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xzzy posted:I appreciate their media campaign accurately portraying the sounds I'd get out of it though. It really shows what synth hardware enthusiasts can expect to hear. (Also I love that “shreds” videos are still around in TYOOL 2023 in spirit)
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Jun 17, 2023 04:08
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snorch posted:First thing resembling a track in a while, been playing around with the 4-track cassette recorder a little more trying to channel my inner xangelix. Really enjoyed this
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Jul 15, 2023 23:53
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Have any of you used a Deepmind 12 in person? It will take me quite some time to save up for but I would love to get some synth keyboard. Right now I just use Diva and a cheap 5 octave midi keyboard but not having dedicated knobs sucks. Getting something like a Prophet is a dream and the Deepmind is much more attainable, but I’m not sure how it feels. I wish there was a cheaper version like the DM6 but with the same octave range of the 12 (or another alternative) since I don’t need 12 voices but I would definitely not want to be stuck with 3 octaves or less. 4 octaves on the DM12 is already a bit restrictive for what I would want to do (5 would be the sweet spot).
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Sep 27, 2023 02:11
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How easy is it to make robot fart sequences on those keyboards though
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Oct 14, 2023 00:49
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B33rChiller posted:The omnichord is back, baby! Didn’t expect him to go hog wild like that at 1:45.
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Jan 28, 2024 20:31
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I know this is maybe being too anal, but how long without playing an analog synth is it worth turning it off and turning it on again later? Like I assume if I’m going to take an hour break from practice then just leave it on, and overnight turn it off but how about in between that, in terms of minimizing wear on it balancing power constantly running through it vs. pushing power through from power cycles?
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Mar 1, 2024 19:02
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JamesKPolk posted:Depending on your system of course.... Thanks - this is just for a Pro 800. New to hardware synths and I know it’s not expensive but I want to make things last. I’m actually trying to figure out what I should get as a second analog synth to compliment it. Didn’t take long since the Pro 800 only arrived a few days ago…I used Repro 5 plugin so much that the Pro 800 was a braindead easy decision as to what I should get first but now I would like a second so that I can have a different sound playing as I perform with the other one. Like the current song would benefit with an ostinato while I’m playing the main part, which I am doing with the Pro 800 but a different patch would be good as well as not having note conflicts when I’m performing the same pitch. I could record it as audio but idk my single input on my interface is looking lonely. Has anyone used a Behringer Crave before? I am trying to do the second one as cheap as I can since I don’t really *need* it. The Crave being semi modular seems nice. I don’t really need its sequencer though since I am sequencing in Logic. Or any other suggestions really - poly would be nice but mono would do just fine. My needs are pretty basic right now for what a second synth would be doing, however the waveform limitations on the Crave make me second guess it. Oh, also smaller is better as my workspace is limited (thank goodness since splurging on some things is tempting but size is naturally limiting that).
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Mar 2, 2024 00:48
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B33rChiller posted:Low cost, small space, you may want to consider a volca keys, or others in the volca line. It has midi in, so you should be able to sequence it from your computer (will require usb to 5pin din midi converter), or maybe the pro800 can send through USB midi to the 5pin port? Worth investigating, imo. Thanks - I checked it out and those Volcas do seem pretty cool. However after a couple days of fighting it I ordered a Behringer K2. The MS20 sound is different enough from Sequential’s that I thought it made sense, already have some plans for how to use it but the clincher was when I saw a video showing that you can control it with a standard guitar and minor patching. loving crazy to me that is so easily done, and all of that for 200 bucks so if I have to sacrifice the space my Launchpad is taking up for it then so be it. I only have two inputs on my interface so hopefully this is naturally limiting in terms of wanting to immediately get more synths.
