the watmm GAS thread

  On 5/23/2023 at 11:41 PM, flacid said:

Do any of you guys struggle with using multiple synths/drum machines at once? I used to love doing it but nowadays I have a mental block with it and go back to making something with only one synth or Ableton. 

for me, having a powerful sequencer means i can focus on one instrument at a time when writing, then build each instrument in at a time while only focusing on each as i write. sequence the whole lot later and focus on dynamics, mixing, song form, etc. 

not sure if this is what you mean exactly, i use it basically the same way i use Ableton when writing in there.... your equating 'only one synth' with Ableton doesn't track in my head. one synth in Ableton equals one synth in the real world as far as how i approach things...a whole Ableton set equals a whole studio set of multiple synths/drum machines/etc....

  On 5/24/2023 at 3:05 AM, exitonly said:

new push looks dope. i really wish logic had a better mpe implementation. logic has better midi editing in every other way and i vastly prefer it over ableton. however the push might be a sweet setup for live sets and jamming around on. i had an original push but it melted in my car on a move

it does look dope. i really think it's super good from the first info out there today. there'a a lot of glaring hidden stuff that's not or not yet included in the standalone version tho, which makes that use case severely hobbled for many. i'm kinda viewing that as Ableton Note (+most M4L) x 10 at the moment: it can do the basics, within a limited scope...but it ain't real Ableton Live. 

using it as a controller not standalone looks like an ideal companion for someone super into Ableton, and most of what they needed to add that was being requested (interface inputs, MPE) but i was honestly hoping they'd have the main version along with a mini version for some control/mixing/routing/macros stuff, but built in and for Ableton without being a massive grid. that could just be wishful thinking on my part and if realized might be silly, idk. i don't work at Ableton hardware design. at the 999 price as a controller is difficult to justify for many i'm sure tho. i think they're going a little too hard on that we're all-premium Apple vibe when it's definitely not (MIDI minijacks? for 1k? get bent)

  On 5/24/2023 at 4:04 AM, auxien said:

for me, having a powerful sequencer means i can focus on one instrument at a time when writing, then build each instrument in at a time while only focusing on each as i write. sequence the whole lot later and focus on dynamics, mixing, song form, etc. 

not sure if this is what you mean exactly, i use it basically the same way i use Ableton when writing in there.... your equating 'only one synth' with Ableton doesn't track in my head. one synth in Ableton equals one synth in the real world as far as how i approach things...a whole Ableton set equals a whole studio set of multiple synths/drum machines/etc....

it does look dope. i really think it's super good from the first info out there today. there'a a lot of glaring hidden stuff that's not or not yet included in the standalone version tho, which makes that use case severely hobbled for many. i'm kinda viewing that as Ableton Note (+most M4L) x 10 at the moment: it can do the basics, within a limited scope...but it ain't real Ableton Live. 

using it as a controller not standalone looks like an ideal companion for someone super into Ableton, and most of what they needed to add that was being requested (interface inputs, MPE) but i was honestly hoping they'd have the main version along with a mini version for some control/mixing/routing/macros stuff, but built in and for Ableton without being a massive grid. that could just be wishful thinking on my part and if realized might be silly, idk. i don't work at Ableton hardware design. at the 999 price as a controller is difficult to justify for many i'm sure tho. i think they're going a little too hard on that we're all-premium Apple vibe when it's definitely not (MIDI minijacks? for 1k? get bent)

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yeah.. also the computer in it is less than great. it does seem like a bit of a compromise. i might be interested in getting one but i’m going to wait for the bugs to shake out

No photos, but I jsut found this awesome looking AdLib compatible OPL2 Raspberry Pi shield that only costs $32.

But for another $150 (plus a Teensy) you can combine it with this:

It looks like it's more designed around the same seller's OPL3 board, but it says it works with the OPL2 also. An AdLib clone with CV inputs and a display with full GUI would be a lot of fun. It even has a multitrack sequencer with song mode!

With an OPL3 it should be on par with most of the original Yamaha 4 op FM synths (I don't think the OPL3 can do everything the chip in the TX81z did, but I might be wrong about that), but i really like that OPL2 sound.

