the watmm GAS thread

I read an "in the studio" article with Ben Lukas Boysen and wondered what that sexy thing to the top left was... Immediately after, I stumbled upon this in the local online listings. Bids are up to 300 eur.

So gorgeous and likely a lot of fun outdoors but not what I'm looking for in terms of tape color. Nice piece of history anyway, having been used so widely in TV and film in the 70's and 80's. One reportedly still worked after being dropped off a helicopter...

300e is nothing for a decent Nagra III. I have a IVs which I got a good deal on from a retired sound recordist a few years back, I don't use it much. Just an incredible piece of engineering. Pretty sure Kudelski still service them too. 

Ohmygod! I always wanted to have a nagra machine! I wouldn’t even use it... just place it somewhere in a corner of my living room on a coffee table. Beautiful!

I've wanted a Nagra since high school but never going to happen.

I did get a pretty well preserved Wollensak T-1500 for $5 back when I worked at a record store and it also looks great and has a nice sounding tube preamp, but it's not even close to the same league as a Nagra.I only really use it as a guitar recording amp occasionally.

Mine doesn't have that sweet soft case like the one I linked, and there's a big scratch near the logo on the handle (which is slightly different - mine is one of the later tube variations), but otherwise it's about the same.  You can get them pretty cheap all the time on eBay, there are like half a dozen under $100 BIN right now.  Cheap way to get a 1960s tube preamp that distorts well and has a useful one-knob tone control (more going on there than just rolling of high end) but watch out for the solid state models.  There are a ton of variants and they're all inexpensive but it can be hard to tell them apart.

That looks like a really cool piece, and an absolute steal in your case. I suspect the Nagra piece will get scalped at a higher price as the timer runs out, dedicated sellers are really exploiting the vintage angle these days (look at the current prices for Roland gear ). The cool thing about hardware is that even the right transformers will color and warm up a signal, so solid state designs are nothing to preemptively scoff at. Conversely, a lot of cheap tube gear either doesn't power the tubes well (starved-plate design) or involve the tubes in any meaningful way (except selling more units). Hence I'd rather spring for a cheap but solid discrete piece like the golden age Pre 73 than something like the Art tube mixer... Even pricey stuff like the TLA tubetracker turns out to be pretty sketchy when you look into the details. 

The klark teknik pultec and la2a clones seem to be a grey zone as people claim they perform pretty well, especially if you replace the stock tubes with more exotic variants (I'm looking into JJ personally). Behringer making quality stuff... what an age! 

The starved plate/low voltage tube designs you're talking about are purely a modern gimmick, old tube gear is a whole different thing. Old Wollensaks are an absolute steal to use as preamps, the actual tape section is almost irrelevant (it can be fun to record to it but it's nothing special), if you see one that works grab it.

There are a couple of tube T-1500s on US eBay right now for around $65, which is actually cheaper than a TubeMP and the difference between a TubeMP or similar and something like a Wollensak is night and day. I don't know specific brands or models to look for but there were plenty of European equivalents, probably even more since Germany was 15-20 years ahead of the USA on this stuff.  If it's pre 1970 or so, has tubes and has a mic level input it's worth a look IMO.

You're totally right, old stuff just has a completely different build quality. I saw a decent eBay deal at 100e for a functional "Wooly sack" (bastardization i spotted in the wild ) in the UK, might be worth picking up... 

  On 9/5/2019 at 7:14 PM, Taupe Beats said:

Had no idea they were so close in comparison. Thanks for sharing! I love Noir, and admittedly I hadn't heard any similarities in any DFAM videos I've seen (I haven't heard one in-person). The combo of modulation and the sequencer in Noir makes it really easy to get usable phrases quickly. A lot of the sounds I get out of Noir sound like Randomer to me.

Yeah, definitely randomeresq. The way it works takes so much guess work out of mixing. Monophonic, each phrase exists within a small spectrum world, like the same ingredients go into making the kick and the hihat (unless you use the hihat oscillator). Monophonic beats: very simple and effective method.

re digitone, I played one again today (the keys), and I just don’t get inspired from a short session. I hate sound locks.

