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thawkins

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Posts posted by thawkins

    Roll out of Big Sur caused havoc on Mojave/Catalina macs.

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    11 hours ago, ignatius said:

    i tend to assume if one company is doing it then they all are and it's worse than we know. but then i wonder for a while "what does it mean?" and eventually i forget about it and move on unless there's something simple i can do to moderate any potential harm

    I don't think Apple is selling the data it collects to outside companies, like Facebook or Google are doing. I am naively assuming this because their core business is making the hardware and software so they really should not hurt for cash.

    That said, they probably are branching into this field by bluetooth tracking in physical stores and all the other fun stuff that I forget or don't know about.

    Until the US government starts properly regulating big technology business unfortunately there is nothing to do but take it.

    Roll out of Big Sur caused havoc on Mojave/Catalina macs.

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, ignatius said:

    i find that usually the outrage over some computer privacy issue is overblown, then more understood as a more benign if a bit creepy OS thing.. but sometimes the outrage is justified.. it's just a matter of figuring out when the sky is falling and when it isn't.

    I am at the level of cynicism where if I read news like this, I assume the reality is far worse and we will get something closer to the truth some 5 years later when someone accidentally discloses another top secret slideshow about mass surveillance.

    Roll out of Big Sur caused havoc on Mojave/Catalina macs.

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    1 minute ago, dr lopez said:

    no they didn't "deserve" it, and they're not stupid. and i don't hate apple. I've used macs literally my entire life and will continue to do so. I just think often articles on the (very real and scary) concerns over digital privacy treat every computer user as a hyper-online tech-savy person who can at the very least explain the differences in linux/mac/win. that right there eliminates SWATHS of computer users. a majority of people on earth I would reckon. So my point is that apple has probably made a calculation that most consumers dont really know or mind about those internet based checks, cookies etc. Those who demand digital privacy will do something else. 

    Yeah I guess. My consolation is that so far Apple is not selling your data, they are just handing it over to law enforcement.

    Roll out of Big Sur caused havoc on Mojave/Catalina macs.

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    3 hours ago, dr lopez said:

    all those pearl-clutching muh privacy posts seem to ignore that very few people actually care about whether or not a computer "phones home." a "general purpose" pc is for most users something to check email, surf the web, maybe type some things and create a few slideshows. the people who care about digital privacy are not using macs and apple isn't making computers for them. that type of article comes any time apple announces a new operating system. 

     

    anyway macos has sucked hard for at least 10 years. snow leopard was the best

    A lot of people care about privacy. Stuff like the cookie law (however dumb the implementation) and GDPR is not there because a few folks wrote blog posts about these things. They exist because on a fundamental level people are catching up that keeping your stuff private on the internet is a big deal.

    It's just not that easy for many folks to put the money where their mouth is and switch to a platform that does not spy on them, because - as I said before - Windows is a similar mess of snitching, and administering your personal Linux workstation is a big fucking headache even for people who are at home with computers, and basically a nonstarter for anyone who needs software that does not run on Linux. Let's not forget that majority of the work that goes into keeping Linux the platform of choice has to do with how it works as a headless server sitting in a datacenter rack - almost nobody cares about a desktop user experience.

    I guess your attitude is basically "haha stupid mac users deserve what they got, nobody cares anyway", thanks for your informative contribution.

    Roll out of Big Sur caused havoc on Mojave/Catalina macs.

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    I am still on Mojave due to the 64 bit thing, also I don't feel the need to update since I am happy with what I have now.

    I admit I don't like how they do the phoning home for each application opened, but I guess this is kind of necessity for providing security at a large scale. I also think you can either have one or the other: you can have a super secure and private linux box that you spend time maintaining and fixing stuff, or you can have a more or less stable mac/windows where you are at a mercy of BigCorp who does some snitching and creepy stuff, definitely passing your data to the cops and maybe also selling it to someone for profits.