Not dropping that much money on gear any time soon, but I'll probably get the actual OPL2 board just to have around.

I got a Roland AIRA Compact S-1. It's wonderful and hours of fun running off the built-in battery. Highly recommended.

  On 5/24/2023 at 4:04 AM, auxien said:

for me, having a powerful sequencer means i can focus on one instrument at a time when writing, then build each instrument in at a time while only focusing on each as i write. sequence the whole lot later and focus on dynamics, mixing, song form, etc. 

not sure if this is what you mean exactly, i use it basically the same way i use Ableton when writing in there.... your equating 'only one synth' with Ableton doesn't track in my head. one synth in Ableton equals one synth in the real world as far as how i approach things...a whole Ableton set equals a whole studio set of multiple synths/drum machines/etc....

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I used to love sequencing things from my 1st octatrack. The timing was tight, the process was easy and I'd just jam out tracks all the time. For some reason though I don't have the same urge to do things like that anymore which is a bit of a shame as I used to really enjoy it. I guess I'm just trying to find a process that I equally enjoy but am struggling with it. Anyway, boo hoo for me etc etc

  On 5/17/2023 at 8:30 PM, auxien said:

musical instrument design has all been downhill since this tbqh

$7,000 TE bone flute when 

 

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Got your bone flute right here: functional and humanistic design and all!

Oh wait a second, there is a Push 3?!?!? Awesome, sell me your crusty old Push 2 that is definitely worthless now!

Ableton Push 3 standalone is too expensive!

ill wait for a Behringer Bush Tree for 79 euros 

  On 5/24/2023 at 7:02 PM, flacid said:

I guess I'm just trying to find a process that I equally enjoy but am struggling with it

hating the process is a problem for anyone....but i feel there's always a balance between the work/grind/writing and the goal/song/final product. a good finished product is almost always going to require some or a lot of grinding/'work' as part of the process to get it there. enjoying as much of the process is a goal in and of itself, but putting off writing/editing/whatever because part of it isn't as fun as it could be is sad. i've done it for sure tho and sympathize. but sometimes i just have to push myself past that and do something even if it's trash (i've got a harddrive full of trash recordings because of this! but that's okay, they don't get put out and will get purged). the good stuff comes out.

do you still use the OT for writing/sequencing?

  On 5/25/2023 at 3:58 AM, auxien said:

hating the process is a problem for anyone....but i feel there's always a balance between the work/grind/writing and the goal/song/final product. a good finished product is almost always going to require some or a lot of grinding/'work' as part of the process to get it there. enjoying as much of the process is a goal in and of itself, but putting off writing/editing/whatever because part of it isn't as fun as it could be is sad. i've done it for sure tho and sympathize. but sometimes i just have to push myself past that and do something even if it's trash (i've got a harddrive full of trash recordings because of this! but that's okay, they don't get put out and will get purged). the good stuff comes out.

do you still use the OT for writing/sequencing?

 

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Maybe I was lucky in the past then? I used to just turn the gear on, have my synths/drum machines synced, choose some weird sounds, record to tape. The more I work on something the less I like the finished product. The Octatrack is long gone as is the majority of my gear. I have a Digitone, RD-8, TD-3 and Pro800 on the way. Lots to work with. 

Thanks for discussing, will hopefully help me find a process that I can enjoy (I've also got kids now so I have less energy/time and will to do this stuff, maybe that's it. Don't have kids!) 

  On 5/25/2023 at 3:58 AM, auxien said:

(i've got a harddrive full of trash recordings because of this! but that's okay, they don't get put out and will get purged)

Those might be some of your best tracks, don't get rid of them.

Usually the person making something is the least qualified to judge how good it is and it's pretty common for people's best work to be the stuff they like the least.

I really need a USB-A to micro cable longer than 2 feet, but I'm still quarantining and if I order one by the time it shows up I'd be able to just go out and get oe at a shop again.  Replaced two ancient, dodgy MOTUs with one mioXL and it's a big step up but the only way I could manage going from 16x16 to 8x12 was to use USB for everything that supports it.  And of course half of those things have micro USB connectors - the most worthless connector ever conceived.

