2021 Gear Purchase: Hits & Misses

( another year, another piece of gear we may or may not need/like. ::sighs:: )

well we’re here again…a little earlier than usual, but it seems during these recent times theres been a spike with gear purchases so i guess thats a good thing.

this is a reoccurring thread now (usually posted in fall), but for the new elektronauts, heres a quick rundown of it.

-list your gear you purchased this year that were hits* to you, and/or were misses*

-tell us a little something about it.
why it was or was not.

-extra points if you give a thorough description.
(so we can all analyze your feedback and possibly make a good or bad purchase decision based on it and be rite back here next year lol, jk)

but seriously, we all like a descriptive post i think. (it makes it fun & engaging?)

i suppose it helps us see gear from a different perspective and also gives us a bit of insight about it we might of not known.

or if you’re not the typer type…just do you, and thats ok too.
even the most direct/to the point posts are helpful in some way or form too.

hope everyones hanging in there…and most importantly, still making music.

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I swapped my Strymon BlueSky for an Eventide Micropitch to sit on the “reverb” aux send. Love it!

You can tune the two delay lines to be in very short chorus/flanger territory without the LFOing. The small micropitch tuning help to smooth out these typical comb-filter resonances in chorus/flangers. So it’s a very smooth stereo widening, very short and tight, without these huge reverb washes to drown the full mix.
Of course it’s not a carefully crafted reverb where you can almost see the room when you close your eyes, but it does its stereo widening really well! Turning up the feedback makes the effect go pretty out of whack, turns the subtle widening into huge a metallic sprooooiiing sound.

I might experiment at some point in using it as a more traditional chorus type of thing, that’s more the way it seems to be marketed. But for now… tight, tight, tight faux-reverb for me!

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hits:

  1. Circuit Tracks. it’s like OG Circuit — but with some real amount of storage.
    also, has improved MIDI connectivity and better pads.

  2. MC-101. it’s almost like a half of MC-707 — but 4 times smaller than MC-707, which means real portability. also, 4th physical knob rocks.

  3. Ambika. i was looking to buy a backup Tetra unit, but used Tetra prices gone crazy, so i decided to pull the trigger for Ambika as similar (feature-wise), though slightly bigger machine.
    got my prebuilt and tested unit (with 3 different types of filters!!) for $500, and it’s one of my best synth purchases ever.

future hits:

  1. Oxi One. i hope they’ll deliver in Q4 as it was planned — however, i’m already beta testing a prototype unit, and it rocks, in particular — has the best euclidean generator i’ve ever dealt with.

  2. TD-3-MO. i’m waiting for this year’s black friday in hope to get a couple of these slightly cheaper — anyway, it’s doomed to be a hit.

misses: NONE

PS. waiting for more deatils about: RK008

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I’m going to keep it simple. Hits are things I actually use. Misses are everything I bought and sold (mainly for financial / workflow reasons):

Hits

Digitakt – the 1.30 update is amazing. Having a resonant filter for pulling out bass frequencies and the other to chop away unnecessary subs and top end makes it perfect. Two LFOs is v useful too!

Soma Ether – for feeding into the DT. I’ve gotten into more ambient and noise stuff lately so this one fits the bill admirably. With DT shaping it, I can get huge bass, chords, textures. I really love it.

Moog Subharmonicon – I wanted something purely for chords with Just Intonation without knowing what I’m doing (going by ear alone) so it delivers that in spades. What I didn’t realise was how good it is when pushed in non-conventional directions for rhythmic textures. I think the way it derives melodies, harmonies, rhythms from subharmonics at different scales is a work of genius.

JRF C-Series contact mic – I’ve not got too much use out of this one so far, but it cost £35 and I know I will be using it in the near future.

Audeze LCD-1 – quite simply the best headphones I’ve ever used. They translate extremely well, are well balanced (without harsh top end), and the transient detail is fantastic. Recommended!

Misses

Analog Rytm MKII – lovely bit of gear, no doubt about it, but it’s weirdly limited in a lot of respects for such an expensive box. One filter, one LFO, and relatively poor sample start/end/loop resolution makes for a lot of hard work when used as a sampler. That aside, I’m not making beats anymore and needed to get a considerable chunk of change back, so it had to go.

