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Not sure if this is the best thread for this, but I'm trying to get Reason to work with my Minibrute. I can record audio coming in into my audio interface, but I can't monitor it or play it back to my wireless headphones.  Figured it out can't have both enabled... 
cYn fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 22:52
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Sorry but I can't address that, never had Reason. Just liveblogging I guess. I have spent another accursed night trying again and again to make something work, and finally got it to work by re-trying something I already tried at least a couple of times. And having given up, I finally gave it one last go and it worked, gently caress. Story of my life. Okay, so to make a 5-pin to TRS MIDI cable (type A) to work with my NTS-1, I purchased a few spare MIDI cables, and cut off one end on one, then stripped it so I could access all the wires, used my voltmeter as a continuity tester because the loving continuity tester I bought at such a great bargain from Tractor Supply didn't work. So here:  That's how the female is supposed to look, but your standard MIDI cable is male, so you will need to flip the positions of 4 and 5 on the DIN in this picture, I think. But hey, I'm now using a 5 to 3 pin MIDI adapter I made myself, using these:  Note: until this evening I was running a MIDI cable from my MIDI theremin into a USB MIDI host from Kenton, and from that to the NTS-1 by way of USB. I am finally able to forego the MIDI host entirely, works fine. So tired. I've been learning a bit this evening but it's been very frustrating.
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Dec 30, 2021 10:06
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I'm looking into buying a synth and I'm really leaning towards the Modal Cobalt8, I like the fact that it's 8 voice polyphonic and it has a ton of knobs. I understand it's a virtual analog synth, the price point is very competitive. This will be my first synth, I've looked through the last 20 pages and haven't seen anyone really talk about it. Does anyone have any thoughts? Also, the Korg Minilogue looks very cool, but the 4 voice is kinda limiting.
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Dec 30, 2021 21:08
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I Brake For MILFs posted:I'm looking into buying a synth and I'm really leaning towards the Modal Cobalt8, I like the fact that it's 8 voice polyphonic and it has a ton of knobs. I want one, because it's blue. Are they still $100 off?
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Dec 30, 2021 21:23
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Mad Dragon posted:I want one, because it's blue. Are they still $100 off? Yea, they are. Also i love the blue
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Dec 30, 2021 21:40
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I Brake For MILFs posted:I'm looking into buying a synth and I'm really leaning towards the Modal Cobalt8, I like the fact that it's 8 voice polyphonic and it has a ton of knobs. I understand it's a virtual analog synth, the price point is very competitive. https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/mz813p/i_got_a_cobalt8_but_i_think_im_gonna_send_it_back/ Don’t get too hung up on analog/digital. It’s pointless - if you like the character or not, that’s the most important. What are you used to? What do you expect to substitute where a Cobalt will do things better? What do you wish to learn?
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Dec 30, 2021 22:13
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What is the reason for needing 8 voice polyphony vs 4 vs a mono synth?
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Dec 30, 2021 22:16
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Mr. Sharps posted:Reminds me of that vid of the guy showing off his cardboard modular synth, very charming Yeah, gently caress that loser
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Dec 30, 2021 22:42
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I Brake For MILFs posted:I'm looking into buying a synth and I'm really leaning towards the Modal Cobalt8, I like the fact that it's 8 voice polyphonic and it has a ton of knobs. I understand it's a virtual analog synth, the price point is very competitive. I'm also looking into getting a synth, I'll have to check out the Cobalt8, right now I'm leaning towards the Minilogue XD. Initially I was looking at the Behringer MS-101, but they're out of stock and it seems like Behringer doesn't have the best QC, in addition to people saying the keys kind of suck. Better to waste money on something of quality over a kind of crap item. I got and built a Beatbox by https://www.rhythmo.io/ but I'm not sure what the best way to use it is, the app basically melts my phone. What are people's favorite cheap/free DAWs?
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Dec 30, 2021 23:14
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net work error posted:What is the reason for needing 8 voice polyphony vs 4 vs a mono synth? Not the poster in question but if you're like me and you're a pianist, you play with both hands and often run into having 8+ notes ringing at the same time.
