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Crappy gear that appeals to you for no good reason


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Definitely, although my favorite is long mode so far. I wonder what kind of data compression it uses. I've always really liked the sound of Minidisc and long mode has a similar kind of vibe to it.

 

Should have some Smartmedia cards waiting for me when I get home after the holidays, looking forward to that!

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yamaha fb01 is in a way very terrible, but it sounds fantastic (best sound i heard out of a dx synth) and has a lot of fm percussive joy, like the timpani preset from dx7. and the solid bass, too. bought it for next to nothing and instantly fell in love with it.

 

also korg volca beats and new electribe sampler. both kinda suck but have awesome features.

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I got that volca beats from ganus last week and I'm really enjoying it. The snare mod you can find online definitely improves the sound a lot (not as much for mine as the Youtube demos I've seen but way better than stock), and I thought I'd hate the little touch strip but it's actually really nice to be ale to swipe across multiple steps so easily. I've also found that while most of the sounds, especially the hi hat sound pretty crappy on their own they have a way of sitting in the mix that I like a lot. The tiny knobs aren't nearly as bad as I expected, either. Looking forward to adding a MIDI output and using it to sequence other stuff.

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also korg volca beats and new electribe sampler. both kinda suck but have awesome features.

I very nearly bought the new electribe sampler last week. I went for a Boss GP-10 instead though (which is fkn AMAZING, best guitar multi-fx/synth I've used) because I already have the ES-1 and kinda love the sound of it, tbh.. even though it doesn't do chromatic sampling.

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also korg volca beats and new electribe sampler. both kinda suck but have awesome features.

I very nearly bought the new electribe sampler last week. I went for a Boss GP-10 instead though (which is fkn AMAZING, best guitar multi-fx/synth I've used) because I already have the ES-1 and kinda love the sound of it, tbh.. even though it doesn't do chromatic sampling.

 

to be honest i like it most as a sequencer. its basically a polyphonic 16track, 64 step sequencer with a sampler function as far as i'm concerned. and analog sync. great for live stuff if you don't feel like bringing a computer. and sampling quality is great, es1 sounds kinda rubbish compared to it.

 

but if i had to pick the best electribe, it would be the esx. i kinda regret selling it, it had a sound of its own and very cool workflow.

 

 

I got that volca beats from ganus last week and I'm really enjoying it. The snare mod you can find online definitely improves the sound a lot (not as much for mine as the Youtube demos I've seen but way better than stock), and I thought I'd hate the little touch strip but it's actually really nice to be ale to swipe across multiple steps so easily. I've also found that while most of the sounds, especially the hi hat sound pretty crappy on their own they have a way of sitting in the mix that I like a lot. The tiny knobs aren't nearly as bad as I expected, either. Looking forward to adding a MIDI output and using it to sequence other stuff.

i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

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i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

 

 

Me too! When I first heard them I didn't think they'd be that useful but as soon as I heard them in a mix that changed - they're probably my favorite sound in it now, although the kick is good too. The snare mod makes a big difference and it's not that hard to do, if you or anyone you know is good enough at soldering to not fry the board (it wasn't as fiddly as it looked but you definitely need a really fine tipped iron and a steady hand) you should try it. I didn't even add the extra pot or anything, just replaced the missing capacitor. It still sounds a little fizzier than in the videos but way better. Actually the whole snare in the one I've got seems to be slightly higher pitched than the ones in the videos I've checked, I imagine there's quite a bit of variation between units to begin with.

 

http://vwcreativetechnology.nl/blog/korg-volca-beats-c78-snare-mod

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Supposedly if you use a physically larger 104 ceramic cap it sounds more 808 like, and the videos I've seen support that, but the only ones I had handy were the same as on that linked page and they still made a big difference.

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On the original topic, I picked up a pair of Realistic Minimus 11 speakers on eBay for $35 a couple years ago and they're probably my favorite "reality check" speakers ever, plus I really like them for watching movies. They're kind of the big brother of the Minimus 7's but don't have the cult following the 7's have so they actually tend to cost less. Ended up getting rid of my middle of the road Event monitors after I got these, and I've bee mixing better on them plus a nice pair of headphones - ported speakers just don't work in the undersized, untreated rooms I have to mix in, the bass was always completely unreliable and moving your chair even a few inches would completely change the low end response; sealed speakers in general and these little cheap things in particular have done much better by me.

