the watmm GAS thread

  On 9/9/2021 at 3:05 AM, TubularCorporation said:

i need something with a long lifespan that can be repaired, customized and upgraded easily with good backward compatibility, and Macs don't offer any of that in my experience.

Yeah, this was what I wanted when I bought the PC. Sadly it also comes with a whole lot of fucking around in order to get things to work reliably; I lost a lot of time last week trying to diagnose my PC's problems—time I should have been spending on my uni work.

I know it can be done, since I have friends who use Windows professionally for video editing, audio, etc., but I just don't have the patience anymore. I thought Windows could have got to the point where it was relatively transparent but it doesn't seem to be there yet.

Also, little aesthetic/design nerd things like the UI font and being able to press option+shift+minus for an em dash instead of having to remember a code ended up being more important than I expected  

EDIT: feel free to ignore all of this, I pounded a big cup of coffee right before I started typing.

  On 9/9/2021 at 9:08 AM, modey said:

Sadly it also comes with a whole lot of fucking around in order to get things to work reliably; I lost a lot of time last week trying to diagnose my PC's problems—time I should have been spending on my uni work.

That's too bad.  I haven't experienced much like that since the Windows Vista days. The only issue I've had recently was when I finally updated from Windows 7 to 10 this spring, I started to have a network conflict between Touchportal and ReaStream (Reaper's native audio-over-LAN plugin) so it partially broke the audio connection between my main computer and the old Dell I use for livestream encoding (Touchportal andReStream both still worked, but I couldn't use them at the same time anymore), but there was a really old free audio-over-LAN plugin that works fine. 

Not all PCs are created equal though (and price isn't neessarily a good indicator of quality).  I settled on using secondhand commercial Dells about 15 years ago because they're plentiful, dirt cheap and easy to repair (even if they aren't the most upgradeable because the cases are designed to only work with a specific series of Dell motherboards, so you can't do a full system rebuild easily, but any given system's upgrade path is really easy).  Consumer Dells are garbage but a cheap, previous-gen Optiplex or Poweredge is usually great.  I've got a couple Optiplexes from the early 2000s that are still working fine and are still useful (and were free) for stuff like reading/writing sampler floppies.  Theoretically I could update them to Windows 10 but I've never bothered.  Other major manufacturers have their equivalent lines (I've heard good things about the HP counterpart to the Optiplex), it just happened that the local university uses Dell so there was a constant stream of free Dells when I lived near it. The server I use for all my audio production goes for about $200 in eBay right now for one with the last motherboard revision and the fastest CPUs (dual 2.5gHz hex core Xeons - not cutting edge but still pretty good a decade later), all six hard drive trays, at least when I was considering replacing mine instead of upgrading the motherboard (a whole new computer would be a little cheaper than the used motherboard and CPUs before you factored in the cost of shipping a rack server; either way it only cost slightly more than a Volca Beats).

Some day I'll need to get a whole new system but at that point hopefully the prices will have settled down and I can build one.  The upgrade last spring bought me at least 2-3 more years (and it will be a really good second computer for a lot longer than that).

What version of Windows did you use?  In my experience, XP was great for audio and MIDI, Vista was garbage, 7 was even better than XP for audio but garbage for MIDI, and 10 is better than 7 for audio but also or the first time ever the MIDI jitter on clock coming from a DAW via USB is as low as clock from the Octatrack. Point being, if you got Windows 11 they may have broken everything again.

  On 9/9/2021 at 5:09 PM, TubularCorporation said:

What version of Windows did you use?

Win10 with absolute latest updates for everything. 

Huh, weird.  Sounds like the 2011 Windows experience more than the 2021 Windows experience. 

Anyway, I stand by my original statement.  All computers suck, it's jsut down to whether you're OK with the way your specific computer sucks.

lol I just chatted to tech support, apparently it's a known issue and the solution is to roll back the nvidia driver to a version that is known to work with the computer. I'll give it a try; still not switching to Windows for audio. It'll go in the loungeroom for gaming. Or I'll sell it or something. 

  On 9/10/2021 at 4:18 AM, modey said:

lol I just chatted to tech support, apparently it's a known issue and the solution is to roll back the nvidia driver to a version that is known to work with the computer. I'll give it a try; still not switching to Windows for audio. It'll go in the loungeroom for gaming. Or I'll sell it or something. 

