the watmm GAS thread

[sweepstakes]

decided on a Yamaha TG33 because, well, it sounds fucking amazing.

Although I've never played on one, I've known a few people over the years who picked one up and were blown away by it. Apparently that joystick is good fun and the ROMpler section is surprisingly tasty. Enjoy :)

[TubularCorporation]

In personal news, I've realized over the last week or two that I need an FM poly (yes, I've got Ableton Live but I feel the need for a hardware device anyway? this is unreasonable, I know, shut up, this is the GAS thread, fucker) and decided on a Yamaha TG33 because, well, it sounds fucking amazing. I'm pretty sure RSP had brought it to my attention some time ago so all blame is on him. Hopefully will have one purchased and on its way to me in the next few days.

 

Just listen to this shit man:

 

 

 

 

TG33 is one of the few things I still want to have.

 

Also the default CC assignment on the joystick is the same as the Wavestation, so you can use it to control a Wavestation SR.out of the box.

 

10:30 in that video sounds like something straight out of a Legowelt track.

Edited January 26, 2018 by RSP

[thawkins]

 

Got the Livid Code v2. Spent some time making sense of the official documentation (scattered around their wiki) and firmware updating and getting the browser based editor to work. I really like the form factor and all the leds and pushable encoders, but the default official Live script has no way of arming tracks or playing/recording clips so I guess it's time to get into programming again.

The starkness of that device is inviting, for sure. WIll be curious to hear how you get along with it.

 

 

I like it a lot so far - it's USB class compliant and while it took a bit to go through the official documentation, I think I got it set up OK now. One snag is that I can't seem to configure it to be sensitive enough to output from 0 to 127 in increments of 1 (it's always 2 for some reason). I think I will just have to figure that out by looking harder at the editor and the docs. The Live script is smart enough for adjusting the speed and accuracy so no issues there really.

But the greatest part is that now I have something with visual feedback and endless encoders to plug in to any PD patch on my Pi, so setting up some screen-less live-coding experimental stuff is only a matter of sitting down and doing it. It's nice and small so it passes the backpack test as well.

[auxien]

Oh, that's weird, the always jumping in increments of 2 thing. Sure it's just a setting somewhere (says the guy who doesn't have to find which setting it is). Yes! Visual feedback is very nice to have, looks like a huge part of the benefits of that controller.

 

Live coding without a screen though? Are you insane?   

 

Btw just plugged in my TG33 and it is going to be so much fun to learn. It's in great condition, the guy who had it before must've been the sole owner. It's weighty and SO very 90's feeling. Gonna love this thing, I know it. Already feels like it's going to open up some realms I've been wanting to explore.

[thawkins]

Oh, that's weird, the always jumping in increments of 2 thing. Sure it's just a setting somewhere (says the guy who doesn't have to find which setting it is). Yes! Visual feedback is very nice to have, looks like a huge part of the benefits of that controller.

 

Live coding without a screen though? Are you insane? 

 

I have spent a bunch of time with the editor (which comes as a web application you have to run in a browser with a MIDI plugin wtf :) ), so far the best I have achieved is increments of 2. I will give it another shot anyways, I probably missed some setting.

 

As for live coding without a screen? Totally doable, have you seen the guys who play Tetris blind, as in not seeing the game board?

 

 

So really my plan was just to set up the Pi with the Code and all other stuff, and remote desktop into it with my laptop, so I would "live-code" the patch but be able to play it during the coding and just be able to disconnect the laptop at any time and still continue playing.

[cruising for burgers]

i wanted a dx7 for quite a while but instead i got a korg ds-8 for 75 bucks, pretty good deal methinks, 2 or 3 broken keys but nothing that cannot be replaced easily...

 

This demo i made with audiotracks in Logic sequencer. Every sound is a audiotrack. All sounds drums fx etc. are pure from Korg DS-8. No add of external FX, or dynamic FX. Korg DS-8 have build in a simply FX-processor. Some sounds are layers from Multimode.

Edited February 3, 2018 by THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON

[cruising for burgers]

can anybody tell me what's that screen at 2:50 in the above video??? ^^^^^^^^^^^^

[cruising for burgers]

ahhh seems like it was the op who made it...

I made this editor in Emagic/Apple Logic Environment. It's just like a remote for editing the sounds with midi sysex. I can send you a Logic lso with this Layer, so you can import in your Logic (if available).]

[sweepstakes]

Boy, WeeklyBeats really kills GAS dead. I just want to hone my skills so as not to embarrass myself.

 

I'm not even particularly bothered that the shipping date for the PO-33 keeps getting pushed back, which is unheard of for me. 

[thawkins]

Update on playing with the Livid Code. After three days of messing around and writing my own remote script, it seems I got Live's mixers, sends, devices and even the clip launch session view thing working more or less. I already packed my old Launchpad away, but time will tell if the Code is actually usable for launching clips because it only has one LED for the encoder button, so once I stop a clip there's no way to see which slots are stopped and which are empty. There's probably a way to hack the encoder LEDs to show existing clips, but if it will require a lot of hackery, I am probably not going to bother.