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Dec 30, 2021 23:18
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Arcella posted:I'm also looking into getting a synth, I'll have to check out the Cobalt8, right now I'm leaning towards the Minilogue XD. Initially I was looking at the Behringer MS-101, but they're out of stock and it seems like Behringer doesn't have the best QC, in addition to people saying the keys kind of suck. Better to waste money on something of quality over a kind of crap item. Do you have softsynths? iPad synths? A controller keyboard? There are a bunch of steps you can take before making the financial commitment of a $700 polysynth. What about a Microfreak? Or another Arturia dealie? I’m not trying to gatekeep or throw any shade, I just made the mistake in my 20s of buying a bunch of gear because “why spend time feeling poo poo out and figuring out what you want if you know you want the endgame?” and I bought and sold at a loss a bunch of gear that ultimately didn’t work for me or where I was creatively and personally. A Cobalt8 is a synth you get after you know what you want in a synth, IMO. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 23:19
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That last bit about knowing what you want before buying is a good one. I was fortunate enough to have been loaned a minilogue XD that someone was trying to sell. That made me realise it was far more synth than I was capable of utilizing. Glad I went with a volca modular instead. For the person asking about free DAWs, I use cakewalk, and am happy with it so far. But, I don't really do much in the DAW. My only point of comparison is ableton live lite. And it smokes the lite version of ableton.
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Dec 30, 2021 23:39
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Oh hey for what it's worth I found a link to get a free legal copy of Bitwig 8-track, if anyone was looking to try it out. It's obviously not the full thing, but it's enough to show off the really cool modulation interface and give you a taste of some of the neat devices/fx.
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Dec 31, 2021 00:10
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petit choux posted:Yeah, gently caress that loser what happened to your two-assed green rabbit thing av? i loved that av so much 
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Dec 31, 2021 00:30
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Ok Comboomer posted:Do you have softsynths? iPad synths? A controller keyboard? There are a bunch of steps you can take before making the financial commitment of a $700 polysynth. Thanks for the helpful post. I had looked at some Arturia stuff but at least one (the microbrute?) was oos at sweet water (where I have some fun bucks). Do you have a simple key controller you like? I’ve messed around with a few softsynths but using the keyboard sucks rear end which is why I was looking at smaller key synths in the first place. In a way I was thinking that a hardware synth would be a bit simpler, plug it in and not have to mess with software (as much), and I also have a Boss ME-80 I was thinking I could also use for noise making. Better to be overwhelmed by a bunch of knobs rather than “wait which DAW do I want? What plugins work with which DAW? Do I need a MIDI thingy???” Was at least my initial thought. But you’re completely right that a controller and software is a way to get my feet wet rather than buying too much synth out of the gate and being overwhelmed.
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Dec 31, 2021 00:42
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Hows the Akai MPD218 if all I want is a set of 16 midi pads to beat on? I'm assuming the modern iPad pro provides enough juice to use it without a powered hub?
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Dec 31, 2021 00:58
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I’ve heard nothing but good things, and supposedly runs off an iPad Pro just fine according to a few videos I’ve watched. Looks like the same pads that were in the One which I actually really liked, despite being of the smaller variety.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:24
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Mr. Sharps posted:what happened to your two-assed green rabbit thing av? i loved that av so much I think Squizzle is responsible for both of them? I forget, but they're both great. So I guess you weren't talking about my cardboard synth?
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Dec 31, 2021 01:32
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VoodooXT posted:Not the poster in question but if you're like me and you're a pianist, you play with both hands and often run into having 8+ notes ringing at the same time. That makes sense. Ok Comboomer posted:Do you have softsynths? iPad synths? A controller keyboard? There are a bunch of steps you can take before making the financial commitment of a $700 polysynth. This is great advice. If you know what you want it's best to go for it because otherwise you're going to go through a lot of trouble and end up there anyways as mentioned.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:34
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Rolo posted:Hows the Akai MPD218 if all I want is a set of 16 midi pads to beat on? I'm assuming the modern iPad pro provides enough juice to use it without a powered hub? Correct. Works fine. Only bummer is you only get 3 banks of pads so if you need a 4th for Koala you're SOL.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:39
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Arcella posted:Thanks for the helpful post. I had looked at some Arturia stuff but at least one (the microbrute?) was oos at sweet water (where I have some fun bucks). Do you have a simple key controller you like? I’ve messed around with a few softsynths but using the keyboard sucks rear end which is why I was looking at smaller key synths in the first place. Get Arturia V Collection while it’s on holiday/new year sale What’s your budget/size situation WRT a keyboard controller? There are good portable ones at $100 or less and they go up to $1K+ for high end piano replacement types. Anything from Arturia, Novation, AKAI (for the most part), Native Instruments, and KORG is gonna be mostly good. M-Audio and Alesis are a bit more hit and miss. Fatar and Yamaha and so forth are good but a bit esoteric and probs not worth seeking out, just stick with the basic list I gave ya for now For hardware, I’d recommend you look at the Arturia Microfreak, the MicroBrute and Minibrute, the behringer monosynths like the TD-3 and CAT and D clone, the MicroKorg and not spend more than $400 on your first hardware synth if all you wanna do is dick around and explore. At a somewhat basic level most basic synths can be made to sound or behave like whatever you want with the right application of outboard gear and tricks. It’s relatively easy to bend a 303-type synth into a jillion different soundscapes and genres beyond “acid”, especially if you can control it over USB trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 01:45
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Plus, “V Collection + Keyboard controller + Microfreak (and its included ribbon controller that works with external gear)” is a way better initial investment in a synth setup for $750 than plonking it all on a Cobalt.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:54
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petit choux posted:I think Squizzle is responsible for both of them? I forget, but they're both great. lol no i was talking about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd9rKougmdg
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Dec 31, 2021 01:55
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Ok Comboomer posted:Helpful stuff For just a controller I’d probably like to stay around $200 or less, I’m looking at the Arturia Minilab, looks like it comes with a bunch of plugins and ableton live lite. This MicroKorg with vocoder looks fun!