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

if you remove the pink cover its just white underneath ;) its a start

 

 

i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

 

 

Me too! When I first heard them I didn't think they'd be that useful but as soon as I heard them in a mix that changed - they're probably my favorite sound in it now, although the kick is good too. The snare mod makes a big difference and it's not that hard to do, if you or anyone you know is good enough at soldering to not fry the board (it wasn't as fiddly as it looked but you definitely need a really fine tipped iron and a steady hand) you should try it. I didn't even add the extra pot or anything, just replaced the missing capacitor. It still sounds a little fizzier than in the videos but way better. Actually the whole snare in the one I've got seems to be slightly higher pitched than the ones in the videos I've checked, I imagine there's quite a bit of variation between units to begin with.

 

http://vwcreativetechnology.nl/blog/korg-volca-beats-c78-snare-mod

 

yeah i know, i considered it (and individual outputs as well!) but i just kinda don't think it will benefit all that much from it. i like it as an imperfect quirky machine. part of the charm. i have a nord drum for the real stuff.

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

if you remove the pink cover its just white underneath ;) its a start

 

 

ooh, now that is interesting. I notice that the step sequencer along the bottom has piano keys printed on it—does that mean that it can do chromatic sampling?

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

if you remove the pink cover its just white underneath ;) its a start

 

 

i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

 

 

Me too! When I first heard them I didn't think they'd be that useful but as soon as I heard them in a mix that changed - they're probably my favorite sound in it now, although the kick is good too. The snare mod makes a big difference and it's not that hard to do, if you or anyone you know is good enough at soldering to not fry the board (it wasn't as fiddly as it looked but you definitely need a really fine tipped iron and a steady hand) you should try it. I didn't even add the extra pot or anything, just replaced the missing capacitor. It still sounds a little fizzier than in the videos but way better. Actually the whole snare in the one I've got seems to be slightly higher pitched than the ones in the videos I've checked, I imagine there's quite a bit of variation between units to begin with.

 

http://vwcreativetechnology.nl/blog/korg-volca-beats-c78-snare-mod

 

yeah i know, i considered it (and individual outputs as well!) but i just kinda don't think it will benefit all that much from it. i like it as an imperfect quirky machine. part of the charm. i have a nord drum for the real stuff.

 

 

 

I'm on the fence about individual outs, lot of stuff I've read says that most of the spots people tap the snare from for a direct out make it lose a ton of gain and not sound quite right, but if you get it at the optimal place right at the end of the signal path before the summing apparently the toms bleed in to the snare and that kind of defeats the purpose a bit.

 

I've been doubling the snare with the snare in the Anushri's built in drum machine and they work really well together.

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

if you remove the pink cover its just white underneath ;) its a start

 

 

ooh, now that is interesting. I notice that the step sequencer along the bottom has piano keys printed on it—does that mean that it can do chromatic sampling?

 

nopes. strictly monophonic. the painted keys are there to make playing simpler, i guess.

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yeah I should have clarified that I love the gritty 32khz sampling rate and dirty pitch shifting on the es-1; I've always worked best with a kinda lo-fi sound so it does the job for me. The esx looks too garish for my tastes, it's a shame because it looks like it could be a cool machine. Maybe I could get one and paint it matte grey or something

if you remove the pink cover its just white underneath ;) its a start

 

 

ooh, now that is interesting. I notice that the step sequencer along the bottom has piano keys printed on it—does that mean that it can do chromatic sampling?

 

nopes. strictly monophonic. the painted keys are there to make playing simpler, i guess.

 

 

VSE says it does chromatic sampling.

 

 

Two additional Keyboard Parts allow samples to be played melodically at various pitches right from the step keys or a MIDI input device.

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  • 5 months later...

I found a Korg i30 for $50 at a thrift shop last weekend. Great shape, except one black key that's loose and needs replacing. Haven't gotten to mess with it much yet but I'm looking forward to stepping into the exciting world of auto-accompaniment. They seem to be really popular in India and really unpopular with the "real synth" crowd but this is kind of great:

 

 

As far as I can tell it's kind of a Korg 01/w with a sequencer, fully programmable auto-accompaniment and the touchscreen from the Korg Trinity slapped on, really well made but it came out in 1998 and the synth section is more like something from 1994. Which OK with me! It has a really nice keybed, the same joystick as the Trinity, and between it and the Wavestation SR I've got the 90s Korg sound pretty much covered. Plus I can go Wesley Willis if I need to.

