2023 Gear Purchase: Hits and Misses

The Lounge General Discussion
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human program youre real for this one. appreciate the previous links too man. love the videos

hits: not buying anything else outside of a 100 buck 4 track and some very cheap vsts/max4live devices
inbetween: fors opal. its fun, but its missing something for me i don’t exactly have an awesome midi controller
miss: push3 - have bought and returned the push2 and push3. bought for standalone mode but i felt like I could feel that it was a controller controlling a vm running ableton(not good)
wants: a lighter, nicer bass~

i have skipped the syntakt for now. from those praising it, can you comment on the ctrl+all nature of the device? I heard the machines aren’t mapped the best for it but it is hard exactly to know how that ~feels without playing with one. I am excited that others found the demos lacked some depth but that they are enjoying it. I’ve been between a digitone, syntakt, and a a4 for ages.

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Hits:
Bastl Bestie - it adds something that was missing
Roland Go Mixer Pro X- love this for recording to iPhone
Roland Sp404 MKII - I"m trying to learn this machine, but it is a hot mess. I still love it and it checks a lot of boxes.
Boss Loop Station RC 5: I finally found a regular loop pedal to use in conjunction with my Blooper.
Blooper: I was late to the Blooper party but… “wait… he bloops at zeee party?”

Misses: not so much misses, but just haven’t clicked yet… Roland T8 and S1

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Can’t speak for others but I’ve been slowly collecting things since ‘97… one or two things every 5 years or so. No mass purchase years.

Definitely the most I’ve reorganized this time around. After 25 years you have things people want; sell them and get what YOU want.

And I wanted away from DAWs forever, so… that’s what I did.

You can get things cheap if you’re diligent and patient. I got very lucky in 2023 I find.

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Bought way less in 2023 than 2022. I guess the year isn’t over yet.

hit
Eventide H90: At first I was like “no, I have two H9s on my board” but even though it is more or less the same thing, it’s programmable as a single unit. 7 years of working with the H9s algos prepared me. It helped me downsize my board, replaced two H9s, a pitch shifter, and a router. But if you don’t know it already, might be a bit of a reach.

Jury out:
Buchla 208c. OMG 4U is so much less crowded than Eurorack. Lots to love about this. Brilliant MIDI implementation. Banana cables are fun. We will see where it goes musically.

Torso T-1. Just arrived so too soon to render an opinion. I normally balk at unmarked button combos (exception: Octatrack) but otherwise this feels like a box of fun.

Some favourites from prior years if people are shopping:

Vermona Perfourmer mk2 Much more than the sum of its parts.

Linnstrument 200. Not just for shredding! Amazing and rock solid for actually playing synths if you’re not a keyboardist. Built for gigging and repair (not that it’s needed it)… Does reward/require practice though.

Micromonsta v2 multitimbral, rock solid, lots of modulation

ID700 (iOS app) and Madrona labs synths: actually interesting software synths that go way beyond virtual reproductions of hardware.

Jury out from prior years

UDO Super 6 desktop: let’s see what the “mature firmware”brings
Oxi One : ditto
Bitwig: love its modular nature but its approach to controllers sends me running back to Live.

Things I sold recently
Dreadbox Typhon—brilliant synth, great sound, great company, screen to tiny for mine eyes
Frap Tools Fumana: filter banks are cool but I am done with tiny trimmers that are too close together
OG Mutable Clouds: thank you for your service
Faderfox UC-4: brilliant, too tiny for my taste (see a pattern?)
Qu-Bit Nebulae v2: I’m apparently a software granular person
Joranalogue Compare 2: cool but not for me

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Buying and trading synths to try new things is very fun :slight_smile:

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Yeah I’m looking for the same thing and doesn’t exist yet. Whoever gets there first between Akai and Elektron will have my money. Exactly as you propose: more live jamming/playing than programming (not a tracker), not too expensive, not a toy, sampling is a must, knobs or other similar tactile performance inputs, mic, battery.

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It’s great and it’s an endless source of inspiration for me. Not everything will sound great across all tracks, so depending a bit on what mix of machines you use, some things can sound weird in a live situation, but for each song there’s at least 6+ parameters that always work great, plus another 6+ parameters that are unique to the song you’re playing.