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Mar 2, 2024 21:14
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What would a “normal” noise floor be for an analog synth? I didn’t really notice this until throwing Logic’s auto mastering on but my Pro 800 seems to have a noise floor around -70db. I guess I had gotten lazy since discovering this auto mastering thing but I can’t really use it now since it amplifies the noise so much. I don’t really mind noise when I hear it in other people’s music - like I’m pretty sure some music I listen to even adds noise artificially for a tape like effect. But I’m going to need to wrap my head around it personally since last time I did any real sound production stuff was in the 2000s and having started on tape before then I was always trying to lower the noise floor, so I guess I took it for granted how low it was going purely digital with plugins. Mainly wondering if around -70db is normal since the pro 800 is only going on about a week old, so still getting to know it and although I didn’t notice it before I can’t unhear it now.
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Mar 4, 2024 18:37
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Tayter Swift posted:Can you stick a noise gate on it? I was messing with that but I have a fairly slow decay on my main keyboard sound so I lose the tail with a gate. It probably wouldn’t matter so much if I was doing a track with bass and drums but this is pretty exposed. This is what I’m dealing with (not finished) but both patches are from the pro 800. No EQ or anything outside of whatever a couple Valhalla plugins and stereo spread is doing https://whyp.it/tracks/161716/fine?token=1tYRQ I was looking into noise reduction but only tried Denoiser Classic so far. It has a sort of distorted sound on the top end when I just subtly reduce a little noise (I think it is letting through some noise erratically) but when I add enough noise reduction that the distorted sound is gone I lose too much top end and the patch sounds dull.
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Mar 4, 2024 19:18
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Flipperwaldt posted:If a noise gate is too binary, go with an expander. Never would have thought of that - thanks, and to others for the suggestions. When I get home tonight I’ll mess around. I think me not noticing the noise until I tried to turn on Logic’s auto mastering is pretty telling (though I have some hearing issues and hear white noise anyway) so it might be that I just get used to it. Looking forward, my main issue is if I start layering a bunch of tracks that all have this noise floor it could make a mess.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:10
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xzzy posted:I don't know if it will keep you from buying it or make you want it even more, but there's a decent sampler kit made with this synth you can try out: That seems like a gateway drug to wanting the real, hard poo poo.
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Mar 8, 2024 09:16
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I followed a similar line of thought (am now in the hard synth acquiring phase). I got a couple controllers I didn’t like and eventually ended up with a Nektar T6. It has better aftertouch than any others I found in that price range and you can assign your soft synth controls to the encoders and faders on the Nektar. However it also comes set up already with bindings for stuff like Diva, but it’s easy to assign controls manually. Speaking of which, Uhe Diva and Repro 5 were the soft synths that helped me the most. They are “virtual analog” as people like say - Diva has a number of analog emulations and Repro 5 is a Prophet 5 emulation. I ended up using g the latter much more which eventually led to my first hard synth choice being the Pro 800. Repro 1 is good as well but Diva and Repro 5 are polyphonic while 1 is monophonic (based on Prophet 1). You can do a lot with them but they are also simple enough that they are good starting from scratch with subtractive synthesis. Whatever controller you get I would make sure they have a good return policy. It’s easy to not get what you want. If the Nektar T6 seems good to you but too much money they make smaller versions which cost less.
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Mar 23, 2024 23:45
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If anyone has a few minutes, I’d appreciate some feedback on this https://soundcloud.com/theaudiodump/serendipity since it’s the first time having worked on something start to finish in Logic, which is still fairly new to me, but also the first time using hardware synths. I’m also a bit unsure because I had planned on adding a couple more things, but I got sick and had to take a week off from it. Coming back to it tonight my original ideas to finish it were gone, though luckily the meat of it is there. So wondering if there’s any issues keeping interest though the track, but also more basic technical stuff like if the patches interact ok, if the mix is bad (maybe the biggest concern) etc. The ostinato, melody and extra bass during the chorus were done on Behringer Pro 800, the main bass was with a K2 (MS 20 clone) but the drums I programmed with Logic sounds (I do want to make and sample my own drums though). Made the patches from scratch, which was really fun but for some reason it felt harder to get them to work together compared to when I would just use plugins (mostly Repro 5). But I don’t know, coming back to it after a week away is strange because I’ll usually chug away at something until it’s finished, and I’m not even sure now what else I would have added had I not got sick.
