TubularCorporation

I did end up getting a Juno 6 last year (made a lot more money than usual this winter and did the responsible thing - blew it on gear) but honestly the Juno trophy status ALMOST turned me off from getting it. I've just had a soft spot for them for a long, long time because they were always around when I was growing up since it was the synth a high school kid could buy with a week or two of summer job pay, or a college student could get for not much money, so tons of people I knew had one or more of them and I loved playing them but never had one of my own (I had the even cheaper Korg Poly61m but sold it for $80 when I was moving out of state about 10 years ago). I don't regret having it at all, and ended up getting a good (for 2016) deal but I still almost feel like I shouldn't admit I own it, you know? The only vintage analog stuff I'm really interested in anymore is unobtainable fantasy stuff like an Arp 2500 or a mellotron.

Thanks :) That Autechre album art filter thread ended up yielding a couple of surprisingly cool images. Yep, that trophy attitude really turns me off. What was cool about those synths in the first place is that they were kind of crappy and yet people like Squarepusher were using them to make awesome tracks. At this point my "dream" vintage stuff is all samplers and fx anyway :) I wanted one of these for the longest too. But at this point I feel like a volca keys is at least as good, especially after I learned that it doesn't even have an analog osc. Too bad about the CZ-101, I had a soft spot for those too at one point. I borrowed a VZ-10m for a bit, which partly got that lust out of my system. Thing sounded absolutely gorgeous but the interface was worse than the TX81Z and almost as bad as the Matrix 6R. CZ1000 is still pretty cheap though. I felt like a chump buying a CZ101 finally last year since the prices have climbed, but it was worth it. Really fun and easy to program, and sounds great. If I had more space I'd have got the 1000 though, last one I saw local was asking $60.

Sold a couple MIDI controllers to a friend, he's going to paypal me when he gets home and it will be instantly turned over into a full set of crOwBX boards to build over the winter.

Probably a wise choice, really. I think the days of "vintage" being practical (for analog, anyhow) are just about over, collecting has driven everything up so far that in most cases it probably isn't worth it considering what's being made today. And I say that as someone who loves old stuff. Like the new avatar, by the way!

Yeah, the updated firmware and a good programmer are a must, although the 6r is at least programmable at all (and looks comparable to something like a DX-7 in terms of interface, not everyone's cup of tea but workable). I've heard rumors that someone is working on bringing out a commercial Matrix 6/1000 programmer this year, kind of like the Alpes one but prebuilt. If they do, the last of these things are probably going to dry up fast. They're already about times as expensive as they were a few years ago.

A Matrix 1000 with the latest hacked firmware and the Alpes Machines controller is my main analog synth these days. Great, distinctive sound, different from other DCO synths I've used. Something cold about it, but in a good way.

Just started reading this today. Good so far.

Yeah, I feel like if it has to be put in a category then "sampling drum machine" is the one that most fits. It looks like a sampling drum machine with the Elektron workflow, which is cool. I know the later Machinedrum could sample but that wasn't really its main focus or strength, and the T cam work like a drum machine but that's not really its main focus or strength either, so the Digitakt seems to fill a gap.

I tried to convince a friend of mine to get a Dreadbox Hades but he ended up with a secondhand Minibrute instead.

The Field Kit is one of the most interesting modular things I've seen in a while, I wish you hadn't reminded me that they exist because I'm on a strict "no more gear" diet for now (other than, like, trades or free stuff of course). It looks like it's all pretty simple stuff electronically speaking, but having it all in such a compact, well thought out little box would be wonderful.

One way around this would be to have a collection of banks with your library of "preset" parts saved in a folder somewhere. you could just copy that bank into the new project over one of the banks that wasn't being used yet, and then copy the parts you wanted out of it into the bank you were actually using. It would mean connecting to a computer in USB disk mode to copy the bank over which isn't ideal but it should work. It's pretty much how I assembled the set for the show I did last week, except I was just changing the order of the banks to match the order I wanted to play them. So, for example, you could have a bank with four parts full of different synth patches you had made, rename it something like synths01.strd and put it in its own directory outside of the OT's file structure (or not, but that would probably make it easier to keep track of than keeping it in with your regular projects). If you needed a synth patch you could hook up your OT to a computer in USB Disk mode, copy the bank full of synth patches and paste it into the directory of the project you were working on. Then you could delete a bank that you knew was empty, let's say bank 8, and rename the bank full of synth patches, so in this case synths01.strd would become bank08.strd. Then leave USB Disk mode, and now bank 8 would have all of your preset synth patches in it, you could copy them into the banks you were working on as you needed them, either by copying individual tracks or by copying entire parts. EDIT: I just looked it up and it turns out this would kind of be overkill because you can copy/paste parts between projects in the OT already, I haven't had to do it yet so I completely forgot. I manually copy and rename banks to change their order sometimes so that was fresh in my mind. So yeah, easiest way would be to have your synth patches saved in a project, open that up, copy the pattern(s) or part that your synth patch was made from, open the project you wanted to use them in and paste. Not ideal but not that bad. I've never actualy needed to do that though, so I'm only assuming it works based on this thread. Send effects would be fantastic to have on the OT.

