these days.

 

In a roundabout way that joystick even comes from the record shop.  I got an MG-1 for $25 when I worked there, and then a few years ago I swapped it with a friend for his Mother 32.  He ended up selling it to buy modules, and then last fall he wanted a Mother 32 again and I wasn't using it much, so he gave me that joystick and $150 for it.  So in the end everyone was well off (he got the Mother32 for $300 originally and sold the MG-1 for more, so we both ended up making a bit of profit somehow and then this winter he even got another MG-1 for free).

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I love the mg-1, it was my first real analog synth. Also, my buddy uses one of those intellijel joysticks and he says it was worth the price just due to the aesthetic feeling of moving it around! He says it’s the most satisfying control he’s ever touched on anything electronic, music or otherwise. I will probably get one at some point too

MG-1 still has my favorite oscillator sync sound of any synth I've ever used.

  On 4/5/2021 at 9:35 AM, Kid Lukie said:

look at the previous post in this thread.

It seems like one of the best values in fx boxes I have seen. I thought it was more expensive and didn’t know it could do so much at once. 

  On 4/6/2021 at 5:51 AM, sheatheman said:

It seems like one of the best values in fx boxes I have seen. I thought it was more expensive and didn’t know it could do so much at once. 

Actually it’s as expensive as I thought but still does a lot.

oh well, back to building this kind of stuff in ableton. 

  On 4/6/2021 at 5:51 AM, sheatheman said:

It seems like one of the best values in fx boxes I have seen. I thought it was more expensive and didn’t know it could do so much at once. 

This demo is fucking crazy.

  On 4/6/2021 at 6:41 AM, Himelstein said:

This demo is fucking crazy.

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Great demo!! Someone recently put it to me:: "In 5 years time you'll be hearing the Microcosm on every fucking track. Instant classic."

It's a really fucking delicious box. The subtle granular textures are beyond sublime, and I'm a big fan of the ambient random weirdness it does.

It does what it says on the tin. Creates unreal microcosms of sound. Looking forward to other Hologram products in the future if this the game they bring.

A lot of the sounds coming out of it remind me of the Lexicon Vortex.

  On 4/6/2021 at 11:55 AM, Kid Lukie said:

In 5 years time you'll be hearing the Microcosm on every fucking track.

That’s the reason I didn’t bought it. I see it eve-ry-where!

I hate it when people say “you are going to be hearing this everywhere.” We’ve been hearing weird glitchy effects for 20 years man. And 808 for 40. 

re: Microcosm:

yeah, i bought a Chase Bliss MOOD a year or two ago and had it for like 6 months...might've used it on a few tracks but it quickly made its weaknesses known...basically, you have to really try to control those pedals, or they'll just sound like wild shit 90% of the time....and just sound b a d some decent portion of the time as well. if you want that, then they're great, but like....i can do that with the effects i already have, if i want (routing effects into effects/etc). wild shit that's wild in the ways you want and need for a track is a lot harder...Microcosm looks like it's got some amount of control to it, and some of those newer guitar-type pedals are trying to let the user control things a bit more, but ultimately they're getting too big for their britches most of the time. this one seems to fall into that category, i've watched at least a half dozen videos with it in there so far... they're honestly getting very close to just repackaging 90s/00s guitar multifx pedals, but with a hipster knobby vibe. and imo they're not sounding a hell of a lot better than those old multifx units, it's just messy vomit half the time....especially if you're, yknow, trying to use it in an actual song. if you're just making video content for YT/Twitch/IG, they're fuckin perfect tho.

i'm not saying the Microcosm is exactly like the MOOD or that any of them are bad.... and i've seen and heard plenty of good from those two pedals and other similar ventures (Red Panda something and the recent Night Sky come to mind), but for the cost and actual usability and overall quality & investment (they're all hella pricey) vs usage? no way, not for me, i'd suggest anyone thinking about grabbing those types of effects to really stop and think about how it's being used and how you'd be using it. 

  On 4/7/2021 at 1:24 AM, auxien said:

re: Microcosm:

yeah, i bought a Chase Bliss MOOD a year or two ago and had it for like 6 months...might've used it on a few tracks but it quickly made its weaknesses known...basically, you have to really try to control those pedals, or they'll just sound like wild shit 90% of the time....and just sound b a d some decent portion of the time as well. if you want that, then they're great, but like....i can do that with the effects i already have, if i want (routing effects into effects/etc). wild shit that's wild in the ways you want and need for a track is a lot harder...Microcosm looks like it's got some amount of control to it, and some of those newer guitar-type pedals are trying to let the user control things a bit more, but ultimately they're getting too big for their britches most of the time. this one seems to fall into that category, i've watched at least a half dozen videos with it in there so far... they're honestly getting very close to just repackaging 90s/00s guitar multifx pedals, but with a hipster knobby vibe. and imo they're not sounding a hell of a lot better than those old multifx units, it's just messy vomit half the time....especially if you're, yknow, trying to use it in an actual song. if you're just making video content for YT/Twitch/IG, they're fuckin perfect tho.

i'm not saying the Microcosm is exactly like the MOOD or that any of them are bad.... and i've seen and heard plenty of good from those two pedals and other similar ventures (Red Panda something and the recent Night Sky come to mind), but for the cost and actual usability and overall quality & investment (they're all hella pricey) vs usage? no way, not for me, i'd suggest anyone thinking about grabbing those types of effects to really stop and think about how it's being used and how you'd be using it. 

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On the contrary, I suggest everyone get it ASAP _{so that these things start to immediately disappoint and collect dust somewhere and I can buy them for really cheaps at a yard sale somewhere.}