the watmm GAS thread

  On 12/14/2019 at 8:41 PM, user said:

What happened?

Let's see if they get back to me within the next week or so. If they don't I'll tell. But I don't want to shit all over them too soon.

Yeah, fair enough. (secretly hands out in public hopes they don't get back to you, let's dish!) 

Get a cheap patchbay. I think the one I have is hosa behringer

Also, I build a rack cabinet out of scrap 2x4 that also functions as a stand for my desk, so lots of saved space that way. 

as long as your gear in 'storage' doesn't exceed the quantity (or in your case, footprint) of gear in your actual usage setup, i think it's okay.

  On 12/15/2019 at 11:00 AM, Stickfigger said:

Think i've posted this , or something similar before - but i have a really limited workspace - about 80cm x 60cm and i have all my stuff compactly organised. I tend to want to have the gear i have all plugged in at once and get a bit itchy to sell stuff if i can't have it all integrated at all times - is this something i just need to get over and maybe work on the premise of plugging in and out different pieces of kit? Is that just a major Gas enabler?

I think it's fine to rotate out things from the "active setup" every once and a while, but have them around so they could be rediscovered. The key point for me is that I should not buy new things unless I have not taken the time to figure out my existing gear (unless it's something basic like new monitors - you can't really work without a way to hear your stuff).

  On 12/14/2019 at 10:00 PM, sheatheman said:

Holy moly I’m over here considering building a lap steel. 

This is a really cool idea. I remember seeing a scene in Let's Get Loud where Jack White just hammers together a rudimentary "guitar" out of a plank, a string and a pickup. This sort of hands on stuff is always rewarding in some way.

I kind of want a Korg Miku to misuse but unfortunately a secondhand one looks like $500-$1000 these days.

Nope.

It sounds like The Crab Grass Baby.

  On 12/15/2019 at 10:40 PM, thawkins said:

This is a really cool idea. I remember seeing a scene in Let's Get Loud where Jack White just hammers together a rudimentary "guitar" out of a plank, a string and a pickup. This sort of hands on stuff is always rewarding in some way.

You have to be at least this cool to be allowed to play the Diddley Bow. 

Nearly everyone who plays it now is doing so in violation.

^very appropriate video for the GAS thread: you don't need shit at all to make music. just fuckin' make it.

  On 12/16/2019 at 4:25 AM, auxien said:

^very appropriate video for the GAS thread: you don't need shit at all to make music. just fuckin' make it.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

(goes to play on my thousands of dollars worth of gear) 

 

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The first two bands I was in (if you count the one that only practiced once and just played Iron Man for three hours) built our own drum kits out of 2x4s and buckets and old saw blades because we were like 13 and couldn't afford real drums.

In fact, a big part of the reason I started hoarding gear and got back in to electronic music was just that I moved to a different city ad couldn't find a good drummer to play with.  Finding a drummer who can play well AND has good taste AND has an acceptable personality AND has free time is nearly impossible.  You can get two of those things if you're lucky. Technically skilled and good taste are the hardest, those two things seem to be diametrically opposed in general but especially with drummers.

  On 12/16/2019 at 4:50 AM, TubularCorporation said:

Technically skilled and good taste are the hardest, those two things seem to be diametrically opposed in general but especially with drummers.

It's true but you also have to understand that sometimes it gets old really fast if I have to play the same rhythm repeatedly while the guitarist gets to have fun with all of their effects. And then they tell you to play more quietly and stick to the beat while their riffs get more boring and bland after every time we go through the track but hey at least it is now in tune and in tempo, cut down from a nice atmospheric jam into a 4 minute formulaic tune with "bridge" "chorus" and "guitar solo".

Anyways, send me a message if you need a drummer in the Paris area of France.

I’m not a great drummer but as a multi instrumentalist I would be really happy to teach someone the guitar part of my song and then play drums with it.

It's been some 6 months since I last played drums and it is triggering insane withdrawals and existential crisis. I am wondering if I should get some e-drum pedals and one of those Yamaha 12 pad things.

Yeah, not having access to an acoustic drum kit plus relying on quantization for the past 10+years hasn’t been good for my timing, but I at least usually play my drums in with pads.

Timing is one thing, too. For me the last time I took time off playing physical drums and then getting back into it was a real scare because I had lost so much muscle memory and coordination so I sucked really bad. Trying to keep myself active in order to avoid all that now..

I found some used Yamaha DTX12M so I am going to try and get some.

  On 12/17/2019 at 9:32 AM, thawkins said:

It's been some 6 months since I last played drums and it is triggering insane withdrawals and existential crisis. I am wondering if I should get some e-drum pedals and one of those Yamaha 12 pad things.