Man, that shit ain't funny. Nope.

Check out the Digitech Vocalist stuff if you get a chance. I just passed the old Midi Vocalist on to a friend to fund a JV-1080because I wasn't suing it enough but it's really great for a certain kind of lo-fi, glitchy harmonizing and it's so basic in terms of interface that nobody really seems to want them (although they're pretty rare I think). Most of the "intelligent" features are stripped out but that's fine because they're crap and all you want it for is the "vocoder" mode that detects the pitch of an incoming monophonic signal (well, tries to) and lets you pitch shift up to 5 voices relative to the original from a MIDI keyboard. The whole thing is optimized for voice and when you feed other sounds into it you end up with this kind of hazy, ambient digital pad effect (or at least that's what I used it for) that sounds really distinctive. Only down side is if it can't detect the pitch of the input signal it just mutes instead of glitching, but other than that it's pretty usable and a really unique sounding box. I used to record single note guitar swells into a simple looper until I had one continuous drone, then run that into the MIDI Vocalist, turn the dry signal all the way down, and play slow pads on a MIDI keyboard. Sounded great but I never really made any good recordings with it to share, unfortunately. All the other, fancier Vocalist units just have more features for automatic harmonizing and or improved tracking and pitch shifting, and for misusing the thing all of that is either unnecessary or detrimental in my opinion. I'd still get the entry level MIDI Vocalist if I ever wanted another one (not likely, since it's very much a one-trick pony, but it's a pretty good trick).

Somebody must have posted this already. Surely it's back there in the thread somewhere. But there are too many pages to search through, so just in case it isn't here yet:

Haven't really messed with their digital stuff but Zoom's short lived line of analog guitar pedals was fantastic (at least the ones I've tried). I've had this one since the mid 2000s and it sounds great on everything I've put through it. I think they're generally an underrated company because of their reputation for budget multifx pedals. I've got the PD, UF, and TM, though I never picked up the Hyper Lead (one day I'll complete the set!) and love them all for varying reasons. PD you've got is the best of the bunch no doubt, TM and UF can get fucking wild though. I've had a few of their multifx pedals that were often spotty and build quality was usually shit, but all had some bits of magic in them. Yeah, an old roommategave me one of their cheapes multifx and I was going to rehouse it for a while because as bad as a lot of it sounded (adn not in an interesting way) the pitch shift sounded bad in a really great way. Never ended up doing it, though, the optical expression pedal turned out to be more hassle than it was worth. Honestly, I've got a soft spot for the reverbs in the late 80s and early 90s Digitech guitar multifx units, RP-1 era. I think like everything 90s they've started to get a little less cheap, there was a time not that long ago when it seemed like everyone I knew had one or two of their rack units and nobody had paid a cent for them. The bypass always sounded terrible though.

Haven't really messed with their digital stuff but Zoom's short lived line of analog guitar pedals was fantastic (at least the ones I've tried). I've had this one since the mid 2000s and it sounds great on everything I've put through it. I think they're generally an underrated company because of their reputation for budget multifx pedals.

I've got one, not sure which version because an ex Akai/Alesis/Numark guy I know liberated it from tech support and it had been rehoused with parts they had lying around, so the face plate is actually from a Nanobass, but whichever one it its's a great little 90s-sounding reverb and I think they're completely underrated. I'd love a Microverb I some day but they are getting too expensive. yes, i'm looking something this small for carrying it around with me. so, so far i'm thinking about Alesis Nanoverb 2 TC Electronics M100 (is this thing new-new? can't find reviews...) Boss SE-70 Boss RRV-10 any additional thougts? Never tried an SE-70 but I got an SE50 a long time ago and I like it a lot. The reverbs aren't its strongest point though. Never tried the RRV-10 either but I've got the SDD-10 from the same series and it's pretty great. one of the most analog-like digital delays I've ever used, new or old.

