the watmm GAS thread

[flacid]

I get that they're not for everyone (from the sound to the potential complexity of the synth for a beginner) but I get so much joy and fun out of playing with it. It's just a weird little machine that is able to make a full track without using another synth, which is vital for me. I've had enough of massive setups with shit loads of synths and wires. Hate seeing it. Kind of depends what you want to do though. 

[marf]

Anyone ever thought of recording to reel to reel? Ive been waffling either way on this. Not sure it's worth the hassle. 

 

Less tracks would get made for sure. But it can sound nice. Straight to two track. The good ones like the revoxs are over 2k though. 

[th555]

I do almost everything on a tascam 8-track these days, I like the immediacy and realtime-ness but having more tracks also gives you the freedom to record things separately for later mixing, overdubbing, fx, submixes etc.. It's a bit of a hassle but for me it's worth it, I'm actually more productive with it I think.

I could live with 4 tracks if I had a separate recorder to do the final mix to. Back when I only had a (digital) 2-track recorder I didn't really manage to make much finished tracks with it though.

Edited September 27, 2023 by th555

[marf]

any time I listen to something done on reel to reel. Especially a nice one like a revox or studer, it always sounds amazing. Thick and heavy.  People that go out of their way to buy those are going to use them to record, though. Not necessarily to experiment with. You can of course. 

Dac is a toss up. Depends, highly, if the person knows what they are doing. It can get so messy so fast. With tweaking. Really glassy sounding recordings, usually. It's like tape finishes the track for you. 

 

Im unloading some stuff and maybe getting a distressor with brit mod. Was going to get some emt stuff, but it's risky. No one knows what that stuff sounds like. A distressor is like the all purpose compressor. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by marf

[cern]

On 9/27/2023 at 12:18 AM, flacid said:

I get that they're not for everyone (from the sound to the potential complexity of the synth for a beginner) but I get so much joy and fun out of playing with it. It's just a weird little machine that is able to make a full track without using another synth, which is vital for me. I've had enough of massive setups with shit loads of synths and wires. Hate seeing it. Kind of depends what you want to do though. 

 

On 9/27/2023 at 12:13 AM, Bubba69 said:

I would love to just borrow a monomachine for a few weeks to see what all the fuss is about. I've never had a chance to use one.

Yes it is a lovely machine.. It has so much character and depth. 
It took me a long time to learn how to master the filter and LFO-Routing.. You don't want to end up like the guys saying "Monomachine sounds so cold and thin"
 
I don't regret selling mine, It is a very good machine but It is in much better hands with someone who can use it more often and take care and maintain it.
It is frustrating when encoders wears out, buttons getting bad,  screen going wild or when you can not even turn it on anymore. 

I tried to do some chords with it 

mon.mp4  

 

[dcom]

What's your go-to hardware piece of kit to do glitchy things? I've got a Qu-Bit Data Bender and I'm thinking of getting a Cascade, too; I also have Roland's Scooper, but what other standalone units are out there that you know and/or like for mangling audio?

Edited October 1, 2023 by dcom

[psn]

Kaoss Pad

[thawkins]

3 hours ago, dcom said:

What's your go-to hardware piece of kit to do glitchy things? I've got a Qu-Bit Data Bender and I'm thinking of getting a Cascade, too; I also have Roland's Scooper, but what other standalone units are out there that you know and/or like for mangling audio?

Haven't you bought literally every new synth that came out during the last year? I'm going to bet you can get some glitches out of some of them if you give it a try.

[dcom]

5 minutes ago, thawkins said:

Haven't you bought literally every new synth that came out during the last year?

Thank you for asking - I'm still missing a few, but getting there. Gotta catch 'em all.

Edited October 1, 2023 by dcom

[thawkins]

Like one of the easiest glitchy things is probably starting an arpeggiator on a synth that takes midi and then setting the bpm crazy high to see at what point the audio engine starts going nuts or failing in an interesting way. I could get the LCD display on my Korg MicroX to shit itself when I piped MIDI from a Max4Live LFO device in Live to it. I basically wanted to modulate cutoff, but the rate of messages sent to the hardware obviously hit some limit in the machine.

[thawkins]

On 9/29/2023 at 4:40 AM, marf said:

any time I listen to something done on reel to reel. Especially a nice one like a revox or studer, it always sounds amazing. Thick and heavy.  People that go out of their way to buy those are going to use them to record, though. Not necessarily to experiment with. You can of course. 

Dac is a toss up. Depends, highly, if the person knows what they are doing. It can get so messy so fast. With tweaking. Really glassy sounding recordings, usually. It's like tape finishes the track for you. 

 

Im unloading some stuff and maybe getting a distressor with brit mod. Was going to get some emt stuff, but it's risky. No one knows what that stuff sounds like. A distressor is like the all purpose compressor. 