 

Next up is setting the big button to control encoder sensitivity, because 1to1 speed is way too slow for any more rapid changes. And I am probably also going to set up two buttons as means to change the channel so that I can instantly step out of Ableton mode to control any wacky Pure Data sequencers I might have running. In fact I probably need to set up a PD patch to have a sane way of sending program changes to my MicroX because fuck doing that through the MIDI clip.

 

As for GAS, I got to agree with sweepstakes that I spend a lot more time worrying about the weekly beat than thinking about new gear. Now Gear Rearrangement Syndrome I can get behind.

[modey]

I'm back to GAS, this time for a korg radias, which admittedly I've been wanting for a few years now. One has come up for a reasonable price, but I've saved my money for the digitone..

 

Of course, I can cover 90% of what both the radias and digitone are capable of using my existing gear, but the workflow of a synth sometimes inspires me more than the sound :P

[sweepstakes]

As for GAS, I got to agree with sweepstakes that I spend a lot more time worrying about the weekly beat than thinking about new gear. Now Gear Rearrangement Syndrome I can get behind.

Yes, I am all over this lately. Monomachine stayed on my desk for a week before I decided I don't know how to make anything but aimless knob-jabs on it at the moment. The OT, particularly the arranger, is more interesting to me lately.

 

I had a dream last night that somehow made me think I need a CZ101. That lasted about 10 seconds.

 

I'm back to GAS, this time for a korg radias, which admittedly I've been wanting for a few years now. One has come up for a reasonable price, but I've saved my money for the digitone..

 

Of course, I can cover 90% of what both the radias and digitone are capable of using my existing gear, but the workflow of a synth sometimes inspires me more than the sound :P

The Digitone looks and sounds great. There is something about it that makes me feel like I would never use it to its potential, and I would end up feeling more guilty than inspired about it. But it definitely looks like a great workflow for FM. I might try to pick one up eventually but I feel like I need to hear more jams from it that are more my style. For now, I'm grateful to not be GASing for it.

[Guest Chesney]

If this helps Modey, I had a Radias for a good few years and yeah it was cool, sounded good etc BUT... it wasn't that inspiring. I found myself not being arsed to turn it on and went to other synths over it. It's surprisingly menu driven even though it's knobby and the process was underwhelming. I miss some of the patches I made on it but it had to go to preorder the A4 and that is a keeper.

 

Track 2 on the link in my sig is 98% Radias and Machinedrum jamming.

[modey]

The OT, particularly the arranger, is more interesting to me lately.

I haven't used the arranger, but every time I spend a few hours with my OT, I fall even more in love with it. It's not perfect, but something about it inspires me to keep mangling. I sat on the couch last weekend with only the OT and wrote an entire 30min minimal tech live set on it almost exclusively using samples from 80s pop songs. Played it at a friend's party the next day and it sounded amazing over the sound system.

 

Maybe I should just spend my extra money on the mk2 OT and sell my mk1 lol

[xox]

Sadly, octatrack is still the only current elektron machine that triggers my gas, especially when reading such possitive experiences

[TubularCorporation]

I had a dream last night that somehow made me think I need a CZ101. That lasted about 10 seconds.

 

 

 

 

This is a good time to get one, this thing came out a little while back and (since the CZ-101 quickly became my most-used keyboard after I got one about a year ago, because they're really fun) I picked it up.  Other than the 3d printed enclosure being, well, 3d printed, it's great. If it was in a metal enclosure with a nicer keypad it would be pretty much perfect. 

 

It does some other stuff but the main thing is

-10,000 user patch memory locatiosn

-a bunch of full bank locations (I forget how many, I haven't gotten to use it that much since the 3.0 upgrade)

-pretty good arpeggiator

-in my experience, any latency it's adding to the MIDI i/o is imperceptible.

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by RSP

[peace 7]

Thinking about jamming with this on my lap for hours, brings up memories of the deep and heartfelt and direct and new feelings of joy I used to have, making music in the late-90's~early-00's:

 

[thawkins]

Sadly, octatrack is still the only current elektron machine that triggers my gas, especially when reading such possitive experiences

 

Yes, please stop posting about OT or any other stand-alone workstation things that can be used for the IDMs.

 

Ugh fuck that Pico system looks really nice. 1120€ though..

[TubularCorporation]

 

Sadly, octatrack is still the only current elektron machine that triggers my gas, especially when reading such possitive experiences

 

Yes, please stop posting about OT or any other stand-alone workstation things that can be used for the IDMs.

 

Ugh fuck that Pico system looks really nice. 1120€ though..

 

Pico system looks really cool but the video is paaaainful, like 90s Roland promo video painful.

 

 

Getting that Octatrack has basically killed my GAS, hardly acquired any gear for close to a year.

[sweepstakes]

 

The OT, particularly the arranger, is more interesting to me lately.

I haven't used the arranger, but every time I spend a few hours with my OT, I fall even more in love with it. It's not perfect, but something about it inspires me to keep mangling. I sat on the couch last weekend with only the OT and wrote an entire 30min minimal tech live set on it almost exclusively using samples from 80s pop songs. Played it at a friend's party the next day and it sounded amazing over the sound system.