Model:Samples – importing samples ahead of time just really isn’t my thing. It’s cool, otherwise.

Polyend Tracker – I still really love this machine but sold it to make rent and haven’t looked back since getting the DT to replace it when I was more solvent again. It does some really amazing things but is limited to the same one LFO, one filter paradigm of Rytm so it’s hard (compared to DT) to shape things.

Polyend / Dreadbox Medusa – I didn’t really like the synth side of things. As an MPE controller with scales / grid layouts, it was amazing. But Tracker replaced all of that for me at the time and it’s far too big for my setup when I only wanted to use the left hand side of it. Haven’t thought much about it since it left me.

Dreadbox Typhon – neat little box, good for bass, nice FX, but its workflow just didn’t really appeal to me, esp with the tiny screen and sliders for multiple tasks depending on what screen was being used at that moment.

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Just hits:

Digitone–It’s the Digitone. It rules. I’ve been using it to make samples, And I’ve been using it to add basslines and little extra things to the beats I’ve made on the Digitakt. Before the 1.3 update on the Digitakt, it was also my soundcard.

Novation Circuit Rhythm–I like this thing a lot. Being able to sample something, play around with it and maybe throw it away if I don’t like it or make a full beat with it if I do without having to so much as think about naming a file has been great. Plus it’s portable.

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Hits
1 - Digitakt: I needed a drum machine, so I looked for a KORG Volca Sample, then a Model:Samples, (which introduced me to Elektron brand, I wasn’t aware of Elektron because synths and drum machines weren’t my thing for a long time) and finally settled on a beautiful Digitakt. Since 1.30 Update (especially External Mixer) came, I’m extremely happy with i, getting a little better at it lately.

2- Ditto x4: I’m playing guitar for 10 years now, in order to incorporate guitar in my music I needed a MIDI controlled looper pedal. It works fine, it has its quirks but I can bend them to my will most of the time. Sometimes it answers to some CC values differently, not really a problem for me because once you find a value that works, it works. Not perfectly reliable but I would say it is reliable %80-90 of the time. There are better loopers out there if you have the budget (or your local stores have the stock). Effects are nice too. I’m using it as a basic looper right now, but with Digitakt it has some serious potential in my opinion.

3-Way Huge Echopuss: An amazing analog delay pedal. It has a modulation circuit in it, which only affects the wet signal, it is a mostly subtle but great sounding chorus. Delay side has a tone knob too, bright settings kinda sound like tape or lofi delay, warmer settings sound like classic bucket brigade analog delay. Delay time is 600 ms as far as i remember, so don’t expect ambient, but it can do self oscillations to a degree, nice for textures. Really nice for slapback.

4-Cheesy Instruments Modified Tonebender + Green Ringer Clone: A custom order fuzz and octave pedal. Cheesy is a pedal builder based in Istanbul-Turkey, he builds nice and value for money pedals. It is a nice fuzz, when boosted by a Blues Driver it has serious growl and bite, bias knob makes it really versatile.

5-Joyo American Sound: Preamp pedal based on Fender style amps. Ultra cheap and definitely gets you in the Fender amp ballpark. I use it with a Digitech Polara reverb into the Digitakt (Ditto looper in between), sounds very amp-like and has beautiful cleans. Voice knob gets it from scooped Deluxe reverb to mid heavy tweed tones, and everything in between. Build and come components (power in) is cheap but the pedal IS cheap. Value!

Misses but not really
1-Cheesy Instruments Silicone Fuzz Factory Clone: Build is nice, but finding usable tones is very hard in my opinion. I found a forum post for recommended settings but they didn’t work for the Silicone model, or for my clone. Very powerful and huge sounding tho.

2-Yamaha Reface CS: I wanted a polyphonic synth for pads and keys. It’s my first synth, sounds good most of the time, it is capable of great sounds, but I don’t have the time to learn it. You can’t save presets on it so it is a drawback, I create a patch, can’t save it and I forget about the patch next time I have time to play it. I believe it is a good synth but I am kinda sad about buying it. Could have saved money for something more capable, like Digitone.

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Hits

Polyend Tracker- it’s not perfect but it’s perfect for me. Something about its workflow, button layout, and limitations just clicks with me.

Subharmonicon- I always end up feeling inspired when I play with it, even if I don’t start out that way. @craig said everything else.

Soma Ether- I haven’t used it in my music that much, but I love it as a tool for stimulating my curiosity. Its creator, Vlad, once compared it to Pokémon Go, which sounds strange but it makes sense to me- it reveals another aural dimension of the physical world (and is a great companion while walking around urban environments).

Blackbox 1010music- it hasn’t been the game changer that is the Tracker, but I still love it for its simplicity and focus. It really fills in the gaps of the Tracker- stereo samples, streaming, and polyrhythms, to name a few. The latest update is also exceptional, specifically the addition of LFOs for modulating various parameters.

Undecided

Various Eurorack modules- This year was my first foray into modular. I put together a small skiff for audio processing and mangling, and while it’s been fun to learn a new process, the musical results haven’t been equal to the amount of effort I’ve put in. I have a sneaking suspicion that I would’ve been fine just using my Octatrack for the task, but I’m not giving up just yet…

MPC Live II retro edition- this was selling for such a good price so I snatched it up, impulsively. The issues I have with it are the same ones I had when I owned an original MPC Live- it’s menu-divey and has a convoluted, disjointed workflow that doesn’t inspire me. On the flip side, it’s super powerful and can do practically anything. I’m trying to focus on the things that I like about it, but I still haven’t found a way to incorporate it into my workflow. If I’m being honest, I have way too many samplers as it is, so I might not have the time or mental space to make this one work.

Misses

Po-33- what do you know, another sampler. I purchased it with the intention of using it while I’m out and about. It’s a cute little thing, but its sample chopping is clunky and its mono output makes it practically useless for incorporating into bigger projects. I’ll stick with Koala.

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Hits

Prophet 12 module: Had one for a very short time years ago, but wasn’t ready to embrace the DSI sound. A Mono Evolver changed this, and second time around it is pure love. I am a big fan of the pure presence of it’s sound, and how it contrary to it’s digital nature somehow manages to sound so very alive and 3D. (Same thing with the Evolver btw.) It is also one of the best designed interfaces I have used.

Monomachine: Sold it years ago to buy the P12 module, which I quickly sold again (see above.) I think there is a pattern here. Have been searching for a similar dirty digital sound since, but nothing really comes close, and having it back I realise it is the exact sound I have been searching for. Dirty, raw, beautiful pads for ages! :heart:

Moog Minitaur: I love the massive sound, the simplicity (never use the secondary functions) and the very funky envelopes.

Misses (sold)

Dreadbox Typhon: The sound was solid but I didn’t really gel with the interface - too small and fiddly. Also helped me realize, that I am not really a fan of using inbuilt fx on a synth (unless we are talking the delay on the Monomachine, that is.)

Hydrasynth: Brilliant interface, but I didn’t really like the sound - seemed somehow distant to me, no matter how I programmed it, and could never fit it into my mixes. I am not saying that it sounds bad though - lots of people seem to love it and make great music on it - it just wasn’t for me.

Coming soon?

The Waldorf M really speaks to me - the design is lovely, and the simplicity is perfect, and it seems (from the few demos around) to sound really great. We’ll see how long I can resist when there is more demos out there.

Erica LXR-02 - I do not need another drum machine, but then you can never have enough drum machines.

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Hits

Death by Audio Rooms-
I smiled as soon as I patched this in and every time since. It sounds so good, it’s got so much character, and the controls are simple but still add a ton of variety.

Digitakt-
I guess I was a little late to the party, but this is now kind of the center of my hardware universe.

————
Misses

Hologram Microcosm-
It’s cool, but just wasn’t for me. Lack of control over important parameters, samey-ness of the algorithms and stepping in the filter kind of sunk this one.

Analogue Solutions Impulse Command-
Great idea, sounds good, but syncing with my system and midi implementation was shit. Also, it’s honestly kind of a one-trick pony and it’s a relatively expensive trick. I will say, I wish every sequencer had the “reorder” knob.

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Hits
Fender 2000 Pedal Steel
I’ve been wanting a pedal steel for ages. This is a D10 (2 necks with 10 strings each) and from 1969. It was in terrible shape when I got it, but I spent time bringing it back to life, and it is just an incredible soulful instrument. Pedal steels cost a lot, but if you’re on the fence on getting one I can’t recommend it enough. This one uses cables instead of rods like more recent steels, so it has a slightly different sound which is pretty cool.

Koma Field Kit and FK Effects
This is my first foray into buying modular equipment and I bought the expansion packs and a bunch of cables to go with them. Have loved using stuff like Reaktor and miRack, but the physicality of these are great. I bought them to replace a Korg Kaoss Pad 3 which wasn’t getting much use, and I am much happier with the results coming out of the Koma gear. They are weird and quirky, but the patchability along with having stuff like a radio tuner, spring tank, and DC output for motors and such makes experimentation so fun and enticing.

iLoud MTM Monitors
I got these to replace my aging Mackie HR624 MK I monitors, and have been entirely happy with them. They don’t move air like the Mackies, but everything else is on par. Great frequency range, smooth/flat response, extremely low self-noise, etc. They’re perfect for my small space, and having calibration built in is pretty phenomenal.

Supro Drive
This drive pedal has a transformer in it, and all I can say is it delivers a super convincing tube amp type response. Between playing with fingers and changing my pick attack I can go from clean to scream with ease.

Dunlop Mini Volume
I got two of these to control my HX Effects and Meris Enzo. They work as advertised, and open up a ton of possibility for patch manipulation. I primarily play ambient oriented guitar and having these offers up an amazing way to control changes over time.

OBNE Expression Ramper
Another expression device which can act as an square or triangle LFO as well as ramp between two preset levels. This is controlling a EHX Superego+ and has turned from an ambient pad machine with a lot of effects into a synth pedal with two presets per effect type which can be modulated between. It truly expands the capabilities of the Superego+ astronomically. Possibly my best purchase just because of bang for the buck.

Misses
None

TBD
Expressive E Osmose
I’m sure there are lots of you who are waiting on this one. Can’t imagine it won’t be a hit. Just hoping it lands before the end of the year.

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Have you played with a T-1? V. Curious to hear about the comparison there.

no, and don’t have such opportunities at the moment.
i was looking at T-1, but decided not to buy it, since i can get used Pyramid for the price.

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Hits

Squarp Pyramid seq.
Such a cool sequencer with lots of new functions I haven’t got on other devices.

Moog Matriarch
The best sounding analog synth I’ve come across and it has everything I could hope for and more.

Machinedrum
Needs no explanation really, especially with the new unofficial firmware.

SSL Fusion
An absolute miracle. It wasn’t cheap but its totally worth it.

Death by Audio Rooms.
Was considering the CXM 1978 but ended up with this instead. I couldn’t be happier with it.

Maybe next year there will be some misses too. :slight_smile:

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Agreed on both. Matriarch was the best purchase for me this year. Bought the MD in 2019 and always liked it but the unofficial firmware(s) made it the biggest revelation of 2021. I’m head over heels for :elmd: now.

This is starting to show up on too many posts here… :grimacing:

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HITS

  • NI Z2 / Traktor/ Vestax PDX 2000 / Phase
    Finally sorted out my DVS setup and it has genuinely revolutionised my workflow. No additional laptop, no control vinyl, no multitude of audio interfaces and wires everywhere. Straight from Traktor into Ableton and it all just works.

  • Koma Elektronik Field Kit / Field Kit FX
    Pure noise fun. Sampling and the manipulation of sounds has always been central to my process and these 2 boxes combine to provide an insanely powerful sonic toolbox. Glorious!

  • Ableton Push 2
    Having committed fully to Ableton via the purchase of suite, buying Push 2 was the doubling down manoeuvre. I absolutely love the workflow. Initially it was plumbed in to my desktop setup but since I decided to pair it with my laptop and make it a portable setup it has really come into its own. It helped me realise how powerful and perfect clips are and made Session view my new home.

  • Zoom H4N
    Record all the things all time! I’ve been intended to do more field recording for ages and have had various cobbled together setups utilising old iOS devices, but managed to grab this for a bargain price and absolutely love having it around.

MISSES

  • Elektron Model: Samples
    Ultimately I should have realised that resampling was too integral to my workflow for this to work out. It did prove useful in terms of making me appreciate what my workflow actually was, though and it is a great unit in itself

  • Elektron Model: Cycles
    I had originally intended to pair this with the Samples and when that didn’t work out it, this was doomed. Still great and insanely powerful, but never had a chance versus Max For Live devices etc

  • Roland TR8S
    Again, like the previous 2, this truly is an amazing unit but it didn’t fit with my workflow so reluctantly I had to admit defeat.

2 Likes

Top Hits:

SSL Six
My most recent buy and one which helped me to pull all my bits of gear together, and glue them! Super convenient size for my small footprint needs, great for routing 2 x fx loops, and it sounds delightful with the compressor magic.
I was just thinking last night that if something bad happened to it I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another.

Lyra 8
The answer to my “is there life beyond a step-sequencer?” question which I didn’t know I had until it was answered. I was immediately taken by the level of responsive interaction that was involved and how that changed with each fresh session. A delight to play. Seemingly paved the way towards me getting into some semi-modular shennanagins, which I’m also enjoying marvellously.

Miss:

H9 Max, not because it’s bad or anything but I’ve realised I just wanted the reverbs and should have perhaps just bought a Black Hole and not spent so much dough.
There’s still time though…but I might end up selling it to a better home and “downgrading“.

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I recently found a Erica Synths DB01 for a great deal and cannot believe how much of a hit it has been for my set up. I wanted something very immediate that could receive MIDI from the OT and send CV to the Lyra 8, while remaining mostly knob per function. Its pretty wild how much this has glued my set up together. I tried the DFAM this year also, but it did not click with my set up as well as the DB01. I wouldn’t call it a miss, but I would definitely say its been a hassle to integrate it into my admittedly very minimalist set up. I’m gonna keep it around for now because its a blast and a joy to use.

The Death By Audio Rooms is another big hit for me. Didn’t know I could enjoy a reverb this much. I got it for like $250 and I am sure glad I did.

No real misses this year as I didn’t buy much and was very selective with what I did get. I’m in the market for a new mixer, so hopefully don’t have miss in the works

1 Like

I bought a lot this year lol… I’ll start with the misses:

0-Coast. Only a miss because I sold it after a few months, but a hit in that it sucked me into modular and I’ve pretty much recreated what it does with modules.

ALM Mum M8. I really wanted to love this filter and thought it would be for me but the clock noise when lowering the cutoff frequency was too much for me. It sounds great in other people’s setups :joy:

Doepfer A-138n Narrow Mixer. 4 inputs and 2 outputs at 4hp seems great but this one shaves off too much high end for my liking.

Mutable Instruments Warps. Got it mainly to mess with TZFM synthesis and it was cool but only enticed me to get an analog vco that can do thru zero. Some of the effects are cool but the wavefolder just sounds ugly to me, and I learned I don’t care for the macro approach in modular.

Chase Bliss Dark World. A fine reverb pedal but ultimately I only ended up using the plate setting (on my guitar). This pedal is all about the Cooper FX Generation Loss algorithm and I just prefer a different flavor of lofi vibrato.

A hit which I quickly got bored of:

Plaits. A friend loves this module so I got one and had a blast with my small utility setup. This inspired me to get back into modular, and it took me less than two months of that rabbit hole to get bored with Plaits, finding I prefer a more building block approach.

Now the Hits:

Mac Mini M1. Ditching my laptop for a desktop setup has made things much cleaner, and the Mini is a beast.

Xbox Series X. Maybe the wrong place for this, but my first Xbox since owning the OG nearly 20 years ago and it blows my mind what you get for $500. Perfect when I need a break from music.

0-Ctrl. When I sold my 0-coast I had the intention of getting rid of the rest of my modular gear but the 0-ctrl is too much fun and my girlfriend thinks it looks cool and told me to keep it, so it stayed, then later pulled me back into modular when I hooked it up to my semi-modulars and started to appreciate it again. I get some of the funkiest rhythmic stuff out of it.

Intellijel Scales. 0-ctrl isn’t quantized and this is the best complementary module I could think of. I used a quantizer in Ornament and Crime at first but Scales is so much nicer to use and saves settings on power down. Love the lit up physical key buttons and how it shows you current quantized note.

Mutable Instruments Tides. It’s hard for me to choose between using Tides as a LFO or oscillator because I enjoy both so much. I appreciate the four outputs, especially when used as an oscillator for FM modulator purposes.

Noise Engineering Clep Diaz. Super fun lfo.

Mutable Kinks, Links, Shades, Noise Engineering Sinc Defero, Sono Abitus, and Quantus Ampla, and Manhattan Analog Mix. All basic utility modules so nothing too exciting but all hits.

Joranalogue Contour 1. Best function generator I could imagine using, and turned me onto Joranalogue stuff.

Joranalogue Filter 8. Roland-flavored filter with awesome patchability and lots of variety in the outputs. Also a great oscillator… my favorite filter I’ve had the pleasure of using.

Joranalogue Fold 6. Does all I need in a wavefolder.

Joranalogue Generate 3. The heart of my modular… such an amazing oscillator, or lfo. It’s my favorite module but I feel like I can barely come up with words to express how awesome it is to me. I’ll just say I’m enjoying analog TZFM more than digital.

Empress Compressor mkii. I feel like a super nerd being so excited about a compressor but damn it’s great. Was using a Boss CS-2 on my guitar for a few years and wanted something more transparent after getting a Strymon Iridium. My Telecaster has never sounded better.

Universal Audio FX Golden Reverberator. I have tried a fair number of hardware reverbs and always end up preferring Valhalla VintageVerb. I wasn’t expecting to like the Golden Reverberator so much but it’s the best reverb I’ve ever played my guitar through. It sounds great on synths too but sounds so good in my guitar chain I can’t take it out. I keep my Iridium on a clean Fender amp setting and the Deluxe Reverb-modelled spring in GR is a perfect match. The spring algo stays mono until applying modulation, where it then turns into this lush, trippy stereo space. I guess I don’t need to do a full review here but every algorithm sounds great and distinct from one another, and it gets as short as I need or as ambient and spacey.

Thinking I’ll end up with a Dixie II+ for an extra VCO and a Maths by the end of the year but otherwise I think I’ve acquired plenty :joy:

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Hits

  • SSL Six, all has been said, it’s true.

  • Red Panda 3 input mixer. Well yeah, boring, but great to have for your loopers input.

  • Strymon Dig, Lovely and lush, sounds really great with the ARP Odyssey, will probably keep it for that reason alone.

The rest is undecided, some will stay, some will go…

  • Nightsky (great, but requires some work to get to the sweet spots for me)

  • Boss RC 500 looper, required a lot of workarounds for me to make it work the way I want, now it does it’s fun to have. For starters it only works as master clock. On the good side, it sounds great if you control your input levels (which is finicky) and it’s got two independent synced loopers on different outputs if you want. So loads of possibilities there.

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Hits

Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus and Plumbutter 2: These instruments are a joy to play every single time. There’s nothing else that sounds quite like them or gives you the particular kinds of control that they offer. They’re both very hands-on being based on banana jacks, and once you get the hang of the basic functions they’re not as complicated as they might seem. Getting them together was my biggest splurge this year but they’ve also brought me the most inspiration/happiness so they’re a big hit.

Make Noise Mimeophon: It just kinda sounds great no matter what. I’ve used it with noisy sounds or pretty sounds, short slappy delays or long meandering delays, washed out reverb-type sounds or very rhythmic/precise echoes. It just always works. And with some modulation you can push it into totally new territory, even get glitchy and chaotic despite it being a very simple effect.

Rytm mkII: I took a big chance on this guy; sold my Machinedrum to fund the purchase and am so glad I did. I absolutely love designing drum sounds on the Rytm, love cranking the distortion and abusing the filters, completely enjoy playing the pads despite all the complaints about them, and have found many uses for it as either a standalone songwriting machine or as part of a larger setup. I still love the Machinedrum and it has its own unique vibe and sense of possibilities, but the Rytm is just more my style sound-wise and workflow-wise.

Misses

Attempting to add too many modules to my case: Turns out the power supply in the Make Noise 7u case is pretty restricting. It offers about half the juice that its Intellijel counterpart does, and the process of replacing it requires more drilling and electrical considerations than I want to attempt. It’s still a wonderful case and I’m totally satisfied with what I can make it do, but I learned this lesson after trying to make it do too much. If you’re just starting out and you don’t absolutely love the CV bus in the Make Noise case, you should probably look for something with more power.

Watching my friend get a Prophet 5 while I have none: Happy for my friend yet now aware of a large Prophet-sized hole in my life.

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