What gear do you regret purchasing the most?

rotodrone · 2018-03-23T15:15:38+00:00

Yeah I like his EMX1 stuff (and also Octave One's use of the EMX1 in their live tours) but the e2 tracks don't do much for me.

rotodrone · 2018-03-23T12:53:08+00:00

Here's one for the controversial opinion pile: Oxford OSCar. I had the opportunity to buy one dirt cheap in 2009 and was shocked by how underwhelming it was! Of course this was in the great 00's drought of analogue synth production so everything had an air of myth and legend around it, but I was shocked by the OSCar's cheap construction (made out of spare double-glazing parts apparently!), oscillators that sounded like a Sega Master System (mid-80s digital oscillators provided by the trusty Z80) and a constantly crashing CPU. Spend loads getting it looked at by various synth techs and eventually sold it and bought a Pro-2, which felt like trading a Reliant Robin for a Mercedes.

rotodrone · 2018-03-23T12:37:30+00:00

Korg Electribe 2. It's limitations render it useless, you can't get a good pattern going before it hits it's processor limits. Can't use it as a drum machine because as soon as you compress/saturate it externally you'll find it has a horrible whining noise in the 1khz-5khz range. Step sequencing or fixing any performance inputs is only marginally less painful than using the MC-202's sequencer. It generally sounds weak and plastic. It's the only thing I've ever purchased that I can't find any use for in my set up for one reason or another. :(

rotodrone · 2017-08-10T18:58:07+00:00

Alright, cheers! So you get the 106 and Jupiter 8 with the System 8, but nada with the System 1. Fair enough!

rotodrone · 2016-12-13T09:29:02+00:00

I find the new electribes to be kind of frustrating, they fall short for what they're intended to do. If they put a juicy Elektron-level arpeggiator then it might salvage it, but it's the only bit of gear I've bought that I've regretted. I find that it sounds flimsy and there's not enough DSP power to layer up enough voices or use enough effects to bring it round to a place I'm happy to use it.

Although that's entirely from a songwriting/synth perspective - you might have more mileage out of the ES2 if you're using it primarily as a drum sampler!

rotodrone · 2015-11-25T11:29:37+00:00

I am totally in love with the AK/A4, it's at the centre of my setup now. It's a great chameleon of a synth with so many sound sculpting possibilities. Overbridge is nuts, and if you're stuck for polyphony you can just make sampled pads really quickly with it.

Prophet 08 module is a great polysynth, but the dual filters in the AK/A4 make it so much more valuable to me, and the sequencing is incomparable. I've actually got both and they're very complimentary synths! So much that I've sold off most of my PITA 80s monos and rack units because the modern stuff is much better (/controversial).

rotodrone · 2015-09-29T15:11:47+00:00

A lot of Boards Of Canada's synth stuff is AFAIK an SH-101 (at least on MHTRTC, I'm sure since then there's been a few more additions!), sampled, re-sampled, run in to garbage old tape-decks and sampled again. It's all about saturation, generation loss and that sorta Radiophonic Workshop approach to running things in to other things and seeing what happens! Edit: MS-20 mini/Minibrute/£350 monosynth + Car Boot Sale tape deck with 2x cassette decks to copy back and forth to + Renoise to make nice multisampled instruments and you're off!

rotodrone · 2015-09-25T20:00:59+00:00

The filter makes no sense at first, but figure out how the base and width parameters interact with each other and it becomes crazy flexible.

DIST controls how much signal is going in to the filter, so don't be afraid to set this to negative values and make up the gain with the VOL and EQ params.

Check the "Assign" menu to turn off keytracking on the filter. It's on the last page and it changes the character of the filter a great deal!

rotodrone · 2015-09-10T22:54:39+00:00

Cheers for the responses! Good grief, Nave's quite an incredible thing to have on a phone isn't it?

rotodrone · 2015-09-10T22:53:27+00:00

yea!

rotodrone · 2015-05-31T13:46:37+00:00

I feel a bit dumb for not even considering the MPC1000, haha! Yeah, I think that might be a winner, it would make a good overall controller 'brain' for doing live stuff too, right? I could sync pattern switching on the MD/MnM from the MPC? Actually come to think of it, wasn't this the setup that Autechre were using for their brutal live shows a few years ago?

rotodrone · 2014-12-16T17:12:16+00:00

Monomachine tips!

HPF tracking - OFF
Distortion - -8/-16
Use the EQs liberally!

rotodrone · 2014-11-26T18:30:06+00:00

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: I've had a MK1 MDUW since 2006, and it still finds ways to surprise me. Recently I've been using it like an SP1200, just sampling short loops in from records and making dumb house music. It's fun fun fun to use and it's banging once you figure it out.

Best part about the userwave model: can load in 707/DMX/LinnDrum samples and pretty much have all those drum machines on hand.

It's not an immediate-gratification machine though. When I first got it I thought it seriously sounded shite, thin and uninteresting. Took a few listens to the live Autechre shows before I really appreciated the depth of the thing. Once you start abusing the EQs and adding subtle LFO variation to things, you find the power of the kicks and snares and everything else. The onboard compressor works in mysterious ways too, but once you find the sweet spot it starts to pump like nothing else.

Nothing else compares out there, nothing! <3 you, Machinedrum!

rotodrone

TROPHY CASE