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Mar 25, 2024 08:59
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Thank you both! Good to know so I can move on to something new.
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Mar 25, 2024 17:37
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I was thinking of getting a third hard synth (because I have come to terms with being an addict now that the doors are open) and am wondering about using a Y adapter into an interface. Assuming the balance is ok between two mono synths, is there a down side (mostly wondering about fidelity or any negative effect one synth would have on the other) to running two quarter inch outs into one quarter inch input of a MOTU MU? Currently I have the Pro 800 in input 1 and the K2 in input 2 (both are mono) and was thinking of getting a TD-3 because they are cheap as gently caress and it would free up the K2 for leads or arps instead of making it do bass. And I already have a quarter inch Y splitter I keep in my guitar case for emergencies. However if I do justify this I might just get a Model D… I would likely bounce them both to separate tracks for effects and mixing when doing an actual recording but mainly I’m wondering if for previewing and setting up patches, would there be any issues having two mono synths run into the same audio input? I know a mixer is the real answer but right now that’s just too dangerous to have so many inputs unused and wanting synths for each on a mixer. E: thank you havelock!
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Mar 25, 2024 23:43
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tylertfb posted:Y cables do not work that way. I was wondering because when I used to teach in a spot with only one amp I used the Y connector (two female into one male) so I could plug both guitars into one amp if it only had one input. Sometimes one of our volumes would affect the other, or same with the tone knob but it was an ok solution that I would never use live but handy for lessons and did essentially let two sound sources be plugged into one input. I was wondering if I could do the same with synths into an interface, since like the guitars it’s just two mono outs but just typing this now realized I can just try this with the two synths I have and see what happens. E: just heard of making an “aggregate device” on Mac, which lets multiple interfaces be used together and I have an old unused interface so this might be the easiest way to do it. Would net me two more inputs but will have to see what the down sides are. rio fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 00:24
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It does look like there are some pretty cheap mixers with acceptable noise floors. I’m hesitant to get another interface because this MOTU M2 is less than a year old and I do really like it. But I think I’m going to hold off for now because I was thinking if I was going to get a TD2 then why not just get a Model D, and then thinking maybe I should get a Pro 1 instead because I’ve really wanted to pair that with the Pro 800, and honestly if I keep worrying about getting another synth it’s going to keep me from writing more music. If I had the space and the inputs I would probably have ordered one already (one reason the TD2 was enticing to begin with was because I am pretty maxed on space, and it’s a bit smaller). It would be really sweet to get that three unit rack though and load it up with the Pro 1, 800 and K2. I think synth GAS is somehow worse than guitar GAS ever was for me. Maybe since I just really like hearing them play in real time vs. recording tracks.
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Mar 26, 2024 02:21
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im_sorry posted:I'm thinking of livestreaming. I set up a couple synth stations with cameras and stuff so I can fire 'em up whenever I want. The only thing stopping me is the crippling anxiety. I would watch that, both for the cool synths but also the cute bird.
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Mar 27, 2024 05:58
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Do any of you have any advice, or better than that can point me to some resources on how to make a good synth bass drum patch fit well into a mix, not get in the way of the bass but also still be present enough to drive the beat etc? I am going back to a song I hadn’t quite finished before I got my hardware synths, and everything was done except the drum sounds. I tried three or four different things which I didn’t like and then went back to Microtonic, which I hadn’t used for a while. Microtonic feels really nice to me now since I’ve been working on patching synth stuff from scratch and have more experience than last time I used it. But while I’m happy with the bass drum sounds I can make, I’m not thrilled with how it sits in the mix. It’s either too boomy and takes up too much space fighting the bass, or too quiet to do its job effectively. This seems like a changing thing based on what the bass patch is doing in each song and the eq range it is filling, and the bass drum patch should work around this. But I’m not really sure what the workflow is to diagnose this, and how to get reliably from “I have a good bass drum patch” to “I really like how this bass drum sits in the mix and compliments the bass patch”. There are a good amount of videos that talk about patching bass drums but I don’t know who to trust.
