the watmm GAS thread

[modey]

Yeah it is expensive.. but I guess the idea of it is that you're building something up when you can, maybe? Which also adds to the addiction side of it.

 

I safely got out of it (for now) by selling the 0-coast. I could sense the desire to get more eurorack stuff, perhaps just more semi-modular stuff at first, but no doubt that would have turned into getting a rack setup for it.. I'll probably give it a go someday if I have the spare money, but tbh it'd probably be mostly weird digital modules rather than trying to make some kind of ideal subtractive synth.

 

For now though, I still have my Nord Modular, which provides me with enough crazy possibilities to destroy any ideas of getting into physical modular.. and then whatever I do with Max etc..

[modey]

haha, the only thing I can think of is the ms20ic.. but that's basically only for the ms20 plugin

[modey]

Yeah, it was a slightly regretful sale, as it's a great synth, but it was really begging to be used with more modular gear. And tbh, I could probably make a pretty decent clone of it on the Nord Modular..

[Stock]

just to note that the opz looks insanenely powerful, craze stuff

Yeah, got some money for my birthday with the initial purpose of buying a better mpc but the op-z is interesting me more and more!

[modey]

yeah the most recent cuckoo op-z video makes me realise why it took them so long, as the interface looks super deep, and perhaps very quick once you get used to it. I'm very keen to get one after not being sure for a while!

[worms]

doepfer do budget cases made from wood £300 or so

[TubularCorporation]

I looked in to building a case and even assuming you already own all of the tools and aren't factoring in the value of your labor, the cost of materials to make a eurorack case comparable to one of those Doepfers isn't actually that much lower than just buying one.  Especially since you can actually get a Doepfer case for more like 120 euro (but it's only 48hp and you'd still have to pay shipping and possibly import costs).

 

I think the most affordable way to go would be to get a cheap aluminum equipment case (in the USA you can usually find that exact case at Harbor Freight for the same price as Amazon, I've got a few of them), some captive-nut aluminum rails and a power supply, but you're still looking at probably $100-$150 USD depending on the power supply.

 

A lot of module prices are definitely inflated* but the lower priced cases aren't actually that bad (from what I've seen in friends' eurorack setups, you actually get less for your money from a lot of the more expensive cases - a simple, stained pine box is quite a bit cheaper and easier to make than what Doepfer offers but I've seen those in the $800+ price range simply because they're "custom."  I know a guy who paid nearly $200 secondhand for a masonite box painted with house paint, no lid at all, the most basic power supply with no buss board and no filtering to speak of - pretty much just a $5, off the shelf switch mode wall wart with a little board inside the case to convert it into the standard Eurorack voltages, and one buss cable, so noisy he couldn't even use it - and that was acutally a fair price relative to the new price that case was being sold for. Eurorack is really cool and I like messing with other people's setups but it's also in a gold rush situation right now and the prices reflect that, which is one of the reasons I'm not going there myself.  You pretty much have to build everything yourself to get fair prices and I don't have the time for that right now, I'm stretching myself too thin as it is.

 

It's definitely fun and can sound really good, though, if you have the money. On the other hand, some of the most compelling sounds anyone I play with is making right now are coming out of an axoloti.

 

 

*Examples: a guitar pedal in kit form usually costs 1/3 or less what you'd pay for a comparably complex Eurorack module in kit form; it cost about $180 for me to build an entire Wasp synth clone, which is only a little more expensive than the lower end of the price range for a single Wasp filter in Eurorack format.

[auxien]

Ugh starting to gas a bit for a mini modular setup . I've got an A4 so the sequencing bit and integration bit is kinda looked after .

 

Would sell off a bit of stuff to fund it .. but Jesus Christ the cost of those cases seems quite ridiculous doesn't it .

http://cdm.link/2018/10/modular-4ms-pods/ these things exist now (available soon?) so maybe that's an option? Would sort of limit things artificially which could be good.

 

Or, just get semi-modular stuff, there's a fair amount of it.... or, and hear me out my dude, you could just NOT get into modular. Crazy fucking idea, I know. :)

[Braintree]

I've been eyeballing vocoders recently to incorporate that sound palette into what I do, but came across the Roland VT-3. At $200, it's in just the right price range and has some basic features that I wanted. Nabbed it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeHHV1LPfOo

[Bubba69]

I should be close to next in line for a cirklon(people the ordered the month before me are getting their's) but I'm not sure if I should buy it or not. Any cirklon owners here?

[worms]

im on the cirklon list

at least you can sell it for slightly more than you pay for it

i already have a yamaha qy 300 which is more than enough for sequencing and costs £40 

cirklon's worth it if you get the cvgate output with it

thats if you have enough gear to sequence

if you havent got many synths whats the point?

[Bubba69]

im on the cirklon list

at least you can sell it for slightly more than you pay for it

i already have a yamaha qy 300 which is more than enough for sequencing and costs £40 

cirklon's worth it if you get the cvgate output with it

thats if you have enough gear to sequence

if you havent got many synths whats the point?

 

That's sort of what I'm thinking. I'm not actually at the point where I need one. I have a number of gripes with the octatrack(current main sequencer) but not sure if it's enough to justify the cost of the cirklon. I would probably be sequencing at max 5/6 devices at any one point in time so I don't really need it. I also have CV sequencing covered for now, I don't have too much gear that uses CV. If I got one, it would be more about the features and flexibility of the sequencing itself and less about the bandwidth of sequencing a million different pieces of gear.