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Dec 31, 2021 02:39
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Matt Zerella posted:Correct. Works fine. Only bummer is you only get 3 banks of pads so if you need a 4th for Koala you're SOL. Knock on wood I think it’s plenty for me, plus the last bank can just be my iPad itself in a pinch  Seems worth 100 bucks if the pads are ok.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:42
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Got my Nonlinear Circuits Divide & Conquer kit today. It's a clock divider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCPz3gWtidg This was the first time I did surface mount ever. I find through-hole soldering very relaxing. SMD is not relaxing. I was probably nervous from being unfamiliar, and I honestly didn't expect it to work without any troubleshooting when I was done, but everything worked great the first time. Going forward, something being surface mount won't stop me from building it at least. There's a lot of neat SMD kits out there, like a bunch of Mutable Instruments kits done by 3rd parties under Creative Commons licensing. Eventually I'll get an oscillator or two, and then I'll look into building an uO_c for quantizing. My next projects will probably be a Befaco KickAll (I feel like I need a kick drum since I'm doing so much rhythmic stuff), and then either a Zlob VCF or maybe a Percall depending on how I'm feeling financially in a month or so. I didn't mean to accidentally build a drum machine, but
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Dec 31, 2021 03:56
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awww yeah. time to shift the focus of gas onto soldering microscopes and reflow stations!
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Dec 31, 2021 04:10
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The Voice of Labor posted:awww yeah. time to shift the focus of gas onto soldering microscopes and reflow stations!  
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Dec 31, 2021 04:26
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Arcella posted:Do you have a simple key controller you like? Simple controllers tend to be cheap controllers and cheap controllers don't tend to be good controllers. A controller keyboard is like a workbench. You're going to use it every day so it needs to hold up. It may have a bunch of knobs and pads and sliders but that doesn't make it complex, because you don't have to use them right now. What's more is that once you find out how to use them you already have them, instead of having to buy them separately. In some cases this makes sense - mostly with 88-key weighted controllers. Those tend to not have any sliders or knobs because the cost of production is mostly eaten up by the keyboard itself, so buying a separate box is kind of sensible rather than springing for the model with all the knobs and sliders. A Roland A-500 Pro is nice. A Native Instruments A49 is also nice and you get a bunch of useful software with it. quote:In a way I was thinking that a hardware synth would be a bit simpler, plug it in You're going to bump into this regardless of what route you take. It's just that with plugins, you've already spent the money on a computer you needed anyway. quote:Better to be overwhelmed by a bunch of knobs That's it. There's no magic to it other than a lot memorization and some maths. quote:“wait which DAW do I want? In practice, this means Ableton Live, FL Studio, or Reaper. Pick one. Try it for two weeks and put some effort in trying it. Try to record a short song with some overdubs. If you feel that it's making things difficult for you, put it aside, try another one until you find something you like. There is no "best". All DAWs have technological convergence (meaning that they steal eachother's features) and they all solve the same problem; you want to make a song. That means that the main difference is in "how do you expect to make a song", the type of shortcut key combos they use, and all the extra goodies that come with them that should never be the reason to pick one over the other because most people use 3rd party stuff anyway. You know how I chose a DAW? I didn't. I had a buddy who had Cubase and who showed me the basics in an afternoon. The equivalent of that these days is to follow along with a Youtube video, or if you have a buddy who's already into it, ask that buddy. So, that means the "how do you expect to make a song" is the important bit, and this kind of boils down to tradition. Let's go back to the late 70s to the peak of analog studio recording. You write a song at home by playing your guitar or piano. You jot down the lyrics and the chords. You practice it a bit with the rest of the band. At this point, lots of things are already prepared; what you don't have yet is 1) a proper