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Mar 28, 2024 22:26
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Thanks everyone, I will mess around with it tonight and take that all into consideration. I guess I’ve been lazy since usually if I’m sidechaining it’s just for ducking, but I can see how using it subtly might help. Usually I do have the bass and drum sounds done at the same time, but I had gotten distracted on this since it was all synth plugins and then I got hardware and left this behind before finishing setting up the drum sounds (though at that time I would have been preset surfing drum sounds instead of trying to make them so maybe that’s why I’m hitting this issue now). It’s the last thing that needs to be done though so I want to finish it before getting back to the fun hardware stuff.
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Mar 28, 2024 23:26
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Cabbages and Kings posted:.... What the gently caress lol this thing is so incomprehensible and weird but I absolutely love it.
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Mar 30, 2024 00:30
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watho posted:i saw a pretty cool looking tiny portable poly the other day and then i saw that it only had a single digital oscillator with two wave shapes and it cost almost a grand and i just laughed and moved on with my life Was it the “virtual analog” with noisy af keyboard keys for note entry and white on white text? That thing was popping up all over my feed for a few days. Watched one of the videos and it was just shilling. It’s the perfect social media synth though. It should come with some succulents.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:33
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A MIRACLE posted:What synth are you guys talking about lol https://youtu.be/Z0UmXBS2zJE?si=97SQzUVPJu-CzxKG After tax and shipping it’s about 1k for a VST in a box where you have a mini usb in TYOOL 2024, “virtual analog” somehow restricted to two waveforms in box with one oscillator, white text on a white body etc. This was the video I saw and the funniest part was where her friend said the reason to get it (iirc) wasn’t the sound or features but so that people would ask you what it was when you used it lol this was after they swapped out the key switches trying to reduce the amount of clicking they made.
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Apr 2, 2024 04:25
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I’m glad the reface cp isn’t on sale because I’ve been trying to convince myself I don’t need one of those for a while.
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Apr 2, 2024 15:39
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Not sure if this is the place to ask, but it is an external synth issue in the end (even though it is through a DAW). I have been exporting midi from FL Studio, and some mobile midi apps, into Logic so that I can work on some unfinished songs and replace soft synths sounds with hardware. However I first hit an issue a few weeks ago when I found that all of the exported midi was locked to one volume. Whenever I started the track the volume would pop to a set value, so I just turned off volume automation on the piano roll since I couldn’t seem to delete it, though I would have preferred to know how to remove it entirely. Today though I brought something into Logic (same volume issue) but every time I would move the transport a cc0 message was sent out to my synth. It would constantly switch back to patch 00 because of this, and I couldn’t figure out how to keep Logic from outputting it so I turned off incoming cc data in the synth settings. “Delete track automation” did nothing for this which was surprising - nuking all the automation appeared to not touch the cc0 out. Even the pitch bend data was exported with the midi and Logic didn’t delete that either (not that I wanted that deleted) but it is making me really confused. How is this data (volume, cc0 bank change, pitch and who knows what else) being brought over when exporting midi? Especially cc0 since I never used that in the past. I won’t be using FL Studio anymore so that isn’t an issue, but I do like inputting/sketching out midi parts on my phone when I’m not home, so I’d love to know how to avoid these issues and have an easier time exporting midi data into Logic. The cc0 message also didn’t affect software synths - I had blocked out the parts with Diva and Repro first to see if there were any problems and although the volume issue was there it never tried to bank change/reset to preset 0; I only noticed cc0 being sent whenever I moved the transport once I started trying to lay down the first track with the Pro 800.
