Crappy gear that appeals to you for no good reason

  On 11/25/2015 at 12:48 PM, hello spiral said:

Nice, I have one of these. Bought it from someone back in middle school and it's mostly just been sitting/never used much.

 

The "crap" gear I used to have that I probably miss the much was the Boss DR-770, novation k-station, and SP-303.

 

I also used to have a kind of large but compact plastic casio that actually had MIDI (but wasn't a modern one, maybe from the late 80s or 90s) that I had a lot of fun sequencing the crap preset sounds on it before via a master controller/sequencer. I also still have a casio SK-100 (my gf has a broken SK-1, I never opened it up and investigated it yet).

  On 11/25/2015 at 12:48 PM, mcbpete said:

Just looking up those models, we had a few PSS390s at school - had no idea it had FM capabilities: just remember it sounding horribly lo-tech, what an idiot I was !

 

I've been on the hunt for another 90s keyboard we had at school but have no idea what the manufacturer was. Just remember it having something like 4 or 6 buttons on the far right that triggered sound effects, you could choose the sound effect bank and it'd then choose what sounds they'd trigger - Remember a range of western cowboy sounds being one such bank. Think it also had an XY joystick on the left but I could be mixing it up with another keyboard I've been hunting for.

aw man, the 390 is amazing. One of the best yamaha's to bend. And yeah, it's essentailly a 2 op FM machine with some nice synth sliders. Really fun piece even un bent. The 460 and 570 is are very similar and The one I have is the same as my first keyboard when they came out. Wish I kept it, the only thing wrong with it was the adapter socket had broken, easy fix now in hindsight. if you find any of them, jump on them.

I actually have had a GE Tote-A-Tune complete with strap and manual for years but the battery compartment is all rusted out and I haven't bothered to get an adapter for it.

 

Edited November 25, 2015 by RSP

A few months ago I purchased UVI's Complete Toy Museum, has lots of awesome lo-fi keyboards like that:

 

Oh yeah, CZ-101 for sure. I've wanted one for like 15 years. Can you edit that with sysex?

My beloved Yamaha YS200

 

it sounds so cheap and cheesy and looks so goofy and ridiculous

 

 

i love how the led display / preset chooser / edit buttons area looks like some kind of kid's learning computer or karaoke machine lol

 

 

when i heard around the internet that this obscure late 80s 4 op Fm rig is considered by many one of the biggest eyesores, and one of the weirdest of the fms, i knew it was destined to be mine, so i found one on ebay for like $100.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Lane Visitor

I love my cz-101 it looks soo cool. I don't even know if it belongs in a crappy gear thread. It actually has some awesome sounds in it.

 

 

I've totally got a hard on for cheaper less famous samplers at the moment

 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/STOWIK/4957054087883_Y_1.jpg

 

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/aug01/images/bosssp3031.gif

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:03 PM, Lane Visitor said:

I still see those black lores LCD text on greenish backdrop is high tech

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:23 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:03 PM, Lane Visitor said:

I still see those black lores LCD text on greenish backdrop is high tech

 

 

oh, it's so lush. I love it for real--makes me feel like a 90's hacker.

Digman, if you have suggestions for a small, inexpensive sampler in the vein of the Yamaha SU10 (which has been inspiring serious crap gear lust in me for a few years now, but not enough to spend eBay priced and my friend who has one won't part with it for money or trade even though he never uses it). Something to just play some simple lo fi one shot samples. Basically an SP202 but smaller and cheaper. The Zoom Sapletrak ST224 has interested me for a while, but it's still too big. Basically I already have a more or less maxed out MPC200xl (every upgrade except the 8mb SDRAM board) so if I get another sampler it has to be tiny and sound bad (in a msuically useful way). The SU10 is really the perfect thing but they're overpriced.

And yeah, green backlit LCDs are where it's at.

Edited November 25, 2015 by RSP

 

I have an unhealthy obsession with the An1x, it just sounds so fucking good. Too bad I can't find it ANYWHERE. I've been looking for it for two years now.

Actually, yeah, like RSP im in a similar boat with needs...

 

I'm actually looking for a hardware sampler under $1k w/ filter that can help me get that lush liquidy vibe you hear in a lotta french house like cassius, daft punk, sound stream, etc. I've heard ppl recommending the ASR-10 and also the Emu EMax .. would be interested in the Sp1200/12, Emulator II etc, but those are outta by budget...

i wanted to try the Korg Volca after someone showed me a pretty awesome demo of what it can do to house grooves in terms of loop-ifying, but i did research and saw that it only has a 3.5 mm input, which seems like it would degrade the quality pretty heavily.

