TubularCorporation

That monitor is cyberpunk af

Yeah, I'm really excited. Just need to get a few outlets fixed and a couple old mouse holes plugged under the sink (I'm the first non-cat-owner in the building in a lot of years) and do a lot more unpacking but it's already the best place I've had in a long time. I realized the other night that it's been over a decade since my stereo has actually been in a room big enough for it to sound good,

RS-09 I traded my old MG-1 to a friend for it last year (probably an unfair trade by current prices but I got the MG-1 for $25 and I had been after a string synth for years but couldn't justify the size of most of them) and he just traded the MG-1 for a Mother 32 so everyone is happy.

Still a lot to do but I'm at the point where I can mix ITB again. Ended up not using the speaker stands I traded for and just going for the not-ideal-bu-passable monitors beside the screen approach. The layout of the room makes spreading them apart any wider kind of a pain. So far I'm not finding that I need to toe them in at all because they're so close together, but once I'm done setting up I'll experiment a bit.

OG lady winter is the best OT! Hats off to autocorrect for that one.

on the Raspberry Pi stuff, I am no coder but it seems to me like writing custom objects (If you even need them) for Axoloti might be a more effective route to take ultimately.

I'm pretty new to Elektron stuff but for what it's worth I got an OT MkI lady winter and I have no desire for a Digitakt although they look like really good drum machinres. My only regret is that it didn't take me longer to save up for it, because I'd have saved like $300 If I ordered it from B&H just a few months later during the sale. I think if I got a Digitakt I would still want an OT. I guess it depends on what you need it for but as the centerpiece of a portable live rig the OT was the only option for me.

Same but it works better when there's more stereo inputs to burn. These soundcrafts are a bit light on those. Yeah, they are. I was originally leaning Allen and Heath because of that but I went with the Soundcraft because of what I read about the mid EQ and I think I made the right call.

Even on mixers with dedicated returns I usually use a regular channel whenever I can, anyway. Being able to EQ the wet signal is great, and being able to feed a little bit of the wet signal back into itself, or crossfeed the return of one aux into another aux, is often really useful, too. But it's still nice to have them, if only to have a few more line inputs. The EPM series model numbers suggest pretty strongly that those stereo tracks were meant to be used as more-flexible-than-usual returns, though. Otherwise you'd think they would count the stereo channels as two inputs in their model numbers to make the channel count sound higher, like most companies do, so the EPM6 could be called EPM10, EPM8 could be called the EPM12 and EPM12 could be called EPM16. The location of the send jacks right above the matching stereo channels is a big visual cue, too. So from that point of view, they have better aux returns than most small mixers. EDIT: it's worth pointing out that it's pretty simple to make adapters (or even just use half insterted Y cables) to use the channel inserts as pre-EQ direct outs, too (the manual even has a little section showing how to make them), so if you have enough inputs on your interface you could easily take direct feeds of all your mixer channels and ALSO record your live mix at the same time.

Yeah, that Mackie mute feature is great. I was never too excited about Mackie stuff but I found a perfectly good 1202 that someone had thrown out last fall and that feature is REALLY useful. Also it's like 2/3 the size of the EPM8. I definitely prefer the sound of the EPM EQs to any other comparably priced mixer I've used, though. I think for live use the Mackie is probably better, because of the size and the alt 3-4 tricks that you can do, but if you're using it in a home studio to track through or do small mixes I'd go with the Soundcraft any day. EDIT: those sweepable mids are really good for feedback loops on an aux send, too.

Yes. so it's turned on all the time? does it get hot? I've never noticed a problem. I have all my stuff on power strips so I just turn it of that way. EDIT: you can always add an in-line IEC power switch like this, too:

Awesome, thanks for the input! Definitely leaning Soundcraft after this thread. Might just go for the 8 because it's close to $100 less on Sweetwater, just a follow-up Q - from what I've read the only big difference from the 8 and the 12 is the number of channels, unless I'm missing something. The EQs seem the same yeah? So should I go big on the 12 or stick to the 8? For the foreseeable, I've only got 3-4 line signals, plus 1-3 more when I jam live with buddies. The EPM8 is actually what I have. 8 mono channels with mic preamps plus two more stereo channels, that's why I was thinking 12 channel. There are no dedicated effects returns, so the stereo channels are kind of like returns with full (minus mid EQ band) channel strips, but if you are jamming with friends you can get 10 mono channels into an EPM8 with no problem. I don't think there's any other difference between the two, other than the number of channels.