 

Maybe I should just spend my extra money on the mk2 OT and sell my mk1 lol

 

Me too. I don't know what it is about the OT. It took a long time for me too - I've had it for years and have gone through love/hate phases with it, I think because most of the effects are kind of lackluster and I have a tendency to go down rabbit holes and there are a ton of them in the OT. But lately I just treat it like a sampler/sequencer with some pretty great modulation and performance options and it's just so good. I think there's, like, gear and then there's buddies. I treated the OT like gear for a long time and now it feels like a buddy. I know its boundaries now and I don't get all wild-eyed thinking about live-sample this or morph that or polyrhythm these, just hey let's do some chunky funky beats. Cool.

 

The main trick (DUH) seems to be getting some good samples into it... I've had this long-standing infatuation with taking shitty samples and turning them into something interesting and that seems to bore me now. But if I slap some chunky drums in there that just need a little trim and polish, boy does the OT bring them to life like nothing else. And the trig conditions seemed gimmicky at first but I've been using them for auto-variations and it's great, so much more useful than the stupid LFO tricks I have been doing. 

 

I like the arranger a lot lately because in lieu of arranging in a DAW, I like what I make better with some structural guardrails. So I can just punch in 8 repetitions of this pattern, 16 of that one, put some mutes in, set some scenes to fade between, and then I can knob-twiddle without it getting too out of control. Plus you can use lengths and offsets to unfurl the pattern and get more mileage out of it - that seems to be a surprisingly good way to work for me lately. You can take a kind of mediocre pattern and just loop subsections until they sound interesting, put in loops for the arranger steps and even nest those loops to build up other structures. It feels like a tracker in a good way.

 

 

I had a dream last night that somehow made me think I need a CZ101. That lasted about 10 seconds.

 

 

 

 

This is a good time to get one, this thing came out a little while back and (since the CZ-101 quickly became my most-used keyboard after I got one about a year ago, because they're really fun) I picked it up.  Other than the 3d printed enclosure being, well, 3d printed, it's great. If it was in a metal enclosure with a nicer keypad it would be pretty much perfect. 

 

It does some other stuff but the main thing is

-10,000 user patch memory locatiosn

-a bunch of full bank locations (I forget how many, I haven't gotten to use it that much since the 3.0 upgrade)

-pretty good arpeggiator

-in my experience, any latency it's adding to the MIDI i/o is imperceptible.

 

Eh, I think I have enough old stuff now. I might even need to unload my TX81Z and Mirage at some point... at least the latter is a decent keyboard controller but it's rare I do anything with them anymore. I borrowed a VZ-10m for a while and it had this really nice creamy sound but it was always pretty annoying to edit. I don't hear that creaminess coming through in any CZ101 demos I've heard; I think their converters just weren't as good or something. But the CZ101 does look really cool, just my style really.

I always think of Diagram of Suburban Chaos when I think of the VZ-10m. I think he used it on some of his stuff, really beautiful textures.  I wonder if he's still making tunes.

 

All that said I'm starting to get excited about the PO-33 which should arrive any day... gosh what an amazing thing, what a time we are living in for awesome toys! But I'm more excited to just play with my Octatrack :)

[modey]

Thinking about jamming with this on my lap for hours, brings up memories of the deep and heartfelt and direct and new feelings of joy I used to have, making music in the late-90's~early-00's:

 

yeah that thing looks sick, and would pair so nicely with my 0-coast.. hmmmmmmmmmmm

[thawkins]

The ratio of surface-area to utility is pretty high on this one. Would pair nicely with my field kit. If they'd make those drum modules capable of real-time sampling instead of requiring you to disassemble the thing, it would be pretty sweet.

[pcock]

you would need tiny needle fingers to actually play that Pico box. 3 hp modules are pretty slender, and sticking any stackables in there and making a complex patch would have the thing overflowing with cables in no time. better to just buy a slightly larger skiff and mix and match with a few other slightly larger modules i would think. 

[auxien]

Thinking about jamming with this on my lap for hours, brings up memories of the deep and heartfelt and direct and new feelings of joy I used to have, making music in the late-90's~early-00's:

 

 

Was into it at first but wasn't expecting the drum samples/web app sequencer aspect of it. Not a deal-breaker, but sort of ruins the idea of a self-contained modular box...I mean, I'm sure you can work some awesome stuff without needing extra samples or sequencing, but just sort of killed the magic I guess. I don't even wanna know much it costs... That dude makes some great videos but the tunes he's making are pretty meh. He's making a living though so good for him, and good for him working with some relatively interesting poly-metric rhythms.

 

Also caught this today, looks pretty unique, also likely plenty freaking expensive I'm sure. 

 

[TubularCorporation]

you would need tiny needle fingers to actually play that Pico box. 3 hp modules are pretty slender, and sticking any stackables in there and making a complex patch would have the thing overflowing with cables in no time. better to just buy a slightly larger skiff and mix and match with a few other slightly larger modules i would think. 

 

 

Good point, I already feel that way about Eurorack as it is. I want modern Eurorack functionality in a big, 500 series 1/4" monstrosity.