Not a surprise that some cutting edge gamer shit is a source of problems and incompatibilities.

Another goal for the Mac camp. No games there!

Anyone interested in a portable studio? https://www.lloydsonline.com.au/LotDetails.aspx?smode=0&aid=25652&lid=3093725

When I was in college someone sold one of the original Arriflex cameras used to film The Road Warrior on eBay, with a complete lens kit.  It only went for something like $1200.

Never owned an amp, borrowed my brother-in-law's (an acoustic guitar amp) to zen out with my 606, loved having the larger sound, he needed it back, and now I want my own.  I know little about audio quality, and obviously doing nothing extraordinary here.  What's cheap but serviceable?  Noob q, I know...

I've had my eye on the Roland Cube range for a while, was going to get one for busking but that's not likely to be a possibility any time soon. 

I think they're full-range amps as well, so will work well with non-guitar signals. 

You might look at getting a single, powered PA speaker if you'll only be using it for line level stuff. Or one of those little Fender portable PA systems or something.

Then again, running ableton into an amp is what created lofi house!

Roland cube is decent. Love sending things into an amp, especially if it has effects. Just gives a sound something different (not always good!)

Recorded this onto a cheap field recorder via an amp, was after a Raime vibe > https://midievil-records.bandcamp.com/track/the-gloom-i (track is Rytm only in case anyone's interested). 

going for that vaporwave crowd

https://www.dreadbox-fx.com/nymphes/

little bit of sounds so far are good....heard mostly good out of Dreadbox in the past, but this one, particularly at that price, could be really interesting.

  On 9/15/2021 at 4:14 AM, auxien said:

going for that vaporwave crowd

https://www.dreadbox-fx.com/nymphes/

little bit of sounds so far are good....heard mostly good out of Dreadbox in the past, but this one, particularly at that price, could be really interesting.

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^sounds pretty nice there! the ‘menu’ stuff seems pretty twitchy, even he fucked up once or twice, and he designed the goddamned thing lol…but i can’t imagine that’s something you’re doing a hell of a lot…possibly worth it at that price point imo. plus it looks pretty cute and hands-on for most of the sound design. i like it.

Yes, cool little poly for the price ! Not gonna buy it because I'm trying to get better with the gear I own but this is pretty nice. 

i have no room in my life/house for this but will say it looks dope and affordable

https://tiptopaudio.com/buchla/

  On 9/15/2021 at 10:51 PM, nikisoko said:

i have no room in my life/house for this but will say it looks dope and affordable

https://tiptopaudio.com/buchla/

Count me out; I'd sooner fuck with Behringer than the post-2015 incarnation of the Buchla company after what they did to Don.

what did they do? also i think it has changed hands again? i think it was run by some australians for a little while and was not doing well and now is run by some guy in the NE US who has run a synth shop for a while and is reputable. im not sure, nor do i have strong opinions either way.

also this is tiptop audio in collaboration with them, who i think is also pretty respected. im not a huge modular head (software ftw in this regard) so i dont know

Yeah it was the Australians. They didn't pay him for his work during the last few years of his life and after he died they refused to pay hospice, etc. bills to his mourning family, which led to an ugly legal battle which I don't think has been completely resolved. I don't have the complete story but it's ugly.

Tiptop does seem legit, though, and if it's being owned/controlled by reputable folks now, well, that's great news.

  On 9/16/2021 at 5:56 AM, sweepstakes said:

Yeah it was the Australians. They didn't pay him for his work during the last few years of his life and after he died they refused to pay hospice, etc. bills to his mourning family, which led to an ugly legal battle which I don't think has been completely resolved. I don't have the complete story but it's ugly.

Tiptop does seem legit, though, and if it's being owned/controlled by reputable folks now, well, that's great news.

Yes @nikisokois right , the company is not owned by the same people nowadays. 

Fuckin' Australians, am I right

  On 9/17/2021 at 5:02 AM, modey said:

Fuckin' Australians, am I right

Yeah, nothing good ever came from there except Bryan Adams.

I don't know, I still kind of like Frog Dreaming despite all the obvious stuff.