This happened to me when I quit the last proper band I was in a few years back because I was sick of every practice costing me like $50 and at least 4 hours of round trip commuting by train and subway with all my gear, plus about a mile walk on each end.   Took about a year to get over and turned me into a synth hermit but I adjusted.

The one thing about those pads is that they'll fuck up your wrists if you aren't careful, they're like hitting a cast iron skillet with a couple mm of rubber on it.  Fun, though.  An old roommate found a bunch of DTX series three zone pads from the early 90s and gave them to me, and I ended up getting the cheapest Yamaha drum brain I could find and piecing together a sort of electronic cocktail kit from parts of broken cymbal stands people were selling cheap on eBay.  It's pretty fun and good exercise but nothing like playing real drums, it's not even as good as playing one of those Remo tunable practice pads. So if you haven't before I'd definitely spend some time with some of those pads before you invest any actual money in them.

I went and got it yesterday. I did not have a lot of chance to play it on the spot, but it left a good impression. From the reviews I know that you can play it with finger tapping, hands and sticks so should be plenty of variety. In particular, I am interested in getting the foot controllers so I can play hihats and bass drum like I would on a real drum kit.

Not too worried in hurting myself playing it too much... history has shown that my workflow is basically sitting on the laptop in the middle of a pile of hardware and not touching any of it.  In fact I am already feeling a bit of remorse for getting it, but I think that's just because I have not had a proper chance to sit down with the DTX yet.

My dream is to set up a small "drum corner" with the pads and also all the acoustic things I have along with the KOMA field kit so it's a kind of hybrid DIY kit. I also have a load of drum samples I recorded off my MicroX and some AKAI sample CDs that I need to extract the sounds from. Of course in the following year I expect to achieve pretty much 0 of this dream, as evidenced by historical performance.

Three Kaoss Pad 3s...

I used to share a practice space with a band that had Juno 60s piled up like that in the corner, back in the mid 2000s when nobody wanted them. Kind of hurts to think about it now.

EDIT: they had two SH-101s too, but one was broken.  The synth player's setup was SH101 with the pitch bend handle on a strap and a Juno 60 on a stand, and whenever one of them started having problems she'd just buy a new one because they were so cheap.  The last 101 was $300 and it was blue instead of red, and she was pretty annoyed at having to spend that much.

I wish I hadn't been even broker than they were back then.

My old Kaoss Pad 3 from 2006 had a busted output. Only one channel worked. I needed it for a show a couple of months ago so I bought a used one from some guys who mailed it too me in a way too big box with no bubble wrap or nothing. When I plugged it in at the venue one of the channels didn't work. So I bought another used one yesterday so now I have three.
I'm gonna see if I can get someone to fix the output on the other ones and then sell them.

  On 12/20/2019 at 11:23 PM, Squee said:

My old Kaoss Pad 3 from 2006 had a busted output. Only one channel worked. I needed it for a show a couple of months ago so I bought a used one from some guys who mailed it too me in a way too big box with no bubble wrap or nothing. When I plugged it in at the venue one of the channels didn't work. So I bought another used one yesterday so now I have three.
I'm gonna see if I can get someone to fix the output on the other ones and then sell them.

I have a kaoss pad quad. It's output is SUPER noisy...

  On 12/20/2019 at 2:50 PM, Squee said:

Three Kaoss Pad 3s...

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I was going to offer to fix them if you sent me both, keep one as payment and send the other back, but then I looked at what they still sell for and that wouldn't be a good deal for you at all.

You should be able to get a $10 soldering iron, take the bottom panel off and jsut remelt the older that's holding the jacks on because there's about a %99.9 chance that's all it needs.  Then sell them both and make like $350.

  On 12/21/2019 at 12:12 AM, Stickfigger said:

I'd like a Lyra8 please 

Mine has been sitting in its carrybag since early October haha. I kinda feel bad about not using it enough, it's so lush. 

  On 12/21/2019 at 12:54 AM, TubularCorporation said:

I was going to offer to fix them if you sent me both, keep one as payment and send the other back, but then I looked at what they still sell for and that wouldn't be a good deal for you at all.

 

You should be able to get a $10 soldering iron, take the bottom panel off and jsut remelt the older that's holding the jacks on because there's about a %99.9 chance that's all it needs.  Then sell them both and make like $350.

That would have been awfully kind of you, but I'm also located somewhere in Europe so it would end up being massively expensive. But I'm gonna see if I can fix it. If I somehow create supernova by doing so I apologize on beforehand.

Thinking about buying an osmose and then reselling it a year later and making the profit. 

I ordered parts to build 3 DIY Norns shields for raspberry pi. Parts finally arrived the other day and I made one today! My first SMD soldering project. I can't believe it actually works. I'm gonna build and sell the other two, and hopefully make back the money it cost to buy the parts. Free Norns!