Retrospective perspectives (spinoff topic)

Man, I wish I had made better decisions when I was 23 so that I could be jamming on good electronic gear. When I was 23 all I had at my use was a Boss BR1200CD studio in a box that i recorded into, a bass, a guitar with some pedals, an AirFX, and microphones to record a bell kit and various other things

Good on ya!

Sometimes I think that too - but I’d trade my fancy grownup gear for my old pawnshop setup (DX200 & SP808) in a second if it also gave me back that insane level of creative drive I had when I was 23.

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Dude. Yes! I know EXACTLY what you mean- when I was 23 I had SO MUCH creative drive- the amount of effort required to create a song on my old gear was INSANE! Still I’d put that effort in and spend entire nights, days and, on occasion, full weekends into recording a track. It felt like such a holy mission making the music back then- and I miss that magic SO MUCH!

Edit: I’m inclined to get some 4-track cassette recorder and see if I need gear that requires more effort than the energy efficient workflow of Elektron and Ableton

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Yea thinkin about the amount of effort required back then was mad. loading about 8 floppy discs of samples to the akai, jus for 1 tune.
i remember when zip drives came along it was like wOah 1 disc :smile:

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I wish id known more about grooveboxes back then and gone sp808 / mpc kinda thing instead of itb, info was hard to come by (SOS magazine n my older brother were pretty much the limit of my education). Im making up for it now tho, groovebox mad i am :smile:

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Coming from a person that LOVES Elektron, I’d be reluctant to move into Elektron territory if I were you. Sequencer based workflow is definitely fun, but has been a sort of downfall for my personal creative process. It sounds like, as you’re working now, there’s a bit more performance in your creative process- more expression and more feeling.

Elektron(and other sequencer based workflows) from my experience with it- changes the music methodology from a more “feel-y” process to a more “think-y” one(pardon my use of uber-scientific terms). Which, “think-y” is great and certainly has its merits, but “feel-y”, I feel, is more aligned with life-closer to the pulse, I think.

Granted with Elektron, you can immediately create fully fleshed out riffs and apply immediate changes that would take some tinkering with to happen otherwise if they’re possible at all. It’s great for appeasing instanious curiosity(which has always been the essence of my personal inspiration/motivation) but, in a sense, I think sorta segregates you from the music than by actually playing it.

I’m sure there will be plenty of people that disagree with me. And I can’t emphasize enough how much I love Elektron. But, from my experience, that’s how I see it.

Good luck in your music making!

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Tried going back to the old SP workflow earlier this year to see if it might help rekindle the magic - but it just didnt do it for me. There was still something missing.

With that being said, the way these new machines (elektron, mpc etc) are able to integrate with a DAW offers something exciting I would’ve killed for back in the day.

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Wasn’t even sure what it actually did when I bought it! No internet, no manual, had a great old time figuring out how to use it.

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Pretty sure there’s more to it than that - as an unemployed student with no kids, very few responsibilities and a lot of down time I tend to have oodles of playtime. Nostalgia aside, there’s really nothing for me to worry about. 38yo me is simply different to 23yo me and we have different competing interests.

Oh man! The OT was something else- the pinnacle of my time with it was fulfilling a years long dream of turning wine glasses and coffee cups into music that was previously not possible with my live recording method <3 Elektron Sampling <3

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i was going to choose the Ensoniq asrx Pro back in 1998 but instead went for a bunch of individual hardware units … so many leads, too much to think about. Bought quality gear but it was overwhelming.

Five different electronic instruments and a bunch of manuals all at the one time. Easy to get lost and distracted.
Even so, fairly educational and fun all the same.

yea it took me till very recently to really understand the logic behind learning 1 piece of gear at a time :smile:

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