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Apr 8, 2024 04:32
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(Edit: to answer watho I had exported the entire song from FL, first using the “prepare for midi” macro and then exporting to midi so that I could import all tracks at once and in place). Thanks for the tips on the midi issue earlier - I haven’t done anything about it since turning off incoming midi cc on the synth works for now but when I’m done working on this music I’ll try to diagnose it using the info here. And also I got totally sidetracked trying to remake the sounds from my soft synths (since I had written and started the song before getting any hardware) on my Pro 800. It’s been a learning experience. None of them really lined up with just putting the waveforms, filters etc. the same as the preset and it varied from being able to keep the oscillator waveforms the same and just needing to change the filter settings to having to completely disregard the soft synth settings and try to approximate by ear. I was especially surprised by one patch .which was a single trumpet kind of sound with a particular timbre I liked made on Repro 1, needing totally different settings on the Pro 800. Didn’t help that I was using the wavefolder in Repro and I couldn’t find any way to get a similar effect. I might post the before (with soft synths) and after (with hardware) when it’s done if it’s interesting enough as a comparison. The software was just Diva, Repro 1 and 5. One issue though, which is confusing and I have a question about, was that I noticed this “click” on an arpeggio track starting every note. I’ve noticed it before, and have seen questions online about it so I know that just putting a little bump on the attack of the VCO filter will cover it up. However whenever I started playing or recording the click would come back. For example the values on the Pro 800 go from 0-999. A value of roughly 30 on the attack gets rid of the click. So I would set it but then when I start playback or recording the click is there until I wiggle the attack knob as it’s playing. I ended up having to insert a duplicate measure 1 so I could slightly wiggle the knob through beat 1 of the now-second bar (the clicking would come back on bar 2, or the old bar 1, for some reason if I didn’t), and then delete bar 1 to reset it back to the way it should be. It then plays with no clicks throughout the 6+ minutes of the song. I don’t know if that explanation makes sense. Why it’s happening though, makes absolutely no sense to me. Incoming midi cc is off on the synth so I know Logic isn’t resetting the attack filter for some reason. Have any of you experienced anything like that? There’s so much little poo poo like this to deal with compared to soft synths, but hardware is (theoretically) so much more fun and rewarding for some reason. E: gently caress me I just realized the click came back at some point in the track and didn’t notice until the end when the arp is exposed like the beginning. I’m going to just run a declicker at this point. rio fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 07:12
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watho posted:whenever i export midi from FL Studio, which is pretty frequently due to rhythm game poo poo, i always just combine all the patterns for the instrument to one long pattern and then export it via the piano roll. my understanding is that the prepare for midi export macro is for some very specific use cases but i don't actually know I have one more project I was going to export after this one was finished so that’s good to know. The reason I used that macro at all is because exporting it all at the same time didn’t work at all - when I tried to import it to Logic it wouldn’t load, but after using that macro it did work (though obviously with issues). When I get to it, I’ll export one track the way you’re saying (I forgot you can export from the piano roll to begin with) and test it. Thanks for the heads up.
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Apr 9, 2024 16:28
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In a moment of weakness I ordered a Drumbrute Impact. I was thinking Microtonic is a hundred bucks so why not put that into hardware, half jokingly and then saw the impact is pretty affordable. Ironically I might pay for microtonic too since it can do more, but drums are the one thing I still need software for so at least now I could do an all hardware track (in theory).