Still a huge improvement, though.  RTP-MIDI is such a step up from USB for connecting to a computer.  For the irst time ever I actually get decent clock timin from the DAW and don't have to mess with complicated workarounds or free-running outboard clock sources or anything.  +/1 0.1bpm of jitter at 120bpm from a DAW is like magic.

  On 5/25/2023 at 11:06 AM, flacid said:

Maybe I was lucky in the past then? I used to just turn the gear on, have my synths/drum machines synced, choose some weird sounds, record to tape. The more I work on something the less I like the finished product. The Octatrack is long gone as is the majority of my gear. I have a Digitone, RD-8, TD-3 and Pro800 on the way. Lots to work with. 

Thanks for discussing, will hopefully help me find a process that I can enjoy (I've also got kids now so I have less energy/time and will to do this stuff, maybe that's it. Don't have kids!) 

luckier or something similar, i'm sure...that could get into some complex discussion about getting out of your own way when writing is easier at times for persons at different stages of their lives, or at different stages of familiarity with an instrument/DAW/etc. i've heard lots of great sounds out of the Digitone, i know it can get far even alone.

ha yeah i have cats not kids so lots more time to write and record hours of janky sounds 

  On 5/25/2023 at 1:17 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Those might be some of your best tracks, don't get rid of them.

 

Usually the person making something is the least qualified to judge how good it is and it's pretty common for people's best work to be the stuff they like the least.

i've not purged anything yet...some of it will get slipped out somewhere at some point, stuff that was good but hasn't fit anywhere else before...but i record lots of mediocre jams and ambient shit that just doesn't really find its way into any interesting place. i may archive them up somewhere for a few years for anyone with way too much time on their hands to dig through.

Yeah, I'd zip up all the old stuff and stick it on an external hard drive someplace.  Music is relatively small, I have almsot everything I recorded since 200 or 2001 plus a decent amount of cassettes digitized from when I was a kid, and I'm only up to around 700gb so far. That's about $50 of hard drive space these days, not bad for 20+ years of material.

Thomann has Behringer's Edge (i.e. Moog DFAM clone) available, delivery time is 13-17 weeks, but. Gearnews article, here's the Behringer advertisement/quick review.

Sounds nice enough, price point's not too bad, either (compared to DFAM). Here's Edge vs. DFAM:

  On 5/26/2023 at 11:22 AM, dcom said:

delivery time is 13-17 weeks

Suddenly dropped to 1-2 weeks.

  On 5/24/2023 at 7:02 PM, flacid said:

I used to love sequencing things from my 1st octatrack. The timing was tight, the process was easy and I'd just jam out tracks all the time. For some reason though I don't have the same urge to do things like that anymore which is a bit of a shame as I used to really enjoy it. I guess I'm just trying to find a process that I equally enjoy but am struggling with it. Anyway, boo hoo for me etc etc

 I still do this. I used to think I needed something more powerful going from a DAW world where i would write meticulous and complex melodic lines on a piano roll to an octatrack world I was worried I would be too limited, I researched and researched to find the right thing to supplement and couldn't decide what to do. I put myself on the cirklon waiting list. It finally got to be my turn after a couple years. I tried to get it, the link they sent didn't work and they never replied to help me.... whatever. I realized that I didn't need it for my workflow anyway after I forced myself to push past the "limitations" of the octatrack and that such complexity would bog me down and take away from the workflow I already cultivated and the sound I was developing. I can sync my samples/breaks/synths all from the same box and it actually really easy to get more polyphony and I would even argue that using multiple tracks makes it easier to do interesting layering/overlapping of lines. I started using an actual keyboard to write my melodies and it actually didn't hold me back at all, in fact I think it opened things up slightly and helped me learn a better way of working that I started incorporating back into the DAW.  But yeah, otoh, that process took me like 5 years to get comfortable with, it was also very draining at times.

  On 5/24/2023 at 1:16 PM, TubularCorporation said:

No photos, but I jsut found this awesome looking AdLib compatible OPL2 Raspberry Pi shield that only costs $32.

 

But for another $150 (plus a Teensy) you can combine it with this:

It looks like it's more designed around the same seller's OPL3 board, but it says it works with the OPL2 also. An AdLib clone with CV inputs and a display with full GUI would be a lot of fun. It even has a multitrack sequencer with song mode!

With an OPL3 it should be on par with most of the original Yamaha 4 op FM synths (I don't think the OPL3 can do everything the chip in the TX81z did, but I might be wrong about that), but i really like that OPL2 sound.

Not dropping that much money on gear any time soon, but I'll probably get the actual OPL2 board just to have around.

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Very cool little thing, the screen seems little bit fiddly and the price is pretty high but I guess you get what you pay for. 
Just wonder how much you can control from it. 

I was interested in Sudomakers OPL3USB Solution which had support for DOSBOX and Adlib 2 Tracker and it was only 30$ for the unit but they stoped making them. 

 

  On 5/26/2023 at 10:10 PM, cern said:

I was interested in Sudomakers OPL3USB Solution which had support for DOSBOX and Adlib 2 Tracker and it was only 30$ for the unit but they stoped making them.

That sounds great, I wish they were still around.

what a nice synth !

  On 5/26/2023 at 11:22 AM, dcom said:

Thomann has Behringer's Edge (i.e. Moog DFAM clone) available, delivery time is 13-17 weeks, but. Gearnews article, here's the Behringer advertisement/quick review.

Sounds nice enough, price point's not too bad, either (compared to DFAM). Here's Edge vs. DFAM:

 

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This is giving me serious gas. For $200 you could do a lot worse.

  On 5/27/2023 at 3:41 PM, acid1 said:

This is giving me serious gas. For $200 you could do a lot worse.

I've been waiting for Edge to complement Crave, they're one-third of the price of their cloned Moog counterparts, but they sound very much the same as DFAM and Mother-32. If you don't mind Behringer and don't care about authenticity by Moog, but want the same sound, you can't get more bang for your buck with anything else. I've got Edge coming my way as soon as Thomann gets them in stock.

Another cheap plastic box I'm going to get is Sonicware's Texture Lab, looking forward to getting my hands on that one, too.

  On 5/26/2023 at 9:39 PM, Bubba69 said:

 I still do this. I used to think I needed something more powerful going from a DAW world where i would write meticulous and complex melodic lines on a piano roll to an octatrack world I was worried I would be too limited, I researched and researched to find the right thing to supplement and couldn't decide what to do. I put myself on the cirklon waiting list. It finally got to be my turn after a couple years. I tried to get it, the link they sent didn't work and they never replied to help me.... whatever. I realized that I didn't need it for my workflow anyway after I forced myself to push past the "limitations" of the octatrack and that such complexity would bog me down and take away from the workflow I already cultivated and the sound I was developing. I can sync my samples/breaks/synths all from the same box and it actually really easy to get more polyphony and I would even argue that using multiple tracks makes it easier to do interesting layering/overlapping of lines. I started using an actual keyboard to write my melodies and it actually didn't hold me back at all, in fact I think it opened things up slightly and helped me learn a better way of working that I started incorporating back into the DAW.  But yeah, otoh, that process took me like 5 years to get comfortable with, it was also very draining at times.

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lol, I nearly went down the Cirklon route but I'm glad I didn't. It looks great but it wasn't necessary for me. I found the Octatrack such a great central hub but I don't have enough gear to warrant getting another  I might be tempted by a Digitakt at some point as writing drum rhythms on the Digitone is possible but a bit tricky. 

As an aside the DFAM is a wicked drum machine. I just wish the Behringer copy wasn't so fucking ugly! 

I listen to the DFAM and the Edge but I think I can manage to cream out alot of that stuff from my Bass Station 2.  
With the AFX-Mode it's so wild to do beats and so on.. 

And the Sequencer is so rad, very easy hands on with everything. 

Ruismaker Noir for iOS is another good alternative if ya don't care about hardware.