sweepstakes

Cuckoo is a great closer for ABB5. That orchestral track is perfect, but it's too perfect to end the album with. I think of it as the closing scene of the movie where Cuckoo is the end credits rolling - it's good but you don't feel bad about leaving the theatre in the middle of it.

The way that thing sounds, well, you said you didn't care about form factor but I for one would much prefer the far smaller MS-70CDR. I have no idea how much that thing costs though - I'd probably hazard a guess at $75? So yeah twice as much money but 10% the space.

OTO BAM The one built into Norns A really nasty/amazing one I accidentally made in SuperCollider while attempting (and failing) to make a chorus... this one is a work in progress though

OK so the system has a few things running all the time, like SuperCollider, its Lua environment, reverb and compressor, tape player/recorder, etc. One of the things always running is called "softcut" which was most accurately described as "scriptable tape". Basically it's 6 syncable mono, loopable read/write tape heads with configurable crossfading between loop start and end, variable rate, static filters, feedback, and slew/lag times for levels and rate. There's 2 buffers and you can stick when anywhere you want. It's kind of like the idea of the Octatrack's volatile/live-sampling memory, but you can script it with Lua, so you can make samplers, delays, etc. And there's no artificial barriers to stop you doing things like recording and writing to the same spot simultaneously, or at different rates, etc. Without gushing too much, you can get crazy stuff out of it pretty easily but it also just feels really smooth and creamy. I still like SC for when I wanna get really grainy, or super phase-precise things like comb/allpass filter networks, or if, y'know, I want an LFO, but this thing is really the bees' knees for everything else. You have to find or build your own control structures to use with it, but there's lots of examples. It's kind of like the best parts of every sampler/delay/recorder I have ever loved, rolled into one.

TidalCycles is really great. But it demands a certain way of working and has limitations that I sadly have decided I can't abide right now - specifically, it demands that you pretty much use it as your only sequencer, or at least that you use it as the master clock, and you just kind of leave it running all the time and expect to start/stop it on beat. Also it's kind of tricky to build macro/song structures in it. If you are cool with that, it's a beast. And even if you kind of aren't cool with that, there are satellite projects emerging to bring its excellent syntax to other environments, especially web/JavaScript. It's an incredibly fast workflow and you can conjure up surprising stuff really, really easily. It's easy to think in. If you're interested in it but intimidated, just go through the excellent tutorial and things will click almost immediately. The only really tricky part for me was setting up the whole Haskell/SC/Dirt stack and getting the whole thing back up and running when it crashed (note: don't try to go too much further than 1/1024th notes and it probably won't crash on you much). A lot of that is surely down to me using it on an outdated laptop.

I recently got a norns. I'm not saying my gearlust is dead, but it really flipped it on its head. For the first time in a long while, it brought into stark relief a lot of gear I have that I really don't need or even want. It crossed a bunch of stuff off my GAS list. There's a lot less sense putting up with someone else's synth/module design when you can reach in and change everything. If you're willing to dig in and builld (as with any modular environment) it brings a lot of novel and just common-sense stuff together in a really reasonable, intuitive way. It's really good to have a real computer that really feels like hardware, just works, and is just, well, pretty. The softcut delay / "digital tape" system is just brilliant too. It's so me. I can't believe no one has thought of it before; it's pretty close to perfect. For those balking at the price tag, monome is working to release some more affordable kit to make the system more affordable. I couldn't be more pleased with it as it is, though. Now I just have to build some decent apps... see you in a few months 🙂

Had the same issue. Turned off Javascript temporarily and was able to submit. Joyrex if you have Fiddler skilz and can repro you might wanna look for a script that contains "window.location".

What a little bitch. Is this what he wants to be remembered for? Also his hair fucking sucks.

I agree with the above on it being some FM synth, probably DX11 or DX100. There's all sorts of those could-be-FM-could-be-subtractive patches (my faves) all over SAW2. That track is one of my all-time favorite things in life. I've always perceived it as an oasis.

I lent a work friend my Korg monologue. We had a little jam this evening and it was great. He has no prior experience with synths and he is just fucking around and stumbling on sweet spots and making awesome sounds. If it was 10 years ago I would probably want it back so I can get some of my own mojo going. But now I'm just really happy for him and it's a joy to watch him just go bananas on it, such a huge variety of sounds and so immediate and fun. It's in my top 5 friendly gear for sure. If I get any more hardware synths they're going to be along the same lines (e.g. MS-20, Circuit Mono Station).

In my experience there's decent overlap between Bernie bros and anti-vaxxers / conspiracy theorists / weirdo-believers.

Yeah the Sample is great. It sounds really good and is fun to get weird on. It also looks great - I think it's probably right up there with the Modular for best-looking Volca. The stuff @thawkins mentioned is certainly limiting, although I think having 10 tracks for mutes opens up the fill possibilities a fair amount. Loading sounds is also a little annoying, but it also gives it this kind of charm, like you're building your own little library. I should use it more often, but hey, it's a Volca, I don't feel that guilty. The FM is pretty great too. When I first got it, I wanted it to be a little DX7 I could do real patching on, which was pretty frustrating. When I gave up on that and just tweaked the real-time knobs, it became way more fun. Honestly, I think it's right up there with the Monomachine and Nord Drum for fun, immediate FM. And there's plenty of DX7 editors out there if you want to properly patch. It was smart of them to leave that door open but focus on making it enjoyable.

Fuck neat, it's way better with lime juice on the rocks.

Campari neat.