 

EDIT: I'm worried I'll regret it soon after if I don't buy it. Or down the line when I have space for more gear, but I suppose by that point there might be other options :)

 

 

EDIT2: Has anyone looked at the Novation SL mk3? That looks like an amazing sequencer for the price.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Bubba69

[Leon Sumbitches]

Had a £10 eBay voucher for some reason so went looking for cheap nonsense, found one of these and bit the bullet, with the voucher the total cost comes to a princely eight quid:

 

 

Looks like an absolute flaming trash pile of a 'verb, can't find any demos, looking forward to seeing just how awful it really is

[worms]

 

im on the cirklon list

at least you can sell it for slightly more than you pay for it

i already have a yamaha qy 300 which is more than enough for sequencing and costs £40 

cirklon's worth it if you get the cvgate output with it

thats if you have enough gear to sequence

if you havent got many synths whats the point?

 

That's sort of what I'm thinking. I'm not actually at the point where I need one. I have a number of gripes with the octatrack(current main sequencer) but not sure if it's enough to justify the cost of the cirklon. I would probably be sequencing at max 5/6 devices at any one point in time so I don't really need it. I also have CV sequencing covered for now, I don't have too much gear that uses CV. If I got one, it would be more about the features and flexibility of the sequencing itself and less about the bandwidth of sequencing a million different pieces of gear.

 

EDIT: I'm worried I'll regret it soon after if I don't buy it. Or down the line when I have space for more gear, but I suppose by that point there might be other options :)

 

get it man, you can always ebay the fucker

 

let me know how it goes

Had a £10 eBay voucher for some reason so went looking for cheap nonsense, found one of these and bit the bullet, with the voucher the total cost comes to a princely eight quid:

 

 

Looks like an absolute flaming trash pile of a 'verb, can't find any demos, looking forward to seeing just how awful it really is

Looks like it could be a bbd echo, might be good? Open it  and see what chip it uses. SAD or whatever

[auxien]

Had a £10 eBay voucher for some reason so went looking for cheap nonsense, found one of these and bit the bullet, with the voucher the total cost comes to a princely eight quid:

 

 

Looks like an absolute flaming trash pile of a 'verb, can't find any demos, looking forward to seeing just how awful it really is

Share some examples when you get it :)

[Leon Sumbitches]

Will do!

[modey]

Pretty tempted to buy a Medusa in Berlin next week.. Much cheaper than in Australia. OP-Z tho.. hmmmmmm

[sheatheman]

I want a cheap 90s keyboard workstation with lots of good presets. I’m talking great physical modeled sounds but definitely slightly cheesey, with good string sounds and a nice percussion section. Also good brass/trumpet.

 

I don’t need a full on workstation, but just a lot of 90s-early 00s era presets with a few effects.

 

What’s the one actress uses/used?

[thawkins]

I want a cheap 90s keyboard workstation with lots of good presets. I’m talking great physical modeled sounds but definitely slightly cheesey, with good string sounds and a nice percussion section. Also good brass/trumpet.

 

I don’t need a full on workstation, but just a lot of 90s-early 00s era presets with a few effects.

 

What’s the one actress uses/used?

 

I would get a Yamaha Motif ES rack for this.

 

I have experience with Yamaha MO6 which is the little brother of the ES, and I was always really happy with the vibes, organs, pianos and other sample based versions of real instruments. Not so sure about strings and brass (used to play in a brass band and now I absolutely hate the sound forever, sorry).

[TubularCorporation]

A Roland JV1080 is an underpriced classic that's easy to find, too, but the voice expansions are getting really expensive.

 

I think it was the first synth to outsell the DX7 (or at least get close) so they're all over the place.

Edited October 19, 2018 by RSP

[sheatheman]

Thanks guys. These two look like the EXACT thing I saw and heard in my head. And yeah I would prefer a module since I have 3u of space left on my mini rack but no keyboard space left right now.

 

Looks like it might be possible to snag a jv1080 for $200ish, whereas the motif es looks more $300ish. Both sound perfect.

 

This search also reminded me of the freaking jd990, which seems a lot harder to find...

 

I know the 990 is more of a classic rompler but it has the same aura to me.

[Leon Sumbitches]

The trashy Altai echo box came today, been having fun messing with it. It's pretty terrible; it's designed for putting echo on karaoke vocals and shit like that, so the delay time is permanently set at 200ms; anything louder than a mic level signal makes it distort pretty badly unless you tread carefully. It's a murky, foggy bucket brigade box, and noisy af, but lots of fun for eight quid. Did a couple of demos:

 

 

[Guest]

The trashy Altai echo box came today, been having fun messing with it. It's pretty terrible; it's designed for putting echo on karaoke vocals and shit like that, so the delay time is permanently set at 200ms; anything louder than a mic level signal makes it distort pretty badly unless you tread carefully. It's a murky, foggy bucket brigade box, and noisy af, but lots of fun for eight quid. Did a couple of demos:

 

 

 

 

Pretty good for 8quid. :) At permanent 200ms, this conversion chart could be useful for picking bpms: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-bpmtempotime.htm

[TubularCorporation]

I have an old Unicord Stage BBD echo that's similar (but with variable time and feedback, and some questionable mods by the previous owner) and overdriving the input is actually a really good sound on guitar.

[thawkins]

I got slight GAS for some Ableton controller with nice integration and faders, and there's an Akai MPD32 for sale on CL. Seems like a lot of people have fun with playing just the controller and not messing too much with the laptop so I am wondering if it's a nice thing to try out and see how well it suits what I am trying to do..

 

Edit: I think I am mostly interested in how well the out of the box default configuration maps to Live because lately I am feeling tired of constantly having to figure out ways to do something or program my own scripts and troubleshoot some latency or midi issues.

 

Edit2: yeah ok maybe I should just get a push, but it's got no faders and somehow seems way more limited than the MPD32

Edited October 21, 2018 by thawkins