2021 Gear Purchase: Hits & Misses

The Lounge General Discussion
#306

Hits:

  • MnM SFX 6 and SFX60 MKII (Best synth I own - Full blown versatile boxes)
  • MCL (Fantastic withy my MD - I am really excited to hook it up to MnM as well…)
  • 1010 Bluebox (Awesome small but great mixer - and recording
    decice)

Unsure:

  • DN (I prefer my MnM due to six tracks and more machines)

Miss:

  • Digitakt (I don’t need / use it)
  • Boss KM 6 and KM 60 (taking a lot of space, sound seems only suitable for acid-stuff, very, very special…)

Finally - MD, MnM and A4 are going to be my centerpieces for the end of time…

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#307

Hits:
Music lessons
Custom MF Touch guitar
1010 Bluebox
RF switch to turn my studio on and off

Misses:
Genzler Four on the Floor
Back support for my K&M Musician’s Stool (not comfortable)
Live 11 (doesn’t solve the problems I had with it)

Jury is out but it’s looking good:
Soma Cosmos
Dreadbox Typhon
Norand Mono

Jury is out:
Haaken Continuumini (my wife’s but she’s not using it much)
Sketchy Labs Freak Shift

I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff.

Enjoying this thread.

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#308

What is this “Custom MF Touch Guitar”?

#309

Touch guitars are built for tapping rather than strumming or picking (though I do that too), 8 strings tuned Bb0 to D4. Descendent of the Chapman Stick, but sounds more like a guitar and a bass. MF is the luthier in my neighbourhood, not famous, but a local institution. I had them build me one because the pre made ones I could buy were heavier than I wanted.

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#310

Very cool thank you

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#311

Sound neat! Do they have a page?

#312

Continuum! I bet that’s inspiring to play! Would you say it feels natural from the get go, could you relate to the playing interface easily in relation to the sounds you hear?

#313

A couple of hits:

Mellotron Micro- Theoretically, I would love a vintage wood, metal, and sticky tape Mellotron, but they are very expensive and I feel that cost would have to be seen as tuition on a new career as a Mellotron service tech. With that in mind, I took a punt on this diminutive digital 'Tron. I wasn’t prepared for how much I would like it. It is beautifully made and a joy to play. It sounds fantastic, but offers the ability to dial in the characters of different Mellotron models.

Every time I switch it on, I make music.

Polyend Tracker- despite having provided factory content for this, I never actually got one of my own until this past Summer. Now, I am not the sort to want to spend my studio time typing in numbers, so I expected it to be an enjoyable oddity at best - something to use when I wanted to break my routines. Instead, it turned out to be a wildly inspirational and useful device. As many have noted, it’s a snap to create entire tracks on it. It also makes an ideal companion for Polyend’s Percs (of which I own four). For me, it really hits the spot as a one-stop musique concret device. Really neat machine.

Roland MKS-70- got this from @AdamJay, and it’s a beauty. I’ve owned both JX-8p and JX-10 synths in the past, so I already knew I would love the sound. I have an MKS-80 in the rack, too, and this one complements it quite nicely. Smooth-as-butter pads.

Chandler Limited/Abbey Road Microphone Cassette- a knockout trio of bits from the famed TG12345 console, this channel strip brings out the best qualities of any source. Even better, it was a gift from my son.

On the fence:

Korg Wavestate- don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent synth on its own, and I am keeping it for now, but Korg’s hype (and the weird compliance by pundits who seemingly never touched an original Wavestation) suggested this new ‘Wavesequencing 2.0’ was an improvement over the wavesequencing in the original. I do not find it to be any such thing. If anything, it is a step backward, oversimplifying the technology to make it more user-friendly, while dispensing with some of the features that I had come to depend upon in the original wavesequencers. I get it - modern users want accessible tools that allow them to get right into it, but those things don’t need to come at the cost of complexity. As a wise spaceship mechanic once said: “You can be both.”

