the watmm GAS thread

Spoilered because not really GAS relevant but relevant to the distortion conversation on the previous page:

^that sounds pretty nice actually. Bet some synth through that could be lovely.

I bought a pair of Dynaudio BM15A. They sound AMAZING!!

I strongly dislike how every Scandinavian has to overemphasise 'Rrryyiitmmm' 

There's a Korg KP2 Kaoss Pad on craigslist pretty cheap. Seems like an interesting stereo effects and jamming tool that's good to have just in case. I remember seeing a lot of cool stuff made with Kaoss Pads but this one is some earlier model.. probably still good right?

i have the KP3 which is pretty good for audio fuckery. there are much nicer effects out there if you want it mainly for the delays and more standard FX though having so much in one unit is really handy. almost all the effects are tempo synced which is useful. other than the fact it's ugly as hell i'm not sure what the differences are between the KP2 and KP3. does it do sampling?

I believe the KP3 does a lot more.

  On 1/13/2018 at 12:08 AM, Leon Sumbitches said:

Spoilered because not really GAS relevant but relevant to the distortion conversation on the previous page:

 

 

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I've been getting nice results using an old Sanyo tape recorder for distortion lately, it fuzzes up really nicely. I'm running my guitar directly into it with the tape machine's input up to maximum; in order to hear any output the tape has to be rolling, so I'm not actually sure whether the distortion is coming from overloaded tape being monitored in real-time or whether it's just the machine itself overloading, rather than the tape. I suspect it's the machine itself distorting because I don't think a machine of this size/crapulence can read the tape in real-time? Regardless, I recorded a wee sample; forgive the sloppy riffage:

 

https://soundcloud.com/tanizaki_uk/sanyo-distortion-test

 

 

 

Lovely. I do this quite a bit with dictaphones too, it's degrading.

  On 1/13/2018 at 2:40 AM, Alan Ord said:

I strongly dislike how every Scandinavian has to overemphasise 'Rrryyiitmmm' 

Makes me wince I tell thee.

Interested to see if the Digitone is a spiritual successor to the Monomachine. I want a digital synth with a load of different ways to generate sound and a sensual, plockable sequencer.

I had a KP-2 for a while, it was pretty cool but really limited, closer to the Mini Kaoss Pad than to the KP3.

Had a KP3 for a couple of years, it was fun for messing but I didn't hear anything of any quality from it. Sounded a bit cheap. That's not nescessarily a bad thing just didn't impress me enough to use it seriously.

  On 1/13/2018 at 12:56 AM, Squee said:

I bought a pair of Dynaudio BM15A. They sound AMAZING!!

I'm super jealous. I bought a pair of those used from guitar center and they were unbelievable. unfortunately they also picked up some random radio station in the tweeter so i was hearing pop radio all day and had to return them :( apparently it's a common problem with those depending on where you live. got some genelecs instead, which i love but there was something just so 3D about the dynaudios. 

  On 1/19/2018 at 6:03 PM, Chesney said:

Had a KP3 for a couple of years, it was fun for messing but I didn't hear anything of any quality from it. Sounded a bit cheap. That's not nescessarily a bad thing just didn't impress me enough to use it seriously.

Yeah, I played with someone who used one for a few years and there was something about the sound of it that wasn't that exciting to me.  It did a lot of stuff and he made good use of it but I never wanted one.  I'm all for cheap, but I remember the KP3 was the sort of thing that you wanted to make a major piece in your setup and for that role I think think the sound was there, for me.

  On 1/19/2018 at 6:35 PM, nikisoko said:

 

  On 1/13/2018 at 12:56 AM, Squee said:

I bought a pair of Dynaudio BM15A. They sound AMAZING!!

I'm super jealous. I bought a pair of those used from guitar center and they were unbelievable. unfortunately they also picked up some random radio station in the tweeter so i was hearing pop radio all day and had to return them :( apparently it's a common problem with those depending on where you live. got some genelecs instead, which i love but there was something just so 3D about the dynaudios. 

 

I used to have a pair of older hi-fi speakers that picked up Spanish language CB radio conversations for about an hour around the same time every day.  As loud as the music you were playing.

With the KP2 I think the biggest appeal for me is that it's got stereo and the pad makes expressive playing easily possible. I have messed around with a friend's KP3 (I think) ages ago and it was great to just plonk it like a drum to make any sound rhythmically interesting. Will need to check out some more youtubes to understand the sound better.

Thanks for all the opinions, btw!

I have the miniKP and if you're just looking for something cheap with a pad on it, and don't care about the MIDI, it ain't bad. I have a thing for cute form-factors though, so I'm biased.

About the KP3...

It's amazing! I use it all the time - though I'm not sure if I use it the way it was intended. But fuck that. I also have the KP1 which sounds a lot better than the KP3. The KP3 is way too clean, whereas the KP1 is just full on dirt and the delays and reverbs are beautiful

  On 1/20/2018 at 4:05 AM, sweepstakes said:

I have the miniKP and if you're just looking for something cheap with a pad on it, and don't care about the MIDI, it ain't bad. I have a thing for cute form-factors though, so I'm biased.

I have one of those too (first generation) and it's great, it has a certain kind of reverb that's really bad but in exactly the right way sometimes.  The sort of thing that jsut sounds like a short delay with a lot of feedback and some white noise mixed it, all weird and metallic.  Sometimes that's the best and it's getting harder and harder to find, even Behringer mixers have good onboard effects now.  That one reverb in the miniKP sounds like something from a 90s karaoke machine, though, and that alone is more than enough reason or me to keep it.  The other effects are fun too (and sound more conventionally good).

