the watmm GAS thread

lol. the gas is strong with this one

let us know what you think

  On 3/30/2017 at 3:26 PM, Chesney said:

Lord knows I don't need another monosynth but fuck, I gave in.

Congratulatons!

Will have a play tonight. It's beautifully made I have to say.

Had an hour with it last night. Half hour letting it warm up and updating the OS etc.

flicked through a few presets which sound really good then deleted them all ha.

Init patch is just Saw through the Steiner filter. It's really easy and straight forward but it's going to take a little time to get used to all the gain staging. There are 4-5 points for levels and areas you can drive the sound which makes it a bit fiddly having to keep adjusting the output level but once I get used to how each one acts it will be smooth. For smoother sounds you have to hold back on osc level, mixer level, no drive into filter and filter output down too.

It sounds really good. There is a flaw where the osc bleeds through the Steiner filter even when not used so you have to turn the filter output down or it's not noticeable if you use that filter as well. It's known and not really that much of a problem

It's BIG but not as big as I thought, it's not just waltzed in like a big bully, it's come in and sat quiet sizing the others up first.

Made my first patch with a sequence which sounds rad and is wonky. Going to get some drums lined up tonight and try and make a new track.

MatrixBrute is so fuckin' tight looking, man.  It's at the level where just sitting in front of it might give you like +87 IDM points.

It's (just) a monosyth?!

I really want to play with that patch matrix, damn, reminds me of the synthi AKS I borrowed from a friend for a while.

ultimate monosynth though ;)

can be pseudo 3 voice poly though because of the 3 osc's, 2 filters and 3 env's. Really nice as a poly actually and quirky in a cool way as each voice routing is slightly different. the matrix is a blast. Just hammering random buttons and twisting the amount knob over a preset can turn it into madness. When you start diving into tweaking you quickly realise the vast endless places it can go.

  On 3/24/2017 at 4:34 PM, RSP said:

 

Well, I'm getting about $850 next Thursday for editing work, and I think I'm going to have tho snag one of these.  I need that external key input so much!

 

Regular keying where you select a color or brightness range in one video source and replace that range with another video source is cool and all but being able to use a completely separate third video signal as a transparency mask for the overlay signal is exponentially better (and completely basic in software but not so common in hardware I'm finding, unless you go really expensive or really old).

 

Going to stick one of these in a box with enough space left to add one or two eurorack video synth modules sometime in the future, and make a panel that breaks out all the BNC i/o on it and the switcher to a little RCA patchbay.  That, and some trashpicked TVs and cameras and VCRs and I'll be pretty well set for what I want to do with this stuff for a long time, unless I find something under $100 that will do mirroring/kaleidoscope style effects.

 

  On 3/9/2017 at 6:32 PM, RSP said:

Ok, last one and then I'll stop with the video mixer suggestions.  If anyone is really serious about repurposing one of these for a DIY synth or controller, someone is selling a bunch of broken Panasonic "Special Effects Generator" rack units right now and they look amazing, kind of like a Mutron pedal and one of those 60s Acoustic amplifiers had a mutant baby:

 

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-WJ-4600C-6-Input-Color-Bar-SEG-TV-studio-production-switcher/122367741980

 

I might have to nab something like this i working condition next time I get some side work, because crossfeeding signals between two switchers is where things really get crazy, and this one also has an external key input which is a BIG thing, because you can use a third video signal as a mask to overlay one signal onto a second one, which opens up tons of possibilities.

 

Well, it's here.

Works?  Yes.

Looks cool?  Extremely.

Useful?  Yes and no.  It does exactly what I got it for, but it's made to work in a fully analog professional broadcast environment sometime in the 80s, which means you have to think a lot more about frame sync, and as it turns out this thing only has one input that can handle a signal from something that isn't following its frame sync, which means basically no consumer or prosumer stuff can go in any other input without coming out looking like a scrambled cable channel from back when that was a thing.  So the only way to actually do what I really got it for (superimposing a video signal over another video signal using a third signal as the key source) I'm going to need to get myself a second timebase corrector, which isn't expensive (I already ordered one, $41 shipped) but it's just one more heavy, deep rack unit to sit around and take up space (the one I have is about 16" deep, 1u and weighs maybe 8 pounds, and that's on the small side unless you get a modern one, which would be at least 15-20 times as expensive for a lower end unit than the older ones that are really cheap right now, so obviously completely out of the question). 

Also, unlike newer switchers like the one I already had that do amazing things when you feed the output back in to an input, this one doesn't do anything, you just get a completely overloaded signal, all white with a bit of wobbliness, completely useless.  Not what I got it for but it would  have been nice if that had actually worked, since it has 6 inputs and four outputs, so it was ripe for feedback.

Still should be a lot of fun once I can actually set it up the way I want to.

Actually that should have been $36 shipped, not $41 (seller accepted my $20 offer).  Not that it really matters.

don't dip into modular/grid

GAS has reached its pinnacle

i just ordered an octatrack. does anyone know how it works? i heard it's kind of hard to use but i use ableton so it should be pretty easy! :D

Lol sheathe

  On 4/3/2017 at 1:01 AM, sheathe said:

i just ordered an octatrack. does anyone know how it works? i heard it's kind of hard to use but i use ableton so it should be pretty easy! :D

Press play, press stop. Repetae.

lol

just watch cuckoo's tutorials, he covers the basics and then you can go from there.

I still haven't used it for live sampling/looping yet, but am still getting a lot out of it.

Me either haha (regarding using live looping etc.

It's a banging machine, really fun but not immediate especially if you are used to other elektron machines. File hierarchy is annoying but you get used to it. Scenes are just glorious.

If the Octotrack had some assignable outputs (even just four of them) I'd have sold a bunch of stuff and bought one long ago, but with just the stereo out and the cue it seems really limiting to me.  Which is frustrating because everything else about it seems fantastic.

  On 4/3/2017 at 3:44 PM, RSP said:

If the Octotrack had some assignable outputs (even just four of them) I'd have sold a bunch of stuff and bought one long ago, but with just the stereo out and the cue it seems really limiting to me.  Which is frustrating because everything else about it seems fantastic.

If this is the deal breaker you might be forgetting the fact that it can resample itself, and that the cue outs can be used as 2 mono outs if you're desperate. You can also use its MIDI sequencer to control a more boring sampler with multiple outputs.

Frankly with all the power packed into that little package, I can't imagine how unusable the thing would be with more than 4 outs... like selecting an output for each track? No thanks. Either that or I would just never use them.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to own one, but being able to mix and provcess stuff externally (basically treat the sampler like an 8 track machine and do a live dub mix) is pretty central to how I approach sampling.  I've come close a couple of times, but when I've had the money to spare I've never quite been able to get over that - it's the kind of thing I'd really want to make the centerpiece of my workflow if I had one, but withoutmore outputs I know from experience it wouldn't end up being that.  If my workflow were different it would be a whole different matter because it's a really, really nice instrument.

Any time I try and route to seperate tracks in the DAW from an elektron box I tend to end up with a section I like and just loop it. Far too many options to cut up a jam in multiple tracks, it blows my mind to a complete crash.

I get way more done just recording a stereo jam and tweaking live then cutting up for interesting bits.

The idea of what you do appealled to me but in reality it sucked. That's me though ha.

Just get 4 octatracks!

  On 4/3/2017 at 5:51 PM, Chesney said:

Any time I try and route to seperate tracks in the DAW from an elektron box I tend to end up with a section I like and just loop it. Far too many options to cut up a jam in multiple tracks, it blows my mind to a complete crash.

I get way more done just recording a stereo jam and tweaking live then cutting up for interesting bits.

 

The idea of what you do appealled to me but in reality it sucked. That's me though ha.

I also fully admit to being in denial about how nice it would be to have one of these, because I can't afford one.

seller said he was gnnae ship my OT today (he pulled the old "i'm getting back into town on monday tactic") but he has NOT shipped it yet. should i make a rant video?

  On 4/3/2017 at 5:51 PM, Chesney said:

Any time I try and route to seperate tracks in the DAW from an elektron box I tend to end up with a section I like and just loop it. Far too many options to cut up a jam in multiple tracks, it blows my mind to a complete crash.

I get way more done just recording a stereo jam and tweaking live then cutting up for interesting bits.

Yup. Elektron made me love recording in humble stereo. When I was able to sculpt/mutate the sound to that degree with just one machine I started to see multitracking as deferring mixing/pacing decisions and making the musical process more complex. If I really fuck up that bad I can always re-record or resample it. 

If my OT had 8 stereo outputs my sound card couldn't handle it, but at least I could sidechain my kicks .. oh wait I could probably do that with a cue out