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Apr 9, 2024 22:40
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Got the Drumbrute Impact in the mail but was unfortunately out most of the day. However, the hour I spent with it was extremely fun. The sequencer seems really intuitive and I look forward to using it but most of the time I was trying to figure out how to have Logic control it so I could basically plug and play in a song to test how it sits in a mix. First I thought I needed a firmware update (maybe it did) but it wasn’t until til I downloaded their software and saw its default midi channel is 10 that I got it working. Maybe I would have known this if the “manual” (QuickStart guide) had any useful information in it that I couldn’t just guess. I see there is a manual online now and maybe I’m just old but I don’t any a paper manual rather than a single folded piece of paper with stuff I could guess. I think my main gripe is that I can’t tune the snare drum. Often I want a tuned snare fundamental as a simple way to switch snares between chorus and verses (mostly white noise snap in one while the other is contributing a pedal tone through the snare). I’ll probably just sample the snare and pitch it when I need to; I could sample the snare with no white noise, pitch it, and then combine it with the white noise I guess. I know people have complained about the velocity restrictions but a lot of the time I will only have one or two midi values on drum tracks anyway, so being restricted to two velocities will be fine for me. But otherwise it sounds great to me. Microtonic is good because you can get so many sounds out of it; Logic has a ton of drum samples, and of course I can sample a synth to make drum sounds, get samples online etc. This has so few options in comparison but I think I need that - the restrictions are helpful and so far, testing with a song that just needed drums it works well. The individual line outs are a nice addition but again driving me to want more than two inputs on my interface. I really like my interface though, and a mixer would let me route then but still not be able to add plugin effects per drum sound. Idk I’ll have to mess with it - I could always record each drum sound to its own track, which wouldn’t be any more annoying that recording synths to track them anyway. All in all for the price I’m going to get a lot of use out of it. I think it’s yet another slippery slope with wanting more gear now though (I’m getting closer to being able to go out of the box, or just control most of a song in real time without needing to track synth to audio). I guess I underestimated how fun having a drum machine could be, and that’s just in one hour of loving with it. Also the interface makes me want to get a Microfreak more. E: just realized i can use the FM drum to get a pitched snare; just have to double the snare track, set actual snare to noise and the FM to the pitch I want 
rio fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 07:52
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Ironically I sold a Mackie mixer that sat unused for like 20 years last summer. There is a pawn shop near here where I found a Launchpad X for dirt cheap, and they had some other audio stuff so maybe I’ll check that out. The main reason I wasn’t jumping to get a mixer (yet, since I know I’ll get one eventually) is that for the individual drum outs there are plugin effects I’d like to use since they are less noisy than my some of my pedal options, and at least now the main use for the drum machine will be tracking in Logic. So I would still need them to be seen as individual inputs there. But I appreciate the info! I have plenty to mess with for now (and honestly a Microfreak is the next really tempting thing since although I don’t *need* it, it seems so fun)
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Apr 11, 2024 16:58
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Cabbages and Kings posted:https://soundcloud.com/suboptimal-synthesis/2024-04-11-xploration drat that sounds cool
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Apr 11, 2024 23:23
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I like music theory because it is fun and useful. If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t care about it and that’s fine. That said I do indoctrinate children at a young age to agree with me, for money.