Akai MPC Live 2- This is a brilliant piece of equipment, but I just don’t need it. I love everything about it and it gets better with each update, but it is a studio-in-a-box sitting in a studio. I rarely leave my house, so the portability isn’t that useful to me. Sometimes I buy gear I don’t need because just because I think it’s neat and want to have a play with it. This is like that.

Near miss:

Tascam Model 12- as with the MPC, I actually think this is a fantastic piece of equipment and I’ve recommended it to many musicians. However, I tend to prefer analog mixers since I have good converters in my audio interface. That, and the limited I/O didn’t cut it for the job for which I purchased it, so I didn’t keep it, despite really trying to convince myself that I might find a use for such a well-designed piece of gear.

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#314

Fuck me a lot can change in three months.

Im just gonna put the whole Eurorack format into the miss category, for now and forever more.

It’s not for me.

New things that are hits.

POLYEND TRACKER

It’s not perfect. In fact there’s a lot about it that’s pretty shit, but it does things that I really like and that nothing else seems to do as well. Performance and fill modes are a revelation for performing live with it and the interface is really well thought out and clever.

MODEL:CYCLES

Sold one earlier in the year, missed it, so bought another when they were giving them away for £200. I mean, £200 for a six track drum machine and synth with decent delay and reverb, a six track sequencer and pretty decent MIDI capabilities!

Mental.

Also, them kicks.

:star_struck:

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#315

Well, it’s an instrument, so “natural for whom”? The mini is most closely related to a ribbon or something. The sounds are all programmed to work perfectly with the interface, so that’s nice in that you can skip around presets and try stuff. It wants a light touch. I wish you could edit more on the device itself. I actually bought it for my wife (she’s a drummer) because she was super intrigued. But she hasn’t totally gelled with it. And I’m more a sequencer-or-Linnstrument guy.

Also played the big ones, which are incredible and day and night above Roli’s keyboards in my opinion. But they’re expensive.

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#316

This looks fantastic… I didn’t know what it was and google’d it… drooling.

I feel like the perennial defender of the MPC Live 2 these days, but I tell everyone to keep going with the Live 2, because of my own ‘clicking’ point I had with it. I was on the fence about mine for a long time, then had a switch around in the space of a week when the last update came out.

It’s by far my favourite device for sitting on the sofa with and consistently coming up with/starting new tracks. It amazes me how far you can take tracks with it solo on the sofa… then, as times gone by, I’ve built my favourite gears’ sound into it… Rev2, Matriarch, A4, etc… having access to my go to (sampled) sounds on the fly is amazing. Keep it! :grinning:

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#317

I love the Live 2. I think it’s a technological marvel - a miraculous device. But in my studio, it is utterly redundant. It doesn’t offer a single feature that I don’t already have many times over. I simply don’t need it. Except when the power went out two nights ago. I needed it then.

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#318

What are you using as your main sequencing hub?

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#319

Like you and @Scot_Solida I adore my Live 2. I tried out an MPC One for about two weeks before I jumped to the Live 2.

For the first time in a VERY long time I have zero GAS for anything. It’s liberating. Feels like I’ve gotten clean.

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#320

I don’t have a main hub. I tend to use a DAW when recording and sometimes for MIDI. But mostly my room is built around diverse sequencers - of which I have many. For most of my work, I tend to send a MIDI or analog gate pulse from whatever recording device I am using (might be the DAW, might be a tape machine or a digital multitracker) to a variety of analog or digital sequencers, either standalone, modular, or built-into a synth. Those sequencers drive a multitude of instruments that are then recorded into whatever recorder I am using.

And maybe that’s why my MPC is underutilized (but not under-appreciated) - I tend to work with individual interconnected instruments and devices, so don’t really need an all-in-one workstation. Each device in my studio serves a specific role, but none of them play all the parts. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t try to use, say, an Octatrack to make full productions, but instead as a device dedicated to the job it does best, while other devices are doing other jobs. For example, I thought it was really neat that Akai added Mellotron, Solina, and Odyssey plugins to the MPC. However, as nice as they are, there is almost no chance that I would choose such a plugin over a Mellotron Micro, ARP Omni 2, or vintage Odyssey sitting in the same room.

Again, I think the current line of MPCs are fantastic and I recommend them to many musicians, especially those looking for the sort of centralized hub you mention. They certainly need no defense from me, as I have nothing but praise for them. However, appreciating something and needing it are two very different things. I am in a fortunate position of not actually needing the MPC.

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#321

I get what you’re saying. I see how my MPC One could be the “brain of my system,” but like a stegosaurus, my studio has multiple “brains” and I don’t need a single main one. Plus it would have to then be connected to all kinds of things which would defeat the purpose of spontaneous music-making.

But it’s a really fun box for playing with, so I keep mine downstairs, next to the couch, with the idea of sometimes playing around with it when I’m relaxing. I definitely don’t need it, nor do I even use it as much as I probably should to justify owning it, but for those times when I want an all-in-one away from the studio or computer (and I don’t like to use my laptop for making music–Ableton is on my studio iMac for recording and some MIDI, but that’s it) it’s pretty much unrivaled (although I’m GASsing for an M8). So I keep mine.

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#322

Indeed. When my studio was in the basement, I kept an OP-1 in the office upstairs for that very reason. However, nowadays I spend all day in the studio, so never feel the need for a portable device. As I said, though, the MPC came in quite handy during Wednesday’s long power outage…:slightly_smiling_face:

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#323

Hits:

SYNTHS
Poly Evolver- Massive hit. Drove 12 hours round trip to grab one in Northern California, it was a deal too good to pass up, and I almost never see these for sale.
Mono Evolver- Massive hit, special synth. The Evolvers are so damn unique!
Desktop Evolver- What got me started on the Evolver path! Incredible, and always come up with unpredictable results.
Delta Cep A- Incredible, special machine! I think the high price turned some people off, but I think it was said this was so the employees could be paid well for their efforts. I got a B-Stock good deal, this thing sounds so good and is so innovative! I hope more people play one. The shift commands can be excessive but the firmware updates really helped.
OPSIX- I paid full price, I see these things for a lot less second hand. I don’t regret it. Unreal sounds, as lovely and magical as the digitone.
MS2000- Super FUN to play! Love the sequencer and how easy it is with all the knobs.
Matriarch- This and the Grandmother, definitely classics. Got them before the price increase, thankfully!
Prophet 12 Desktop- Holy Moly…just magical, love the size and interface
Pro 2- Got one second hand for a great price. REALLY cool synth, so unique! I wish a desktop version existed.
Pro 3- A beast. A fun, wild beast.
Polybrute- What more needs to be said? I like it WAY more than the matrixbrute.
Prophet 5- Traded my Udo Super 6 for this, no regrets. I can’t wait to turn this into a 10 voice. My only problem is I prefer the desktop. I could use the extra space. A truly truly special and magical sound, despite being so “basic”. The king.
Tanzmaus- Huge fan of these machines. I loved the Tanzbar 2 but it was buggy to the point I had to return it. I have a Tanzbar one coming in the mail today!
Nord A1- Phenomenal. One giant sweet spot, so easy to work. Not sure why these aren’t a lot more popular.
Nord 2X Rack- The hype is real, really amazing and unusual sounds from this older synth.
Dirtywave M8- The hype is real. So powerful, easy to use, and sounds fantastic. Really versatile, I hope more become available. Real achievement by the maker.
Yamaha AN1X- Sounds really great, worthy of the “best VA” hype.
Polyend Tracker- this was my first experience with a tracker, it did not seem like it would be for me at all, but I was curious. Blown away! So much fun and a very different way of working, and it led me to get the dirtywave M8
MC202- Nothing else like it. The sequencer is frustrating and also magical in the happy accidents. I love how it looks aesthetically.
DX200- Super fun to jam on a pattern in real time, unique sounding.
AN200- Same as the dx200.
Vermona Retroverb Lancet- Surprised I don’t hear more about this! Is there anything else out there quite like it? Vermona products are so cool.
TR-06- I’m a sucker for the boutiques, and I like how many more options this has the the tr09 and 08 that I have.
Volca Keys- Like my 5th time getting it. It’s so easy to sell and buy again, but I think I’ll keep it for good this time. Beautiful to pair with pedals, and so simple.

PEDALS

Montreal Assembly 856- The coolest, most baffling pedal in the world. Irreplaceable.
Ibanez EM5 Echomachine- I’ve had just about every high end and low end delay there is. I’m a delay obsessed man. This is as good as any I’ve ever used. How did they do it??
Boss DD2- Just simple and gorgeous. An all-timer.
Boss DD-3t- I love the DD3 and wanted a tap tempo version. It’s very simple and sounds incredible.
Strymon Volante- I’m running out of words, but what can I say? Gorgeous, fun, inspiring, powerful, love the reverb and SOS features.
Strymon Brigadier- Strymon’s most underrated delay for sure. I like it more than the timeline and el capistan.
Pioneer RMX-500- I just have a blast with this! I’m curious to try the RMX-1000

Misses

Udo Super 6- It’s an awesome synth. But I traded it for the Prophet 5 and I like the sound and simplicity of that a lot more. This is a really great synth, but was not worth the money for me in the end.
Analog Heat- I flat out did not like this! It was the mk1 and I got it for a super low price, but sold it the next day. The Vermona retroverb does what I wanted this to do.
Twisted Electrons MEGAfm- I love the Deton8, thought I would love this. Hated it! Sold it the next day.
Tanzbar 2- My favorite analog drum machine. I LOVE how it sounds, I love the workflow. Simply too buggy, I had to move on, which is a real shame. If it weren’t buggy I’d buy another one in a heartbeat.
Tanzbar Lite- Sold. Fantastic but I prefer the sounds of the Tanzmaus.
Tanzbar 1- Just got this, it’s not a miss. It’s incredible, but I really want a Tanzbar 2!
Division Department 01/IV- Sold. Really unique, but I didn’t like how it was set up, it wasn’t as easy to sequence as I had hoped. Loved the aesthetics.

Neutral

Nord Lead 4- Sold it cause the A1 did enough of the same, but I liked it more.
OTO Bim- Sold it. Very unique and beautiful, but too expensive for what I was using it for.
Fred’s Lab Tooro- Sold it. Same as above. Love it, but after the microfreak got the update, I didn’t have enough use for this.
Micromonsta 2- Sold it. Really cool and powerful! I just didn’t want to have to sequence it externally every time.
Korg Radias- Sold it. I wanted to keep it, but it was too expensive, and the MS2000 was enough for me.

I work 12 hour days, 5 days a week as a therapist in detox’s, rehabs, and IOPs. I’m sober 8 years myself, and have dealt with way too much death and stress this year working in person. I bought and sold a lot more stuff I haven’t listed here. Sometimes I feel lots of shame for the excess, other times I remind myself about the struggles and hardships in life, and I want to enjoy my hobby. I’m currently single, I live alone with my two cats (of course I do) and I don’t have many expenses. I don’t record (well I make my own music but it’s more indy rock, just guitars and stuff) or play live, I just love synths drum machines and pedals, how they look, what they do. I’m in a lot of debt!

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Meris LVX and MERCURY X
#324

Fuck me! I can’t even get my head around buying that much stuff in one year. There would barely be enough time to unbox, wire up and try a preset before the next one arrived :slight_smile:

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#325

Synths are a better hedge against inflation than whisky (unless you don’t drink it) or yachts (how about expensive maintenance, storage and insurance on top of rapid depreciation and the very real risk of damage if you actually have fun and go racing).

I suspect your synth portfolio will outperform a lot of 401(k)s (typical stock-based US retirement account) in the next few years.

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