Personally, I tend to use it as a way to also explore and discover new sections of songs, so not necessarily in a live situation but in the noodling phase. The Syntakt is so quick to do those kinds of things with and even if the entire vibe of that section sounds great yet one or two tracks are out of place, it’s easy enough to just fix those two tracks with track+trig+no. Because of ctrl+all, I tend to come up with more interesting songs as a whole.

I made a video where I use ctrl+all quite a bit on a song, maybe you can find that useful. But more importantly, that song is the result of ctrl+all because it’s a remix of the video/jam just before that one, so that goes to prove all the points I’m making above. I love the Syntakt!

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Reading these posts has reminded me of some other stuff I’ve bought. Think it was all in 2023 but it’s possible some was at back end of 2022 (time doesn’t seem to pass the same these days :laughing: ).

Bastle Bestie - not used much yet but great size and like it. Will be used more once I get room and desk space reorganised.

Roland Sp404Mk2 - quick and easy to use, nice FX, can plug a guitar or bass in and get something going with minimum fuss. Like it.

Liven LoFi 12 - got a great price on it new. Like the retro colour scheme. Like the layout. Some nice features. Not done anything particularly complex with it yet but makes me smile like I did when I first started sampling piano chords, etc, on my first sampler way back.

Boss GX100 - bought mainly for guitar and bass but drums and synths sound great through it too.

Roland SH-4d - had 2 of these. Moved first one on to someone that was desperate for it when they were very hard to source. Got another one. Use it for noodling ideas. Built in sequencer is useful. Prefer to use it with something else - such as MPC or Verselab MV1.

Skeleton Key QOTSA themed FX pedal - ordered it, arrived, plugged it in. Does what it says. Win.

G

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Exactly :slight_smile:
I manage this by having a pretty strict “one in - one out” policy.
Meaning I try to sell stuff I am not using enough before I purchase something new to try out.
The idea being to not get overwhelmed by too much gear and also to not strain my bank account.

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same same. I tend to have no more than 3 machines in my possession at any 1 time.

3 max. that’s my motto.

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Dito. 3 piece setup is all it takes. A synth, a sampler and a sequencer in my case :slight_smile:
Anything more and I get choice paralysis.

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This is a Digitakt, what are the other two? :rofl:

Thank God you didn’t follow this rule from the beginning or else you would only have one device. :rofl:

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Yes, I also have only 4 devices. The addition to the mentioned ones is the Nord Drum 3p, for good pads for live sequencing and the real different synth approach for drums. But all in all I do really very deep research before I buy something so it usually do not really happen that I feel the need to sell something. A silber faceplate is definitely not in the list of arguments to get me… :grin:

But of course all this is individual and we might not need to discuss this. Sorry for the trigger. :confused:

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True. I only took on that policy after the first two years getting into music hardware, when I realized I started to amass more stuff than makes sense to me.

Currently sporting an ST, T-1 and M8 combo.
Still love my DT a lot though. It justserves a different purpose atm. Mainly doing crazy sound-collages for arty dance/body performance stuff. Maybe it will find its way back into the music setup one day…

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Same here. For me it’s a hobby but there’s a lot of people here who are very serious/pros and their use cases are worlds apart I’d imagine! :smiley:

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To get back on topic some more "misses"from the past years. (First time participating in this thread, so hopefully it’s ok that it’s not all 2023 purchases.)

Gear I got rid of overtime, because it got replaced by stuff I liked better.
The other main reason (outside of not using/liking them enough) for selling was always the aforementioned policy to finance new stuff by selling old.

Neutron+Keystep combo
Those two were my first endeavor into hardware, and they opened up the synth world to me.
But I can’t play keys and I decided early on NOT to get into modular (too expensive).
Still miss the keystep arp sometimes.

KP3
My first fx-box. Hated the midi-sync issues (KP3 is known to drift) so it had to go.

Circuit
Not my sound and I absolutely hate the colorful flashy pads. (On any device.)

Drumbrute Impact
My first Drumcomputer. Taught me to play the sequencer. In the end too limited sound wise and also too big. Also DT came along…

Peak
Awesome piece, really wanted a poly then. I am certain one could produce an entire movie score on that box alone.
Found myself sounddesigning and patching for hours, which cut into the beat-making-productivity.
Also way too big dimension wise for my all-time goal of a super mobile setup.