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Apr 12, 2024 19:55
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minidracula posted:Nothing I've seen yet tops this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino lol I never knew this existed. With how incredibly niche the references are I have to wonder how they got that all approved and who came up with it. E: Arms_Akimbo posted:Ran into this quote just now I think one of the coolest things is making music that no one else will listen to. If you make something you yourself like to hear, it’s a privilege not many people get to experience (not to mention the fun and satisfaction of the creative process itself). If you find a few people later who like it too then cool, but if not it’s not an issue. rio fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 03:57
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Has anyone here happened to use a Zoom R16 as an audio interface with synths? It apparently will take 8 channels acting as an interface, which would solve a lot of my tracking issues. I’ve seen some comments that it overdrives easily and needs attenuation, but I don’t think anyone I saw talking about it elsewhere was using synths. I was also looking to see explicitly if it will let me have 8 inputs at the same time when acting as an interface so that I could have two external synths and four tracks from the drum machine all playing/recording at once in Logic (and keeping my guitar and mic plugged in all the time on top of that would be nice, or room for future hardware). It also acts as a portable recorder which is pretty cool, but my main thing is getting 8 inputs at once into Logic. There’s a guy who is selling two of them for 180 bucks each but it’s an hour drive each way so I do t want to get there to find out it isn’t what I would want.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:43
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Mike Arthur McVein posted:Haven't used it but apparently it's 2 outputs in interface mode so it would just send the stereo mix out to the DAW, not the individual tracks; sounds like you are looking for a multitrack interface. Ah poo poo - thanks, that’s what I couldn’t find so good to know. I ran the snare out alone into one channel of my M2 last night with the rest of the drum machine through the mix output and just having the independent snare was so nice (being able to give it independent effects and dynamics plugins) that I’m really wanting to switch interfaces now. I really like the M2 I have and didn’t want to replace it, but I thought I could perhaps justify the purchase if it was a mixer and an interface that gave me at least 6 independent channels as an interface. Though after looking at this, 8 makes more sense since I know the next piece of hardware I get I’ll want more channels. I was looking at the Behinger UMC1820 (technically capable of 18 but has 8 inputs onboard) if I was going to straight up get a new interface, but am a little sketched out after reading some issues people have had including using it with the same generation of device I’m using (m1 MBP). I could make space for it but just laying a rack mount on a side table seems weirder than having a mixer there. Every mixer I’ve looked at seems to only output stereo as an interface though.
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Apr 14, 2024 02:45
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The way I see it, theory is useless apart from ear training unless writing purely academic music. The good news is that (perhaps oversimplifying, but probably not) if you understand and can instantly hear intervals and chord qualities (i.e. major, minor etc), then the bulk of what you need to make music is in your head already and you can make decisions about music without as much trial and error. That could happen quickly, or slowly (more common considering how much theory books like to pad their page count) but I haven’t met anyone who has regretted it. I have met many who regret spending too much time on the minutiae. Whoever said earlier (paraphrasing) “just know i bVII bVI” isn’t really wrong because you’d recognize a ton of electronic music type things with that alone. Also let’s just say all of these could be backwards and forwards, and you know maybe 5-10 common progressions and cadences. In terms of the music most people hear, that is really the majority of it. Or just know Phrygian mode for techno - that’s a good example because it is true, but if you know a major scale starting and ending on the third then it doesn’t matter if it’s called Phrygian or whatever. If your ear knows the intervals of a major scale then learning that or Lydian or Dorian or whatever is not as complicated as some methods make it sound. The names don’t even matter (can call Phrygian simply the third mode of the major scale and everyone will know what you mean). It is nice to know than name though because we like labels and they are useful. The thing is that when you know something, people tend to want to know more if it’s a creative field especially. So maybe then you learn why to call the above progression vi V IV that instead of the previous nomenclature, or wanting to spice it up to vim7sus, Vadd9, IVmaj7 or something. But these are all not really as important if writing popular music styles because your ear is probably good enough after working on it to add those extra tones without knowing the names. And the names don’t mean anything. All the extra poo poo - sure it’s useful in jazz to communicate with others, and outside of jazz i think being able to label what you hear is useful. People thrive off of labeling what they experience. But if you can hear it in your head it doesn’t matter if you call that chord progression one thing or the other or a ham sandwich. There are people who have huge ears and don’t know anything about proper chord names. The function of chords