 

any recommendations? thx

 

p.s. - i already use Fab Filter's Volcano on the software end for filtering, and i love it, but I just want some of that tasty outboard/hardware DAC grunge and the sweetness in the mids that some of those rigs can produce

Edited November 25, 2015 by Lane Visitor

I love pretty much everything RedSound despite the bugs and various poor business choices, they're just so consistently weird ind wrong-sounding for what they were marketed as.

So this got me googling for small samplers (I'm visiting family for the holidays, lots of down time with nothing better to do) and I discovered something I wasn't aware of that just might be the answer for me:

 

http://www.samplerbox.org

 

If it actually works well. I mean, it's basically a Raspberry Pi in a box with a couple of peripherals and some simple wiring, but it's the purpose built software that has me interested. It sounds like there's basically nothing but pitched sample playback with loop points but that's exactly what I'm after.

 

I've got that Axoloti that I was hoping to use mainly as a sample playback/angling box but streaming audio from the SD card is way too buggy still so it's going to be relegated to other things.

Edited November 25, 2015 by RSP

  On 11/25/2015 at 7:36 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Actually, yeah, like RSP im in a similar boat with needs...

 

I'm actually looking for a hardware sampler under $1k w/ filter that can help me get that lush liquidy vibe you hear in a lotta french house like cassius, daft punk, sound stream, etc. I've heard ppl recommending the ASR-10 and also the Emu EMax .. would be interested in the Sp1200/12, Emulator II etc, but those are outta by budget...

i wanted to try the Korg Volca after someone showed me a pretty awesome demo of what it can do to house grooves in terms of loop-ifying, but i did research and saw that it only has a 3.5 mm input, which seems like it would degrade the quality pretty heavily.

 

any recommendations? thx

 

p.s. - i already use Fab Filter's Volcano on the software end for filtering, and i love it, but I just want some of that tasty outboard/hardware DAC grunge and the sweetness in the mids that some of those rigs can produce

Electribe ES-1? That's been my go-to hardware sampler for the past few years, mostly because it's all I have, but it's got a great gritty sound to it.

 

 

  On 11/25/2015 at 7:25 PM, RSP said:

Digman, if you have suggestions for a small, inexpensive sampler in the vein of the Yamaha SU10 (which has been inspiring serious crap gear lust in me for a few years now, but not enough to spend eBay priced and my friend who has one won't part with it for money or trade even though he never uses it). Something to just play some simple lo fi one shot samples. Basically an SP202 but smaller and cheaper. The Zoom Sapletrak ST224 has interested me for a while, but it's still too big. Basically I already have a more or less maxed out MPC200xl (every upgrade except the 8mb SDRAM board) so if I get another sampler it has to be tiny and sound bad (in a msuically useful way). The SU10 is really the perfect thing but they're overpriced.

 

And yeah, green backlit LCDs are where it's at.

Ymmv of course but I had an SU10 for a while and I just can't recommend it at all. Its sound always reminded me of McDonald's somehow. I can go into more detail if you like but if you're set on a late 90s "phrase" (i.e. crappy) sampler, just get an SP202. They're way more fun in every way.

 

On that tip I have always wanted an Akai S20.

Technics KN 1200, because Wesley Willis.

Also this old Yamaha PortaSound PSS series keyboard that my grandparents sent me for X-mas back in 1993, but I forgot the damn model number. Wesley Willis used his aforementioned keyboard in a very similar fashion to how I used this one in my childhood.

  On 11/25/2015 at 7:36 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Actually, yeah, like RSP im in a similar boat with needs...

 

I'm actually looking for a hardware sampler under $1k w/ filter that can help me get that lush liquidy vibe you hear in a lotta french house like cassius, daft punk, sound stream, etc. I've heard ppl recommending the ASR-10 and also the Emu EMax .. would be interested in the Sp1200/12, Emulator II etc, but those are outta by budget...

i wanted to try the Korg Volca after someone showed me a pretty awesome demo of what it can do to house grooves in terms of loop-ifying, but i did research and saw that it only has a 3.5 mm input, which seems like it would degrade the quality pretty heavily.