Just watched Cuckoo's Chipsynth MD video, sounds great!

There's also Deflemask for those who are into trackers, which has the added bonus of being able to export a ROM for the MD to play natively. It also supports a bunch of other consoles, and is free!

Also, not really getting the Digitone hate, every time I turn mine on I'm inspired to make some unique sounds. I'm not always productive in a musical sense with it (I'm having an unrelated melodic crisis at the moment where I feel like all of my melodies/progressions sound too cheesy, and the Digitone kinda pushes me to make melodic music), but for me it's an amazing sound design tool. Then again, I'm a bit of an Elektron fanboy so it's probably not a surprise lol

No hate from me, just didn’t gel with its overall tone. It still is an amazing machine, a sound-design workhorse.

I can’t help thinking that, consequently, the DN has to have a not-so-pronounced default sonic character (really talking about the tone of the oscillators and filters, how the envelopes behave, basic FM... not the possible end results) to be that versatile.

I realize I prefer more limited synths with a stronger soundprint from the get-go, it’s more inspiring to me.

Now the DN can be fantastic in the right hands : for instance, tracks by @modey and @Stickfigger convinced me to hit the « Buy » button. It appears the DN simply isn’t not for me.

By the way, Plogue is working on a DX7 inspired synth, which should be stellar (based on their PortaFM and Chipsynth MD). Such a fascinating synth once you go past its presets.

I still want a DN, but I haven’t had an inspiring session with it yet. Might not be using it right. I would get an OT2 first though, if I had the money.

  On 9/7/2019 at 11:44 PM, Stickfigger said:

Modey , most things from you I've loved so unless you have drastically changed what you're doing your melodic crisis is just unnecessary second guessing .

Ahh, thanks m8. I think my problem is that I have peers and influences who have styles which seem "cooler" than mine, like they have an ear for minimalism and seem to naturally be able to make music that's really stripped down yet still very engaging. I always gravitate towards spacey, dramatic chord progressions, and find I have to force myself to be more minimal, if that makes sense? Maybe I need to just make things as I usually do, but then try to minimise them as much as possible, haha. I'm never 100% happy with my own style, I always have an underlying sense of my music being a bit cheesy, even when I don't intend for it to be.

Yeah, I think I'm intending for Vague Robots to be the more melodic side of my hardware jams, with the 0F alias being for the more experimental/textural stuff.. though they kinda bleed into each other really.

Compartmenting can be liberating yeah. I was stuck in a huge creative block, came with a new alias I may not even use in the end (or not incognito as I first planned)... but that allowed me to try things that are more in phase with what I currently want to do, and the music I've been listening and aiming for for the last 5 years or so. Otherwise I became almost trapped of my own music (whatever that means), and of all the non-sense that came with that (absurd) feeling.

Regarding "forcing minimalism", I'm in the same boat as you are. It's a struggle to keep things scarce. Now I really like the idea of reductionism, and stripping tunes until there's just the necessary core (and nothing else) there. If minimalism isn't something spontaneous, just skim what comes spontaneously. As far as I'm concerned, the transition from braindancish tunes to a more "techno" thingie is a bit of a challenge (but that's definitely where I need / want to go).

Restraint is another idea / concept I consciously try to apply to my stuffs, and it can work wonders. Like letting empty spaces in melodies rather than fully completing the phrase. It's surprisingly powerful.

@Nil Do you know any place in Europe that sells the sorbothane bumpers?

  On 9/7/2019 at 10:21 AM, Nil said:

Now the DN can be fantastic in the right hands : for instance, tracks by @modey and @Stickfigger convinced me to hit the « Buy » button. It appears the DN simply isn’t not for me.

you have to be in the Southern hemisphere to activate the 'extra good' hidden FM circuitry inside, obviously.

re: minimalism, very difficult to strip things back for me often as well, but i'm slowly getting better at it. hard to be writer and editor at the same time, basically, but when working solo it's just part of what you've gotta do i guess.