though, I’ll always argue is very useful if you want to write music. Just because there aren’t as many things to learn as people think. It’s just training yourself to hear it and identify it, and although maybe not easy it is *simple*, which is something people (maybe intentionally) try not to mention when teaching theory. If you know basic chords, and common progressions, and can reliably hear intervals you can find any extra notes you want to add, shift any harmony to be “hip” *makes jazz face* or whatever. There’s definitely diminishing rewards with theory, objectively speaking. Personally speaking, everything you learn feels important but the basics of tonal harmony being internalized are a massive help writing popular styles of music (not popular like Taylor Swift, but like not jazz, not classical etc) since it tends to reuse things sooo much. Similar with percussion too, if that helps as an analogy since the basics of a beat are more easily heard up front. Anyway back to obsessing over interfaces and questioning my choices about doing that instead of having a more fun time playing with a drum machine. I guess I couldn’t resist the theory talk after all. e: I should mention that it can also not matter at all. Lots of people have written awesome stuff having no idea what to label it as. Just have to be honest with ourselves with what is really useful, and maybe ask people along the way for second opinions. rio fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 05:55
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Thanks for the clarification. I did end up finding a video of someone who explicitly showed it connected to a daw and 8 inputs in the settings. It’s a tough call because like you said more inputs are always good. I think it’s funny now that when I was getting an interface I thought two channels would definitely be enough, but I was only using soft synths then. But 4 tracks for the drums, and two for each of my hardware synths means just one stereo signal would max out 8, and I can’t pretend anymore than I’m not going to pick up more hardware. The main thing that’s appealing with the R16 though is the fact it is a self contained multi track recorder. I imagine at some point I would want to go out of the box, and if it can be an interface and a multitrack recorder (even battery powered if I needed to do some field recording) it is tempting. I’ll have to think about it and research more. I found an old Behringer 2 input interface that I basically bought and never used, and saw that on Mac you can build an aggregate interface with multiple audio interfaces running at the same time. So if that works, I could have 4 inputs between that and my current interface. Not enough to leave everything plugged in, but enough that I could track the drums without recording each part separately. E: regarding in/out nomenclature, I *think* the only thing that seems backwards is midi and everything else shares the same labeling. Midi out meaning it is going out through that so it should be connected to the “in” and anything midi is labeled according to the direction of the piece of hardware/cable you use. rio fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 17:21
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Looking at interfaces and prices the past few days I finally made a decision. Buy a Microfreak. I’m very excited and it will be here tomorrow; hail Satan. Aggregate interface device seems to work just fine so I might just slum marketplace/craigslist for dirt cheap interfaces and add them to the aggregate for now. 4 inputs with the current aggregate means I can have the single sum out from the drumbrute as well as Pro 800, K2 and Microfreak all running together and then track out the individual drum tracks when it’s done to finalize with individual effects.
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Apr 15, 2024 21:11
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I think I finally found the most ideal setup for where I have to put my stuff. My daughter and I split the dining room table for our computers and she just recently wanted to start playing FFXIV again. So I had to have a way to see my pc monitor to get us playing it together again. I had only been using my MacBook since I got it a few months ago, with the pc being unused since I switched to Logic and had no space for the monitor until now. I found a tall monitor stand on Amazon that can roll around, realized it had a tray that could fit my laptop and that let me reposition the hardware. Having the Microfreak on top of the midi controller is so nice since I can play both at the same time, and I previously didn’t have a place for the Launchpad (the laptop used to be there). I’d prefer to have the laptop between the monitors, but now I can use the laptop screen as a second monitor and the larger one a primary so it’s really nice for screen space. My midi controller integrates well into Logic so I can do a lot of what I would need for mix monitoring/parameter changing from there. Hardware synth acquisition is like waaay worse than guitar had ever been for me. I know I’m going to have to make room for more stuff somehow eventually, but here’s what I ended up with. Thank god for cheap Amazon laptop stands; there are 5 of them to hold everything other than the midi controller.  E: also the Microfreak is so loving fun. I don’t know why I didn’t get one before everything else now, but it really adds a lot of possibilities. It’s a bit tough learning the lingo they use for things I’m used to seeing labeled more traditionally, like I still have no idea what the settings mean for the basic oscillators when I just want to change waveforms, but I’ve only had it a couple days. The matrix is especially cool, and I can’t wait to put that vocoder to use. rio fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 20, 2024 07:51
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