The KP-2 is essentially a fancier miniKP with a bigger pad, a few more parameters (but not many), MIDI and more memory locations.  I regret getting rid of it but not enough to get a new one.  If I'm going to spend $50-$60 on something like that I'm getting a Tweakalizer just to see.

EDIT: my favorite use of the KP-2 was to feed a mono signal into the left input, feed the left output into the right input, feed the right input into a mixer, and then configure it so it was 100% wet and muted when I wasn't touching the pad.  Worked really well with the filtered reverb settings especially, I could touch it and get all kinds of extreme feedback sounds that I could tune with the filter, but it would stop instantly as soon as I lifted my finger off the pad.  Kind of like finger drumming with mixer feedback.

I'm trying to alleviate GAS by choosing one piece of gear that I already own (or a small setup of 2–3) every week, and making a track just with that.. rediscovered the nord modular yesterday:

https://weeklybeats.com/0f/music/0fveleplxr

  On 1/22/2018 at 1:54 AM, modey said:

I'm trying to alleviate GAS by choosing one piece of gear that I already own (or a small setup of 2–3) every week, and making a track just with that.. rediscovered the nord modular yesterday:

 

https://weeklybeats.com/0f/music/0fveleplxr

That's a good idea. I'm basically doing the same, but that's just because all I know how to do is jam with 1-3 pieces of gear at a time lol. Anyway, yeah, it does seem to be helping the GAS a bit.

I relapsed in a big way yesterday. Went from browsing dining room chairs on craigslist to browsing dining room chairs on Yahoo auctions to browsing synths and control surfaces on Yahoo auctions to finally bidding on a Livid Code v2 to actually winning the bid. It's like 130€/$160 so I am considering it a steal for the price.

Oh and RSP thanks a bunch for the KP2 ideas, I might still get it, because it sounds like a fun toy and I already have the KOMA field kit which seems like an ideal combination for some really wicked noises and feedbacks.

  On 1/22/2018 at 3:22 AM, thawkins said:

I relapsed in a big way yesterday. Went from browsing dining room chairs on craigslist to browsing dining room chairs on Yahoo auctions to browsing synths and control surfaces on Yahoo auctions to finally bidding on a Livid Code v2 to actually winning the bid. It's like 130€/$160 so I am considering it a steal for the price.

 

Oh and RSP thanks a bunch for the KP2 ideas, I might still get it, because it sounds like a fun toy and I already have the KOMA field kit which seems like an ideal combination for some really wicked noises and feedbacks.

I mean don't get me wrong it is kinda crappy.

  On 1/22/2018 at 4:52 AM, RSP said:

 

  On 1/22/2018 at 3:22 AM, thawkins said:

I relapsed in a big way yesterday. Went from browsing dining room chairs on craigslist to browsing dining room chairs on Yahoo auctions to browsing synths and control surfaces on Yahoo auctions to finally bidding on a Livid Code v2 to actually winning the bid. It's like 130€/$160 so I am considering it a steal for the price.

 

Oh and RSP thanks a bunch for the KP2 ideas, I might still get it, because it sounds like a fun toy and I already have the KOMA field kit which seems like an ideal combination for some really wicked noises and feedbacks.

 

I mean don't get me wrong it is kinda crappy.

 

 Yeah I am going to let my gut decide this one. I was thinking that even I get it and hate it, I can plug it into my Raspberry Pi as a MIDI controller, run some patch inside that (but who am I kidding, the Pi has been gathering dust for the past 6 months...).

I had an idea to use minikp to control monomachine's joystick function but it doesnt have midi :(?)

P.s. No midi = stupid mofo korgians!

  On 1/22/2018 at 9:21 AM, xox said:

I had an idea to use minikp to control monomachine's joystick function but it doesnt have midi :(?)

 

P.s. No midi = stupid mofo korgians!

I was briefly considering buying one of these and putting it in a little desktop case with a power supply to use as a standalone MIDI controller, but it seemed kind of dumb when you could get two (or three if you were lucky) KP-2's for the same price.  Unless those have gone up in price recently.  IIRC doing it completely DIY from scratch wasn't going to save enough money to make it worth the hassle, either.

Got the Livid Code v2. Spent some time making sense of the official documentation (scattered around their wiki) and firmware updating and getting the browser based editor to work. I really like the form factor and all the leds and pushable encoders, but the default official Live script has no way of arming tracks or playing/recording clips so I guess it's time to get into programming again.

  On 1/25/2018 at 1:44 PM, thawkins said:

Got the Livid Code v2. Spent some time making sense of the official documentation (scattered around their wiki) and firmware updating and getting the browser based editor to work. I really like the form factor and all the leds and pushable encoders, but the default official Live script has no way of arming tracks or playing/recording clips so I guess it's time to get into programming again.

The starkness of that device is inviting, for sure. WIll be curious to hear how you get along with it.

In personal news, I've realized over the last week or two that I need an FM poly (yes, I've got Ableton Live but I feel the need for a hardware device anyway? this is unreasonable, I know, shut up, this is the GAS thread, fucker) and decided on a Yamaha TG33 because, well, it sounds fucking amazing. I'm pretty sure RSP had brought it to my attention some time ago so all blame is on him. Hopefully will have one purchased and on its way to me in the next few days.

Just listen to this shit man: