Hits:
Digitakt – sold the OP1 to get the digitakt. After 2 days, I made more useable music on the digitakt than I ever did on the OP1. The only real upside that the OP has over the digi, imo, is polyphonic samples (yea yea, I know about the retrokits cable, got one on the way, but until then…).
Octatrack MKII – the digi was so great, I spent weeks watching Youtube on the OT MKII and decided to make the plunge. Perhaps the best and worst way of coping with a covid winter. I’ve yet to completely finish a track on it (as I am still grappling with all its uses), but the results are promising, and it’s a prime distraction to get my head out of ordinary music making, and take it to some where else. Honestly, I am really not a fan of using the OT for drum sequencing… with pickup machines, and a master on track 8, it’s hard to create drum patterns the digitakt way with a sample-per-track approach, as you run out of room. I know people love chopping up drum loops, but to me the results are divisive, and I generally don’t cutting up a ready made beat, but rather building one from the ground up. Even cutting up my own digitakt drum loops on it so far hasn’t been really all that great, as I want more of a subtle sampler sound, not like a “hey listener, this is a sampler so let me demonstrate every glitch it can do as a rhythmic part.” So I really only use it for live recording, melodic samples, mixer, and I guess a brain for the whole set up? MIDI arp is definitely next on the list of things to explore with it.
Tascam 424 MkI Tape machines and loops were my stress outlet from March through August, and now have just become an integral part of my workflow. It’s given me a whole new appreciation of hi and low fidelities as textures, not as some hierarchy of sound quality. Get the MKI while you can – if you’re a producer, one of the most satisfying things is to take a sequence you want to ‘lofi,’ speed it up twice as fast, bring it up an octave, record to the 424 on highspeed, and then drop the speed back down, thus giving you a saturated, wobbly, and legitimately analog lofi sound. It’s easy to do this with things like a drum sub mix, synth arp, or something like a piano or guitar part. You will definitely have to tweak it a bit in post to make sure the timing lines up (it’s usually a hair off from perfectly in sync from the original)… To make it even better, but with more time and experimenting, use a loop so you get the beautiful tape gaps…
Revox B77 Reel to reel was the next endeavor, and I drove five hours one day to pick this up. Analog recording should be a right of passage for any music maker who wasn’t alive when it was used as a primary method (like me). It’s really worth the extra time to use it in tandem with a digital approach. For example, if you’re tracking a polysynth pad part, it’s pretty easy to just let the tape roll, nail your part over a couple of takes with a click coming from somewhere, rewind, and record all of that back into the daw. If you’re quick with audio editing, playlisting them and grid nudging will take you max 10 minutes.
Casio CZ101 - I’ve yet to give this synth it’s due time of learning, but I really like (surprisingly) Casio’s alternative form of FM Synthesis. It’s kind of a bitch to learn, but if you take a DX7 approach of preset switching, minor edits, and saving, it’s pretty damn cool. It has made it’s way on 3 tracks I’ve produced for other people.
Yamaha Reface YC Honestly needed a good hammond b3 sound and this just does the trick. It’s really easy to send sequences too, so you can focus on the leslie switch, volume swells, and tone bar adjustments.
MISSES
OP1 Thank god I’m not posting this on the OP forums, but I bought one in march, had a blast, but really only used it for my own samples to be played polyphonically. The sequencers are just not good on this device – creative and clever, sure but lacking the ability to make anything really specific or complex. The synths on this are so bad, with zero context of what any of the parameters really do to the sound. And the samples just sounded like a souped Casio 8 bit sampler. The digitakt kicks this thing’s ass in everyway. If it cost 400, I def would’ve kept it, because it is totally it’s own thing, and I do miss certain things about it, but I am much more at home with Elektron.
Ju-06a actually got this last december, and used it for a long time, but it really just doesn’t sound that great. Took far too many pedals or post processing. I think also four voices for what might be the one of the most popular poly synths of all time way a big let down too. It didn’t bother me at first, but it eventually just gathered dust… I am curious about the Jupiter Xm as a much more expensive alternative, but we shall see if another stimulus check arrives haha.
Thank you all for indulging me… I didn’t think I would like this thread, but it actually was really great reading user experiences from people other than Youtube gear guys. Wishing you all health and safety during this time!