It's not like the vice president is a democrat Even if Pence left office, the next in line is Paul Ryan, and after him is ORRIN HATCH, which would if anything be worse than Trump himself. I think the GOP will be pretty satisfied in any case. Plus repeal and replace is as good as passed already, and that is the ultimate tax cut. That's what some of them have been working on for their entire careers. Once they get that they might finally cut the rope although I'm not optimistic and frankly I think he's going to make it all 4 years and by the end of it the country will be so desperate that we'd actually do something as indescribably stupid as electing Mark Zuckerberg just because he branded himself as a Democrat. Yes, I'm fully aware that link says Zuckerberg is not running. We all know how much that means. We might even end up with Orrin Snatch but it's not like he'd try to rock the boat, he'd just be a placeholder. Trump is just a placeholder, the real action is going on in the background while he distracts us. The toruble is he's an incompotent, uncooperative, megalomaniacal, possibly literally mentally ill placeholder so even someone like Pence would be a slight improvement because at least he might understand that some lines aren't worth crossing. Maybe. I might be giving him too much credit.

It's not like the vice president is a democrat Even if Pence left office, the next in line is Paul Ryan, and after him is ORRIN HATCH, which would if anything be worse than Trump himself. I think the GOP will be pretty satisfied in any case. Plus repeal and replace is as good as passed already, and that is the ultimate tax cut. That's what some of them have been working on for their entire careers. Once they get that they might finally cut the rope although I'm not optimistic and frankly I think he's going to make it all 4 years and by the end of it the country will be so desperate that we'd actually do something as indescribably stupid as electing Mark Zuckerberg just because he branded himself as a Democrat. Yes, I'm fully aware that link says Zuckerberg is not running. We all know how much that means.

Same here but I tend to favor darker sounding reverbs that are more like a foggy swamp a half hour before sunrise. The Big Sky seems to be very well named, and it sound just isn't the sort I gravitate to. I pretty much always lowpass the input of every reverb I use all the way down below 10k before it starts to sound right to me. Yeah it sounds like we have similar taste in verbs. Yeah, enough people swear by the Strymon that I assume it's probably quite good, it's just really good at doing something that doesn't really do much for me.

Same here but I tend to favor darker sounding reverbs that are more like a foggy swamp a half hour before sunrise. The Big Sky seems to be very well named, and it sound just isn't the sort I gravitate to. I pretty much always lowpass the input of every reverb I use all the way down below 10k before it starts to sound right to me.

+1 Question for the class. Favourite reverb hardware? I've used a Strymon blue sky for a bit but sold it. Looking back that was a grave error. Waaat... Somehow I felt Strymon (and I suppose neunaber immerse ting) pedal users were life users, but I guess not. Software convolution reverbs are nutz, so that's my favorite type. Only hardware I've owned are current Behringer RV600 pedal (great bang for buck), and a Digitech rack unit like 15+ years ago (which had a few lush presets). Back then, I really wanted a TC Electronic M-One, which sounded luuush... It seems like technology is so hardcore now, that any reverb hardware is good. And then it's like, even the most "digital sounding" 90's reverbs are cool, so I suppose... -Is it possible that NO reverb unit or effect is bad?! Yeah, I think I sold it to buy a synth or something, can't remember. Big mistake, was extremely lush. I agree with software convolution reverbs. The Ableton ones are wicked. lol, it probably is harder nowadays to find a bad reverb or effect! Only problem with convolution is that it doesn't capture dynamic or time varying changes so they're not that good for replicating DSP reverbs. Fantastic for acoustic spaces though, as long as you're not trying to simulate sound sources coming from different positions in the same space. Melda Multiband Convolution is pretty fantastic but for some reason I never find myself using it anymore, I'm actually on a big DSP reverb kick these days, and when I use convolution it's mostly for weird, non-reverb sound design stuff.

I've got one, not sure which version because an ex Akai/Alesis/Numark guy I know liberated it from tech support and it had been rehoused with parts they had lying around, so the face plate is actually from a Nanobass, but whichever one it its's a great little 90s-sounding reverb and I think they're completely underrated. I'd love a Microverb I some day but they are getting too expensive.

Did they actually finally find some experienced lawyers willing to represent them?

More on the combat simulation in my neighborhood, including a bit of video. Despite that photo of a flyer in the article there were absolutely no flyers in my neighborhood, which is half a block from where the videos were shot. There were between 5 and 8 explosions total, and the blackhawk helicopters came back and circled for about 15 minutes an hour later. I've been talking to people who were outside when it happened and I underestimated how serious it was. No explanations were given, residents that approached had a large spotlight shone in their eyes and were ordered to return to their homes by armed soldiers. There are dedicated training facilities for this sort of operation, doing it in a residential neighborhood is highly unusual to say the least.