Yes.

I don't know which one it is, my friend noticed it in a garage when he was getting some Craigslist records but he didn't have the money or space to make an offer on it at the time, and isn't a big synth person. He actually has a Juno 60 with a case and MIDI converter in the store room at work and had no idea it was worth more than a couple hundred dollars now because he just picked it up for like $100 years ago, similar situation. This is why I miss working at record shops, the things that find their way to you are just unbelievable - back in 2007 I could have had a Triadex Muse one of our regulars had found in the garbage and wanted to sell for $80 but I was home with a cold the day it came in and the owner wouldn't go above $40 on it so the seller went across town and sold it to another shop for $80 (although that's exactly how much I had to pay for one of these and it's a lot more rewarding than a Triadex would ever be, so that pretty much makes up for it). MY first analog synth was a Poly61m and I sold it for $80 (that seems to be the magic number with this stuff!) around 2009 when I moved to a new city, but I was listening to some old 4 track recordings from the late 90s that I played it on recently and it really has a nice tone to it. I'd never pay what they go for now or anything but if I could find one cheap I'd probably go for it as long as the battery wasn't leaky.

This is where I'm at (unless my friend comes through with that cheap Korg I mentioned earlier, because a sub $300 PolySix or MonoPoly would be madness to pass up these days), I'm about half way through moving and will have a much better space to work in than I've ever had before, so my only GAS now is stuff like rack rails and cables and maybe another patchbay. Some nice birch plywood to make a proper stand for my turntable. But all I really ant to do is be set up so I can just go in and work without any hassle, and get a nice workflow going between DAW based recording and a simple, portable, Octatrack based live rig, so I can get back in to playing out more often than 2-3 times a year like it's been since I quit playing with bands and no longer have a drummer with a van I can count on to transport a bunch of gear. The last thing I want is to get more things, especially after having to carry everything up and down a bunch of stairs.

I got a Soundcraft EPM series (I forget the number, it's boxed up right now since I'm mid-move, but it's the 12 channel one with no built in effects) a couple years back, one of the few pieces of gear I've actually bought new rather than used, and I'm really happy with it for the price. Cons: -preamps have a good amount of headroom but when they DO clip it's not the kind I find very musical or interesting -bigger than similar mixers Pros: -per-channel inserts -mid-band EQ can get into almost bandpass territory and is definitely useful as a sound design tool -bigger than similar mixers (nice fader throw for a relatively inexpensive mixer - not a budget mixer but still reasonably priced) -1/4" jacks are really solid or the price. -Legowelt uses one so if you use one you will be as good as Legowelt

So I'm not officially in the market for any new gear under normal circumstances, but a friend of mine has a line on a potentially VERY cheap Korg Poly6 or MonoPoly (he isn't sure yet which it is, but whatever, either would be pretty amazing to have around) so if it's not in unsalvageable condition because of a leaking battery Christmas might come early for me this year.

You joke but the last girl I dated just listened to old 78s on a gramophone. Knew how to service it and everything.

We had some of those Tandbergs at the record shop where I worked in the mid and late 2000s, they were pretty nice. You could do some crude overdubs on them but IIRC there was no sel-sync so you had to monitor from the playback head while you recorded to the record head, and that meant in practice it was impossible to actually do anything in time. But for weird experiments and ping pong tape echo it would be fantastic. Downside is that joystick sort of mechanism used to select the different modes tended to freeze up. But if it was working, yeah, see if you can contact him again and get it! Honestly, I think VHS-only releases are due to tart popping up any day now. I've had some ideas on the back burner for a couple of years, myself, and if I'm thinking of it then someone hipper than me must already be on it.

I guess it depends on at which point the "cassette-ness" has been applied 1991 seems to do it right, as the digital downloads seem to be cassette rips - the actual cassette versions sound great. I do have a cassette release that sounds terrible, though. Just thinking about artists like Tobacco - who recorded loads of his last album on a crap Tascam multitrack, according to this ep of Song Exploder. I'd be interested to know what the mastering guidelines are for tape too, as I've read loads about vinyl but not seen anything about cassette tape. Looks like you sold a few tapes there, can't be that bad!! Ohh I didn't mean that was me, I meant I have that release on cassette :p Was just really disappointed with the sound quality, it really is rather terrible. I'm sure there's a few people on here who have some tips on mastering for tape, I know brisk definitely knows a thing or two (he's 36 on bandcamp) I know only the basic one which is to set the loudest part of the recording in red / 0db with it hitting +1-3 db on the peaks. If it's higher quality tape type II or type IV you can push it in the red a lot more (+4-5 db). Too much creates distortion AKA tape saturation. For many this is a really nice effect of tape. 303 acid sounds even nicer recorded on tape in red (seen this mentioned before on here) BoC mentioned doing this on Tomorrow's Harvest for one of their sound stabs. Lot of shitty dubs aren't even close to the red which is why they sound so hissy. Yes and no, depends on the deck, too, because you also have to consider the headroom of the signal path before the tape. So if you're pushing it too hard you are also probably getting some transistor distortion (not necessarily a bad thing). I've got a basic, early 90s two head Nakamichi (thanks, other people's trash!) that I forget the model number of and have packed right now since I'm moving in a few days, and it seems to like it when I average just below the red on the level meters and rarely hit the top. I use that on the odd occasion I do a small cassette release, but when I am recording to cassette as an effect I use my old portastudio from when I was a kid, and in that case I run it as hot as possible with the noise reduction off (because running things hot with noise reduction on doesn't work - you aren't pushing the tape itself harder you are just pushing the noise reduction's compressor harder, the output level from the noise reduction circuit to the tape is standardized and you will get better results by being conservative with your input levels in that case) because there's not a single part of that signal path that doesn't sound good when it distorts. Sometimes I won't even record to tape, I'll just run stuff through it and drive the pres really hard for that specific kind of saturation it gets. But yeah, as a general rule, don't record too hot when you use noise reduction, if you don't use noise reduction record as hot as you can before it starts to sound bad to your ear (which is totally subjective since I don't think any of us are going for "audiophile" here, and at any rate a good home dubbed cassette is always going to be better than a commercial cassette that was dubbed at about 20x speed in a high speed duplication machine - that's a reason why Nakamichi's short lived, well regarded line of audiophile cassette releases were dubbed in real time on one of their higher end commercial decks, for example).

Just found out about Elmo Keep's site, and man is she a goldmine of smart critique of the tech sector's unfortunate tendency toward magical thinking, ideological extremism and pseudoscience, from transhumanism, to Mars One to everything Peter Thiel ever said. Wonderful stuff.

Yeah, that thing sound fantastic, I'd never heard of it before! It actually kind of reminds me of this stuff I got by running a CZ-101 through a bunch of parallel thru machines in the octatrack at the show I played a few weeks ago, but way lusher. If I had an unlimited gear budget that thing would be right near the top of the list now for sure. That and a Dreadbox Abyss.

I love Legowelt, and I'm so glad I have no interest in cassette collecting (I'll record on them, I'll make them, but I never listen to them - I haven't even had the outputs on my cassette deck patched to anything in like 3 years) because he would be making me bankrupt right now if I did. That said, I did just almost snag a Bontempi 666 LP I really shouldn't have spent money on thanks to this thread, until I saw that the cheapest overseas shipping option was more than twice the price of the LP itself.

yes, i know... right now my decision is to buy the geiger counter AND the 2-pole. i believe they could pair well p.s. didn't you said that you have a broken 2-pole? you know that stefan betke made a complete career based on a broken waldorf fiter, right? ...although, his was a 4-pole...;) you should do it man! there's a million stupid efx out there but very few interesting ones, especially filters. i would too but i'm too busy with other things atm Well, I can't promise they'd be interesting.