Beatstep Pro
Great multi device sequencer.
Became obsolete when I decided that one soundsource (ST) had to be enough.

Mackie VLZ4
Bought it for the two aux channels. Awesome (small!) mixer.
Not using external effects (pedals, another rabbit hole) anymore. So let it go.

Minitaur/Sirin/MM2/Streichfett
All great synths in their own respect. Fell victim to setup downsizing. ST repaced them all.

Octatrack
Had it only for a supershort time. Got a good 2nd hand deal, but quickly realized it was total overkill for my purposes. Also who needs a performance mixer when using only one synth? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Midicake ARP.
Great on paper, hated the look and feel. Replaced by T-1. Much much happier now.

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When was the OT labelled a performance mixer? You might have missed some of its functions :smile:

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Hit: Waldorf Iridium Keyboard- wow, it’s deep. Also, Franklin SS6, great wee bit of kit for quickly patching in another synth at the twist of a dial. Love it.
Shallow water is brilliant and beautiful and I’ve been having real fun with the strymon volante.
Spent alot of time with my machine drum again, it’s like an old friend who always surprises you with some new craziness. What a masterpiece.

Miss: Land devices HP2 - it just makes my amp
sound ‘broken’ - I’ve not spent ages with it, perhaps I need to take more time to find the sweet spots - maybe this is one for the jury.

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Ohh this is really interesting!

I had a really GAS-y year, I mostly produce in the box, I do have an octatrack for idea sketching and some other hw synths. Everytime I’m done with a project or album I get the urge to try out new hardware stuff, especially things that would take my workflow a bit away from my computer to come up with new ideas and just have fun. So I did a lot of ordering on thomann and the like, and then trying it out in the 14-days window (or even 30 days on th.) and then sending it back lol.

Hits:
Dirtywave M8 tracker: I love this thing, unusal workflow for sure if ur not used to trackers, but very very compact and extremely capable especially for its size, suuper portable for making music outside, great synths inside, and the workflow leads me to places I wouldnt go otherwise. Haven’t finished a proper track with it, but I just like it for inspiration & having fun. I’m missing timestretching algos, i know u can replicate it with a LFO but like “warp modes” would be great

Analog Rytm: Great fun, very fast and immediate, usual “analog sound” is not important for me at all, but I do like the sounds in here, and contrary to many opinions, also like the kickdrums it can do. Goes well with my Octatrack too

tasty chips GR-1: I love granular, and this one is great, sure there’s many advanced grain synth plugins, like probably too many of them, but this one does have its charm and its as capable as most software I would say. I spend hours just with this thing, recording sound design bits etc.

Lewitt LCT 1040 mic excellent microphone. runs laps around any other mic i had so far, esp. vocals. great flexibility too

Misses:
Ableton Push 3: on paper, great. To control Ableton Live, its still very good. Was underwhelmed by the standalone functionality: most max for live devices i rely on dont work at all (they are improving on this though) workflow is also kind of clunky and slow just using it standalone, menu-divy, but easy to learn and somewhat flexible. I thought it could replace my octatrack but it can’t right now. Also missing songmode! come on, it could at least have follow actions for clips. I prefer this as a controller for ableton and it replaced my Push2, so I’m not selling it cause it also has better pads. Maybe firm/software updates will make it more attractive for me in the coming year. For the price tag also, not a huge fan though.

Arturia Minifreak: It’s cool I guess, but I quickly got bored with it and I was questioning its point in my setup. I have many software synths that I prefer, and it doesnt really invite me to noodle with it without a computer for ages like some of the other stuff I have

Chase Bliss Audio Mood didnt gel with this at all. Kind of tedious to control, and a bit of an audio boringmaker

Expressive E Osmose amazing build quality and sounds and feels good to play, its too huge though and you can hardly make your own sounds cause EaganMatrix is as complicated as programming Max or something, which killed it for me.