Looks like you can make it big if you take your reel 2 reel and re-record all the new terrible sounding music the kids are putting out these days. You'll definitely make back whatever your initial costs on the machine. You can also make reel 2 reel AND 440Hz/432Hz re-masters. I'd definitely follow through with this idea if I had golden ears like you.

[Stock]

4 hours ago, dcom said:

What's your go-to hardware piece of kit to do glitchy things? I've got a Qu-Bit Data Bender and I'm thinking of getting a Cascade, too; I also have Roland's Scooper, but what other standalone units are out there that you know and/or like for mangling audio?

How's the data bender ? Was planning on getting one at some point when I first got into Eurorack but it didn't make any sense for me to buy this one first

[dcom]

1 hour ago, Stock said:

How's the data bender ?

It's fun, I'm still learning how to use it properly and deterministically, not just running things through it and getting something random. I like the sound more than Roland's Scooper, which also requires a bit more effort, because you need to record first what you want to mangle, then tweak things - Data Bender is more stream-oriented.

Edited October 1, 2023 by dcom

[user]

On 10/1/2023 at 10:55 AM, dcom said:

What's your go-to hardware piece of kit to do glitchy things? I've got a Qu-Bit Data Bender and I'm thinking of getting a Cascade, too; I also have Roland's Scooper, but what other standalone units are out there that you know and/or like for mangling audio?

Probably not the most popular opinion, because it's so popular, but I think clouds (or a clouds clone) is great for glitchy stuff.

[Stock]

Received my Tracker Mini a few days earlier than expected. Having used the Tracker before I felt immediately home, the Mini is extremely easy to get going. They added virtual instruments and provided more complete sample packs which is good too. It feels incredible to work on my projects while lying in bed or in the toilets (think Nintendo Switch but for music production).

The build quality seems very nice, I am only missing the clickety-ness the OG Tracker's buttons had!

[auxien]

2 hours ago, Stock said:

Received my Tracker Mini a few days earlier than expected. Having used the Tracker before I felt immediately home

the original Tracker seems pretty handy in size for portable/couch type playing, yeah? is it more the design that makes the Mini easier to just pick up and play, it looks like it’s made for two handed quick play…the Tracker looks more lapp able to me (never touched either)

[Stock]

58 minutes ago, auxien said:

the original Tracker seems pretty handy in size for portable/couch type playing, yeah? is it more the design that makes the Mini easier to just pick up and play, it looks like it’s made for two handed quick play…the Tracker looks more lapp able to me (never touched either)

OG Tracker is also very lightweight and offers a nice hands-on workflow, yet the idea never crossed my mind to take it with me on the couch and do music outside of my studio - mostly because I felt I needed a table to do so.

Mini layout seems very thought-out and usable.

However, I am not sure I would have bought this device given its price point if I wasn't acquainted with the Tracker already!!

[dcom]

1 hour ago, Stock said:

I am not sure I would have bought this device given its price point if I wasn't acquainted with the Tracker already!!

The only thing that makes me a bit wary of getting a Mini is that the firmware is not shared between Tracker and Mini; the Mini firmware is branched from version 1.6 on the Tracker, and 1.7 came out recently w/ 1.7.1 already out. Hopefully Polyend can somehow keep parity up, so that both Tracker and Mini have the same functionality and features (and keep fixing the bugs).

The Dirtywave M8 has about the same price point as the Mini (taking shipping and EU VAT into account), I would love to get my hands on one to see how it compares to Mini; Nerdseq, too.

[auxien]

god damn this thing sounds huge, music about the last 1/3 of the vid

[Bubba69]

Anyone else have their GAS shift partially back to plugins? Maybe it's just from getting more into DAW-based work again to mix my tracks but, I bought so many plugins over the past year or two. I feel like I'm rediscovering what is trendy in the industry right now and what people use, trying to pick and choose what fits with my workflow. With the leaps made by some modern EDM/bass music I've gotten to the point where I have no idea how certain sounds are made anymore. People love using huge complex chains of effects, gated verbs, OTT and inflator, hard clipping shit on purpose, lots of distortion. Feeling kind of behind the times, but also very inspired by what the young folks are doing, slowly figuring out how to apply what I like about it to my own music.

[iococoi]

[user]

Was gonna get that for the scat setting but it sounds like shit. 

[SCONES TO DIE FOR]

I was lusting for cheap analogs but I downloaded a free tracker program instead and now I've seen the light.

[cern]

11 minutes ago, Tridact said:

I was lusting for cheap analogs but I downloaded a free tracker program instead and now I've seen the light.

Congratz! This is the Anti-gas kicking in! Happy for you!

What tracker is it? 

[SCONES TO DIE FOR]

1 minute ago, cern said:

Congratz! This is the Anti-gas kicking in! Happy for you!

What tracker is it? 

MilkyTracker - a whole 1.6 mb of space on my hard drive. Renoise is in the future but for now I'm having fun with this