 

any recommendations? thx

 

p.s. - i already use Fab Filter's Volcano on the software end for filtering, and i love it, but I just want some of that tasty outboard/hardware DAC grunge and the sweetness in the mids that some of those rigs can produce

 

 

I don't have any good ones really. The size of the input jack on the Volca wouldn't have any significant effect on sound quality, just reliability. The converters and clock would be the big thing but I kind of like crappy converters on samplers myself.

 

In the spirit of this thread, I just ordered a Yamaha FB01.

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:21 PM, digman said:

I love my cz-101 it looks soo cool. I don't even know if it belongs in a crappy gear thread. It actually has some awesome sounds in it.

 

 

 

I've totally got a hard on for cheaper less famous samplers at the moment

 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/STOWIK/4957054087883_Y_1.jpg

 

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/aug01/images/bosssp3031.gif

i doesn't belong here. awesome synth.

I think this thread pretty much jettisoned the "crappy" part once the CZ series and the DR660 showed up.

 

CZ101 rules.

 

 

I wouldn't actually call the FB01 crappy either, even though it wasn't aimed at the pro market. It's more or less late 80s Sega arcade machine sound hardware in a box with full sysex implementation, nothing crappy about that (except the interface). I already have a feeling I'm going to pull the Wavestation SR out of the live rig and put the Roland MT-32 back in with the FB-01 next to it, as much as I love the Wavestation I think these little semi-pro preset boxes are more in line with what I'm doing right now. And I can't get enough of those stupid MT-32 drum sounds.

Edited November 26, 2015 by RSP

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:21 PM, digman said:

I love my cz-101 it looks soo cool. I don't even know if it belongs in a crappy gear thread. It actually has some awesome sounds in it.

This thing is really a weird beast, got mine for 120 bucks. The only thing that really sucks is the way you programm sounds.

 

Here is a little piece of noise with it.

 

http://electronicattack.de/download.php?fileid=1157

 

MS-20 + CZ-101 + FM Radio + a bunch of pedals

Edited November 26, 2015 by Psychotronic

CZ-101 visible all over the place:

 

  On 11/25/2015 at 6:21 PM, digman said:

I love my cz-101 it looks soo cool. I don't even know if it belongs in a crappy gear thread. It actually has some awesome sounds in it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxJ_lQpZcRk

 

 

I've totally got a hard on for cheaper less famous samplers at the moment

 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/STOWIK/4957054087883_Y_1.jpg

 

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/aug01/images/bosssp3031.gif

SP-303 is prolly my favorite sampler of all time (especially coupled with a sequencer...although the 'resample method' forces you to get creative and do things you wouldn't otherwise do, yeilding some really cool results)

 

I have tried to outsource as much ITB duties to the SP as possible (e.g. performing effects like filter tweaks and dub-delay swells, the Emu/Ensoniq-esque'lo-fi' mode for drums, the mythic'vinyl sim' etc)

 

 

 

 

PS

 

I have a 'broken' SP-303 if anyone wants it...only thing wrong is a couple knobs don't track and and their potentiometers [or whatever they are] need to be replaced

 

Simple job for experienced DIYer

Edited November 27, 2015 by LimpyLoo

YES I definitely want that, I am PMing you immediately!

  On 11/25/2015 at 7:36 PM, Lane Visitor said:

Actually, yeah, like RSP im in a similar boat with needs...

 

I'm actually looking for a hardware sampler under $1k w/ filter that can help me get that lush liquidy vibe you hear in a lotta french house like cassius, daft punk, sound stream, etc. I've heard ppl recommending the ASR-10 and also the Emu EMax .. would be interested in the Sp1200/12, Emulator II etc, but those are outta by budget...

i wanted to try the Korg Volca after someone showed me a pretty awesome demo of what it can do to house grooves in terms of loop-ifying, but i did research and saw that it only has a 3.5 mm input, which seems like it would degrade the quality pretty heavily.

 

any recommendations? thx

 

p.s. - i already use Fab Filter's Volcano on the software end for filtering, and i love it, but I just want some of that tasty outboard/hardware DAC grunge and the sweetness in the mids that some of those rigs can produce

 

well the emax is def a good choice for under-$1k sampling with analog filtering. but the sound is a bit more depeche mode than french house - the latter i would associate more with the asr-10 or a 16 bit akai. no analog filters on those though. prophet 2000/2002 and mirage are solid cheap-ish lo-fi + analog filter alternatives.

 

volca sampler sounds neat but yeah i imagine input/output and converters are super cheap.