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i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

 

 

Me too! When I first heard them I didn't think they'd be that useful but as soon as I heard them in a mix that changed - they're probably my favorite sound in it now, although the kick is good too. The snare mod makes a big difference and it's not that hard to do, if you or anyone you know is good enough at soldering to not fry the board (it wasn't as fiddly as it looked but you definitely need a really fine tipped iron and a steady hand) you should try it. I didn't even add the extra pot or anything, just replaced the missing capacitor. It still sounds a little fizzier than in the videos but way better. Actually the whole snare in the one I've got seems to be slightly higher pitched than the ones in the videos I've checked, I imagine there's quite a bit of variation between units to begin with.

 

http://vwcreativetechnology.nl/blog/korg-volca-beats-c78-snare-mod

 

Although the modded snare is superior I still like to have the original volca beat snare as an option. It sounds like its been burned to a crisp and doesn't really sound like any other snare I've heard before. I'm going to get around to modding mine with a potentiameter to switch between the two.

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i love the hihats. don't know why. they sound so weird and off and yet nothing like a regular noise-based hihats. sequence some toms and hihats, put them through a cheap guitar compressor (like boss cs3) and you have some amazing sounds. and snare is terrible as a snare, but bring down the snap and you have a third tom, which is also cool.

 

 

Me too! When I first heard them I didn't think they'd be that useful but as soon as I heard them in a mix that changed - they're probably my favorite sound in it now, although the kick is good too. The snare mod makes a big difference and it's not that hard to do, if you or anyone you know is good enough at soldering to not fry the board (it wasn't as fiddly as it looked but you definitely need a really fine tipped iron and a steady hand) you should try it. I didn't even add the extra pot or anything, just replaced the missing capacitor. It still sounds a little fizzier than in the videos but way better. Actually the whole snare in the one I've got seems to be slightly higher pitched than the ones in the videos I've checked, I imagine there's quite a bit of variation between units to begin with.

 

http://vwcreativetechnology.nl/blog/korg-volca-beats-c78-snare-mod

 

Although the modded snare is superior I still like to have the original volca beat snare as an option. It sounds like its been burned to a crisp and doesn't really sound like any other snare I've heard before. I'm going to get around to modding mine with a potentiameter to switch between the two.

 

 

It's hard to really compare properly with Youtube, but I did the snare mod with the only ceramic cap I had handy in the right value and it was smaller than the one recommended in that series of Youtube videos and it seems like the results kept a bit of that fizzy, "broken" quality the stock snare had, but got fuller and louder. The one in the video sounds more 808-like than what I got but mine still sounds noticeably louder and punchier and fuller than stock. It's kind of a nice compromise really, so I never bothered to swap the cap out for a bigger one.

 

 

So far the i30 is a lot of fun.

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  • 4 months later...

Recently picked up a nearly new-old-stock (box was open but it's clearly been sitting in a box most of its life since 1991) DOD R-825 compressor/limiter/de-esser for $33 shipped because at that price why wouldn't I?  They usually go for around that because DOD has no respect at all, and probably rightfully so, but I'm liking this for parallel compression on drums so far.  The way the de-esser works is interesting, it actually converts it into a two band compressor, with full control for the low band and just ratio and level for the high band, and that has actually been useful as a tone control for shaping snares and hats so far.  I wouldn't pay more than what I did for it but it's definitely useful at that price.

 

Opened i up, and it has two DBX 2150 VCAs inside, for what that's worth.

 

 

 

 

Hoping to trade for a Boss DR5 Dr. Rhythm Section soon, too, need to get back to the owner and see if he was able to find it.

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Nice! I need to get a compressor for my live setup. I have a feeling that something gritty/slightly cheap sounding could be kinda interesting for my 0F stuff.

 

 

Speaking of gritty/cheap, I picked up a Yamaha DD-5 yesterday. I'm hoping to connect the MIDI out to my Machinedrum and get some wacky live synth drum stuff going..

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