    Automated Ambient Patterns

    in Your Latest Creations

    Posted

    21 hours ago, zkom said:

    ~20 minute cuts of the new and old versions are now available for download for free at Bandcamp https://vuovuovuo.bandcamp.com/album/automated-ambient-patterns

     

    I am almost done with the 1st track and the music is good but it brings back memories of being stuck at some point in a computer game and having the music repeat ENDLESSLY while I fail to find the correct piece for the puzzle.

    Nowadays I just cheat and find a walkthrough online.

     

    Anyway thanks for sharing these. ?

    the watmm GAS thread

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, sweepstakes said:

    Yep. I like the challenge of squashing to stereo, but you'll generally end up with a cartoonish, unbalanced mix. Even where the Monomachine provides a handy 1-band EQ, this is a bit of a riddle. And frankly even with an audio interface that can handle it, I can't be arsed dealing with more than about 4 outputs at a time.

    I guess what I had in mind is more like first working on stereo messing with what you got in the hardware: choose the right sounds, right levels, panning, note velocities and arrangement in general. Later you can just record the timbres one by one and do the final mix and cleanup like you would anyway.

    the watmm GAS thread

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    @e-mertz That track is super good and I wish I could like your post many more times than once - this hardware sequencer workflow seems super neat.

    Also "thanks" for making me to think about getting a KeyStep again! I thought I had cleansed my mind of these urges... :catnope:

    Anyway one last suggestion I remembered is the Yamaha Motif workstation line. I have a Yamaha MO6 which is not with me at the moment and I remember that it has a simple eq for lo/mid/hi for every sound in addition to a tweakable filter too. And the MO6 is a basic model, you can get a Motif ES rack for 500EUR which is a more badass model https://reverb.com/p/yamaha-motif-es-rack

    the watmm GAS thread

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    10 hours ago, e-mertz said:

    I want !multi-timbral!

    though I appreciate the tip and think it's a sweet synth

    edit: ok realized the ms-2000 is bi-timbral. Would rather have 4 parts tho :))

    So I have two multitimbral synths: Roland XV-5080 rack module and a Korg MicroX. They are not knobby and since both are digital romplers, that are really really deep in terms of architecture and parameters, but due to that it's basically impossible to have a one-size-fits-all set of knobs that will be useful. I use them more as expressive preset sound sources (with some filter and release modulation) rather than going deep into sound design and architecture (I use the MS2000R for that).

    I think if you want a synth where you can have 4 parts (or more), and it has a knobby and immediate interface, and $500, then I would buy a MIDI control surface and map it to with some VSTs. Or just have a collection of separate synths.

    My experience is that it's quite a headache to get a comfortable workflow with a multitimbral synth, mainly for two reasons:

    • if the hardware has just one stereo out, you have to juggle muting different sounds and you can't easily have a dedicated track for each part. It's an interesting limitation to work on a single stereo pair so that you build a whole track with no DAW effects or EQ until you get it finished and then it is somehow way more easier to mix it.
    • the are only a limited amount of parameters that you can change over MIDI - for anything deeper you need a librarian/editor VST that does sysex. I have 0 experience with that last part but the official editors for MicroX and XV5080 don't work on my laptop natively and I don't think there is a good 3rd party replacement.
      Due to this, saving any automation or knob fuckery you do into the project so that you can open it later for editing and mixing, is a huge pain. I use some M4L MIDI CC device for managing some basic parameters but I do no deeper sound design than that.

    That said, I have been enjoying working with the synths I have, and even though I can't really do any really deep sound design, it's nice to have all those good-sounding presets to play around with.

    • Like 4

    Allen & Heath Xone:DB2 Flanger issue

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    Since it is a DJ mixer, I think this is probably some cheapo digital effect which does a few things but not well enough that the effects could really be used.

    If you want to dig in, I suggest to find the manual for the mixer and looking at what it says about the built in effects. If it has any sort of more detailed technical specifications sheet (or even MIDI specification), then maybe it's possible to fix your issue.

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    Anyways, it seems that after I fixed my bespoke MIDI rack that added harmonics by way of the Chord device, and - crucially - also updated the Max version, the problems are gone now.

    Thanks for the suggestion to go into the NoteModulator device to see what might be wrong - I would not have seen the "hey you can update Max" message otherwise.

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks. Those plugins look a little bit sketchy though - I wonder how well they integrate with Push and all that.

    Honestly I do not have a specific workflow that I am after, it's more the opposite: once I get to a workflow, it lasts one week and then I need to change things around. Sometimes it seems that half of my projects are named "jam template" or "midi jam template" and consist of less and even less successful attempts of setting up a default template based workflow. Recently it feels that I am getting somewhere though.

    With this NoteModulator experiment I wanted to have a way of "fading out" a MIDI track using note velocities and also having a quick way to mute notes (by way of modulating the velocity to 0) on Push, because I feel that the melodic step sequencer view on Push is insane and unusable for this purpose. Maybe I just need to spend some time getting to know it, but ehhh...

     

    Damn I even messed up writing "insane" in the thread title, maybe time to take a break.

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks.

    What I want to do is record any MIDI clip, and then have faders to modulate every 1-to-Nth velocity that is hitting the device. So I can have an arpeggiator running or a sequence of any length and just tone down the velocity of every 3rd note out of 8 for example.

    I could do this fine with Notemodulator but I guess something broke recently which is a shame.

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah I guess you are correct that it is the M4L device that is causing the problem.

    It's not easily replacable by the Velocity builtin, because it is in fact more like a step sequencer. It's one of Robert Henke's free M4L things that are basically the only non-builtin things I use in Live https://www.roberthenke.com/technology/m4l.html

    AFAIK he is also one of the developers for Live itself, so I guess I expected those things to be more robust.

    I guess I could look into what is happening behind the scenes, but it feels like a huge rabbit hole to descend into.

    Thanks for all the advice and tips though!

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    What's really really annoying with the NodeModulator thing is that it used to be an amazing trick for making a single note arpeggio something interesting by modulating the velocities (especially setting the loop length to 7 or another weird number) and now if I just enable the device without any knob twiddling at all, it just creates the effect of gently fading out my awesome bass arp because it's affecting the NoteOff messages somehow.

    I realise it's not a part of the official M4L device set that you get bundled with the software, but still.

    is it ableton live or I am going insane

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by thawkins

    I have two things going around in my projects recently:

    1. The "Track 2" mystery. 2 identical MIDI tracks, with Arpeggiator, NoteModulator M4L device, then a MIDI rack with 6 Chord devices so I can run an arp and add some harmonic notes by fading up the rack knobs.
      The first track works as I expect it to: notes go in and go out to the hardware. There are no duplicate notes due to NoteModulator or any of the Chord instances.
      The 2nd track is outputting 6x noteon-noteoff for as it should (I assume one copy for each chord instance chain). In fact I notice that I have set up the MIDI rack in a stupid way so it actually does multiply the notes, but in this case why does this problem not happen with the first track?
    2. The "NoteModulator" mystery. In the same scenario, the note modulator M4L device is messing with the NoteOff events, but only on one track. I have both tracks on an arpeggiator with 80% gate, and checking the MIDI monitor logs I can clearly see how the 1st track is working correctly - NoteOff is sent comfortably before the next NoteOn, but on the 2nd track, the NoteOff is sent just before the next NoteOn, which causes a small click in the sound (I assume because the envelope generator in the hardware is reacting to a new NoteOn before the sound has had time to fade out correctly).

    I might be going insane anyway. ?

    the watmm GAS thread

    in EKT General Discussion

    Posted

    5 hours ago, sweepstakes said:

    You know what's really activating my gas? This last batch of kimchi I made. Good lord, where did I go wrong? I spend more time on the can than on Zoom calls.

    Time to live dangerously and spend more time on the can while doing Zoom calls.

    I ordered a USB-C extension cable to get rid of at least some of the cable mess on my desk and guess fucking what:

     

    122781169_270016974393774_6944200896787410807_n.jpg

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