room to record everything in because your bedroom is next to a freeway and it's filled with bathroom tiles, and 2) a professional means of recording the work because you've got a little 4-track cassette thing or a 2-track tape reel. So, you book studio time! Since studio time is precious, it's pretty tough financially to justify practicing your songs in the studio or even writing them there. You do your rehearsals somewhere else and you do the nice versions with all the bells and whistles in the studio. In the studio, the drummer and bass player will lay down their parts first, so when you come in with guitar, you've got this playing in the background. You check your notes and you play your parts while wearing headphones. Make a mistake? No problem, just ask the engineer to rewind and punch back in at a particular moment where previously you messed up your solo or whatever. Since you're poor all you can afford is a single monophonic synthesizer without memory - think a Behringer Model D or Pro-1 or so. That's OK; you just record the audio when it's playing sound A, and you record over sound A with sound B so now you have 2 voice polyphony and 2-parts multitimbrality. Just make sure you wrote down the settings for both sounds in advance. Now you know how 80s synth pop worked - just make every sound with that and overdub endlessly. Want chords? Great, record 3 tracks, then mix them down to a single one, but I digress. Believe it or not, most of what changed in the 80s was that you could add timecode which is basically a metronome for gear, and some bands could record to digital. You got cheaper synthesizers and samplers that were polyphonic and that could remember what you dialed in for a sound. In the 90s, more bands could record to digital thanks to ADAT which uses S-VHS tapes. This was huge because before you could do that, you'd have to prepare everything with just MIDI. 20 years ago you'd still have to work with MIDI because the money that could buy ADAT could buy you a sampler, an Atari ST for sequencing, and perhaps a little synth module, so it was much more cost-effective to pick that. There are DAWs that still expect you to work exactly like this. They're not really built for improvisation. You first need to set up what's in your studio, what's hooked up to what, and then you record things track by track. Cubase, Logic and especially ProTools are very much geared towards that style of working. Then you have the Abletons and Bitwigs where you can work that way, but you don't have to. Let's say you're used to having a dozen pieces of gear in front of you. Each of them has its own independent sequencer. Acid house is basically that - the drum machines and acid bass don't know about eachother, all they know is that someone's telling them what the tempo is. Everything is running independently, and it's up to you to increase/decrease volume or to switch patterns. Then you have FL Studio which started as something like a tracker and then changed into something else that's honestly completely incomprehensible to me. However, if a 12-year old can operate it then you should be able to do this too. Learn like they learn; watch videos about it. quote:What plugins work with which DAW? The ones that aren't decent aren't worth your time and effort; the ones that are only for RTAS are not your concern. quote:Do I need a MIDI thingy???” The fastest way to enter chords in a piano roll is to instruct your fingers so that they take the shape of a major C and then to play it. quote:But you’re completely right that a controller and software is a way to get my feet wet rather than buying too much synth out of the gate and being overwhelmed. Controller, decent pair of headphones/speakers, audio interface (so you can hook up your hardware synths later on). A controller with 5-pin MIDI outputs lets you buy desktop module synths. Good controllers can outlast everything else in the studio. Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 12:51
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Agreed on the midi controller soft synth route. The first synth I learned on was es2, it was very good for learning with the routing matrix it has
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Dec 31, 2021 15:53
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yeah re: daw. i use FL Studio because i pirated it as a teen to try something out and got comfortable with the workflow. i’ve been meaning to switch to bitwig but i can’t justify a big expense rn and yet i keep checking this thread like picking at a scab
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Dec 31, 2021 16:38
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Just buy reaper, the money you save on the full license will cover the ER visits for banging your head on the wall getting used to its obtuse and menu-divey interface.
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Dec 31, 2021 16:48
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You can probably find people giving away Ableton Live Lite licenses, or you'll probably get one as a pack-in with just about anything you buy these days. TBH if you want to just dip your toes into experimenting with software that you'll have literally zero problem finding a YouTube tutorial for the specific thing you're trying to do, I think Ableton is probably your safest bet. As a new user I am willing to bet that it'll take a while before you bump up against any limitations in Live Lite unless you're following tutorials that explicitly demand some paid functionality. But just loving around, it'll probably handle a lot of beginner stuff you throw at it for a long while. e: Eh though I guess the 8 audio tracks in Lite might actually be a bumper depending on how quickly you develop so maybe I'm wrong. some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 17:31
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Really? I found live lite super limiting. Just trying to record a couple tracks in song mode was really frustrating. Would rather use garage band on my phone tbh
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Dec 31, 2021 17:36
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Yeah no for some reason I forgot it's only 8 tracks, though honestly I didn't really bump up against that for a while. But maybe that just speaks more to the fact that I really dump a project before I develop it more often than I'd like to admit. But eh, still, for free you can at least get a taste of the Ableton interface and workflow. Admittedly it's a bit of a pricier system to buy into so maybe getting your muscle memory on a pricy suite and then trying to adjust to another cheaper system isn't the best long term plan. I just avoided the whole hassle by deciding I didn't want a modern DAW and spending like..... much.... more than the price of an Ableton license to get old Atari and Amigas and a Polyend Tracker running and sequencing my gear 
some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 17:38
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Martytoof posted:e: Eh though I guess the 8 audio tracks in Lite might actually be a bumper depending on how quickly you develop so maybe I'm wrong. Basically, the tradeoff is that of the value of your own time. The Beatles only had a 4-track recorder so 8 tracks should not hold you back from composing somewhat decent songs. While they had to bounce - a laborious error-prone process - you can just export and render. Having to do that every single time still costs time, and it won't allow you to go back - once you've bounced 4 tracks back to 1 you can't change volumes anymore and loading every track into a Drum Rack is a tedious workaround - but it's possible to get really creative with this and stretch the limits. You could even do all your composition stuff in Live Lite and then dump the rendered tracks in Reaper or something. I would've honestly given something really dear for even 8 audio tracks with effects back in the day. It absolutely is way better than having to load vocals in a sampler with a floppy drive and a crap proprietary format. So, if you value your own time, get something that doesn't have the restrictions. But once you bounce against these restrictions, you're already at a level where you're much better informed to make a decision in the first place.
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Dec 31, 2021 17:51
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Laserjet 4P posted:In practice, this means Ableton Live, FL Studio, or Reaper. I’d toss Logic on there if OP has a Mac. You can get a “put it on as many devices as you reasonably want” license for $200 with Final Cut Pro included, which you probably want for Arcella posted:For just a controller I’d probably like to stay around $200 or less, I’m looking at the Arturia Minilab, looks like it comes with a bunch of plugins and ableton live lite. Minilab is fine but I’d much rather just get a KeyStep of some kind instead. I had a big monster M-Audio Code61 (the same thing Marc Rebeillet ended up getting, but long after I sold mine) that was arguably very versatile but also very large. Too large for the workspace I shared with my then-partner. I eventually downsized to a basic KeyStep and was much happier with it and actually made more tracks.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:29
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Martytoof posted:I just avoided the whole hassle by deciding I didn't want a modern DAW and spending like..... much.... more than the price of an Ableton license to get old Atari and Amigas and a Polyend Tracker running and sequencing my gear https://youtu.be/ADxGRbbNPJ4
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Dec 31, 2021 18:32
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Ok Comboomer posted:I’d toss Logic on there if OP has a Mac. Wow, I think my last paid Logic upgrade in 2009(?) was $200 and I didn’t get Final Cut Pro. I’ve been using iMovie.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:34
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you can also get a copy of soundforge and just roll with that. it's like a single (or stereo) track reel to reel. it's like $40 when humblebundle does a sale, you'll want an audio editor anyway and it's processing routings (at least one of which I use on everything and haven't really found an equivalent to) can be brought into a daw as vsts. take it with a grain of salt, but the only time I was ever productive was doing everything on a groovebox. wrangling hardware can be a nightmare. a groovebox keeps everything in the same device while also avoiding the "it's a computer" problems of distraction, software/drm/stability hassles and choice paralysis. unfortunately grooveboxes have been kinda obsoleted by daws, yamaha rm1xs and rs7000s, which are my prefered things, are stupidly expensive now, elektron still makes some stuff but it's boutique, I think the novation circuit is the only other thing that really grooveboxes and I can't speak on it
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Dec 31, 2021 19:04
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