@thawkins I got mine through Amazon.fr IIRC. eBay sellers offer some as well, I'll have a look when I'm back home

@auxien it's hard if you try to do both writing and skimming at once. It's easier (not saying it's easy) when you dissociate both processes though. I tend to consider writing emotional / instinctive while editing is more of a rational thing, and I try to force myself not to intellectualize stuff when composition (and to let the brain kick in once I have enough raw material to sculpt from).

Great points, thanks everyone. I think perhaps I'm letting it get to me a bit too much; I ended up creating something today that I'm very happy with (little snippit here), which probably could be stripped down a bit more, but actually reflects what @Nil said above re: empty spaces / incomplete melodies. Keeping my Digitone tracks a bit more sparse, rather than feeling like I need to balance each page of the sequencer with the others. I think it's a bit more difficult with the Digitone as it's practically begging to be used for lush melodies. Having said that, I've had some luck with "unwinding" a busy melody by setting trig conditions to various parts of it, ensuring it never gets a chance to play in full. 

I am also working on collabs, actually had a very Terminator 2 meets Metroid Prime soundtrack jam with a friend the other day  should be editing that down soon. And have been talking to another friend about starting a 2x nord modular (or nord + octatrack) project, which will be interesting!

Anyway, a bit off topic for the GAS thread (I'm sure there was a thread about what I'm talking about here a while ago?).. but to bring it back home, I'm getting kinda tempted to pick up one of the Intellijel Palette cases, and strip my eurorack setup right back to a few modules—maybe have more than will fit in the case, but switch things out for various minimal setups—tbh I got more out of eurorack when I was trying to push a small amount of modules to their limits. May be a phase, but selling a few things could help me get to superbooth next year (a vague fantasy!).

I think the OP-Z is gonna go too. I like it but the double triggering is doing my head in. That said, they seem to be hard to sell, there's been one on facebook marketplace for weeks, at about 70% of the new price. 

To Korg Volca Drum owners, Korg posted a fix today for the MIDI Channel issue. 

Lol about opz. Meanwhile new batch of op1 is for sale at $1300

Feeling a strong GAS for Arturia Keystep because I want a nice small keyboard with arpeggiator that I can take on gigs and that does not drift like a drunk uncle Akai Mpkmini. Also more keys than just two octaves.

Gotta say, after buying an og beatstep and trying out some earlier versions of their V synths I was so annoyed with their products and way of handling things I completely swore off arturia. Got a keystep at the beginning of the year and it's been great for doing quick sequencing. Had a weird thing where the modwheel and then also the pitchbend strip both completely stopped outputting any data but changing the midi channel back and forth a couple of times in the midicenter thing started them back up again, slightly strange bug though. 

If you've got a way to clock it via the clock input rather than midi/usb midi definitely go for it because it is indeed quite tight. 

  On 9/14/2019 at 4:49 AM, Stickfigger said:

Holy mother fucking shit balls. Vlad just released the manual for the pulsar23 and i have to say i've never been more excited for a piece of kit in my life.

I can't be the only one who read the description as an orgasmic drum machine.

Does indeed look beyond decent.

Estimated 1500 euro's plus vat... hmmm... might be out of my budget for a while (unless I sell pretty much everything i've got)

hnnng I have gas for this

I recently got a norns. I'm not saying my gearlust is dead, but it really flipped it on its head. For the first time in a long while, it brought into stark relief a lot of gear I have that I really don't need or even want. It crossed a bunch of stuff off my GAS list. There's a lot less sense putting up with someone else's synth/module design when you can reach in and change everything.

If you're willing to dig in and builld (as with any modular environment) it brings a lot of novel and just common-sense stuff together in a really reasonable, intuitive way. It's really good to have a real computer that really feels like hardware, just works, and is just, well, pretty.

The softcut delay / "digital tape" system is just brilliant too. It's so me. I can't believe no one has thought of it before; it's pretty close to perfect.

For those balking at the price tag, monome is working to release some more affordable kit to make the system more affordable. I couldn't be more pleased with it as it is, though. Now I just have to build some decent apps... see you in a few months