Soma Enner had a couple hours of fun with it, but sounds too one dimensional. good in the right hands though

SP404 MK2 wanted to explore more straightforward octatrack options, this was sadly not it

Digitone I know people love it here, but I don’t like its sound. It made me realize i want an elektron synth with more flexibility, like a modern Monomachine or something

Teenage Engineering OP-1 field It is very fun too, but the recording workflow kinda kills it for me. I don’t want to record to virtual tape or minidisk, give me some kind of sequencer please and the option to edit more deeply. I also dont like the very limited sample memory on it. I know its kind of the point of the OP-1 to be a bit restrictive in those regards. I actually made some cool sketches with it, definitely cool for sound design experimentation. Probably the most likely for me to repurchase, but I think the M8 fills its niche better for me. and also at a half or third of the price

Digitakt Also part of my Octatrack replacement quest, but mono sound is a no-go i realized again after gaslighting myself its not a huge deal

Faderfox M12 it feels great, but it somehow sends out wild uncontrollable midi data…maybe my unit was faulty? I tried everything to fix it. I actually got this unit stolen after a live gig, so its gone now anyway…

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I bought a house in February and have slowly been setting up the basement studio. As a result, I’ve bought a lot of gear this year. I generally (excessively) research my intended purchases, so misses are few and far between. I’m not going to list all of the hits, but the most noteworthy (in no particular order) have been:

Polyend Tracker Mini
There have been some reports of questionable build quality, but I’m happy to say that mine is issue-free. For me, it’s proving to be a delightful pocket-sized musique concrète studio. It’s a perfect much for the next item on my list…

EML-200
What a bizarre thing this is. Designed by non-musicians for the educational market, it’s not an instrument to be played, but rather a collection of the sorts of electronic tone generation and shaping tools one might find in a classical electronic music studio of the 1950s. I’m pretty sure the designers thought students would be recording individual tones to snippets of tape and splicing them together. Two ring modulators?

DK Synergy
I’d wanted one of these for decades. An early attempt at digital additive synthesis (with a lot of phase modulation thrown in), it offers 32 oscillators and required a KayPro computer to edit sounds. Luckily, there is a modern editor available.

Korg ARP 2600 FS
My third 2600. I still have an old MkIII, but it is exactly that: old. I was lucky enough to get an early 2600 FS in for review back at the end of 2019. I loved it. However, I missed the narrow pre-order window for the initial batch of production units. I didn’t make the same mistake Korg offered up another limited run this summer.

Buchla LEM and 208p
Buchla’s Easel Command was one of my 2022 picks, a lovely instrument that suffered only in that it lacked the LEM218 interface that would make it a full-fledged Easel, so when Buchla updated the 218, I did not hesitate. A little while later, I had the opportunity to add a second 208 unit, this one a more vintage sounding 208p built by Adam Scramstad. Together, these three units form a compact yet wildly powerful system.

Echo Fix EF-X2
I have something of an addiction to tape delays. I’d used one of these at a friend’s studio at the tail-end of 2022 and had to get one of my own. A beautiful machine.

Midas Venice 320
I seem always to be looking for a decent small-format mixer with loads of channels, decent EQs, and a reasonable number of sends. I’d long considered getting a Venice, but always seemed to miss the opportunities to do so. Not this time.

Tascam 48
Why must I love tape so? It is a source of much disappointment in my life, evidenced by the many broken multitrack machines delivered to my doorsteps over the years. My favorite has been my ailing Tascam 58, so I was quite pleased to find its closest sibling in working order.

Kyma Pacamara Pro
I’ve been using Kyma for nearly two decades. It is one of the most important tools in my studio. It is, as I’ve said before, the holy grail of sound design and the arrival of new Kyma hardware upgrade is a major event.

The following were not misses, they just weren’t keepers.

Buchla Program Manager Card
I don’t use presets. Not even my own. I bought this for a gig and ultimately didn’t use it. I tried it once and shoved it back into the box, where it remains.

Waldorf Iridium
The Iridium is a lovely instrument. However, I didn’t need it and it didn’t inspire me at the time. It came during a tumultuous time in my life. Maybe I’ll give it another chance someday. I still have a place reserved for it.

Majella Audio Implexus
Definitely not a miss. What a beautiful instrument! A work of art. If I’d had more space, I might have kept it. Alas, it was redundant. However, I heartily recommend it.

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