Doing the most with the least

The Lounge General Discussion
#243

Went on vacation at my parents place last week. Only brought an Model:Samples, a battery pack and a headphone.

Honestly I only did music for myself making beats and patterns and arranging them live but the only limitations I felt was in the number of tracks (played a lot with sample locking with drums), the fact I can’t sample directly from the M:S and the fact you can’t trigger chromatically and benefit from velocity which is annoying if you want to do something live.

I think a 2 grooveboxes setup, one sample based, one synth based, a mixer and a microphone and optionnally a midi keyboard is all I really need and want to produce music.

All this to say I probably just need a DN+DT or Novation Circuit Tracks+Rythm combo or a Deluge and I would be a happy man.

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#244

Everything SoundGarden is an instant skip. The whole Grunge thing is tacky as hell to me. Childish angst and an unwashed demeanor.

But that’s besides the point that you can express yourself with minimal gear.

#245

I have an M:C as my ‘jam’ box that I feel comfortable taking anywhere. It’s nice and immediate if I go play music with friends and don’t want to lug my A4 or whatever. If you peak at the M:C music only thread, lots of things sound similar unfortunately. You can get some differentiation though depending on how you use it. Ultimately it’s still fairly limited, so you’d be better off with the DN.

What are you thoughts on the A4? limited voices, but there are work arounds to make things fuller.

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#246

I never owned an A4 (I had a Rytm) but, yeah, I considered this one as well. There are many good people on this forum who think it’s even better for drums than the Rytm (which was not my cup of tee), as it features many more sound sculpting options. I’m sure it’s brilliant but the problem is a bit the same as with the DN: 4 tracks only.

I know this limitation shouldn’t be taken as an excuse, there are hundreds of video examples showing 4 tracks are way enough to make banging pieces.

But I’d like to try something new and take a chance with a new thing from an underdog company, the Twisted Electron Blast Beats. From what I understood, it features 6 drum tracks (more than enough) and 4 synth tracks. And importantly, it has interesting live performance features not found on Elektrons. It might be sonically limited, though, we’ll see.

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#247

the blast beats looks really cool. i hope it works out.

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#248

Oh sure, I absolutely agree with you ! I said that mainly because I once watched another interview of his where he explained his process for the There Is Love In You album and it was mostly straighforward sample cutting and rearranging with a bit of stock eq and comp, nothing fancy at all.

But what you said is totally true.

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#249

He’s all about great blends, great melodies and great arrangements.

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#251

Of course but now you’re talking about what he does while I was answering your point about what he uses.

My point was that he manages to do a lot, while not using much, even in terms of plugins and other such things.

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#252

Had a bit of back and forth with the previous setup. Even found this relatively small setup to be a bit of a headache.

I’ve just found that adding fx pedals creates more indecision and faffing around. I don’t like multitracking, so having 1 effect across the whole output isn’t appealing. I’m going to sell a couple from that set up and keep the Ottobit and possibly a BigSky that I’ve just bought. But for the most part I want to see what I can do with just the Op-1 and Z.

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#253

Grunge was a false genre made up by label marketing and journalists. Soundgarden was awesome and mostly not really angsty at all, Nirvana was really angsty and TAD was just cool outsider rock. Grunge was in reality an offshoot of post hardcore and noise rock that was happening all over the states, from new york to texas to california to washington state. In the 80s when the bands were starting out, they just called themselves punk rock. Soundgarden was on SST and toured the hardcore circuit for years.

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#254

I’ve bought a load of stuff since the new year. Gonna box it all up except for my AR and Polivoks and work on them exclusively until I’m shitting bangers for breakfast.

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#255

I know what grunge is. To say it was some sort of manufactured genre, without realizing all genres are capitalized and on by labels, companies, advertisers, and other scheme makers is not telling the whole story.

It also does nothing to change my mind about SoundGarden sucking hard. Really bad music in my opinion. And when I comes to me choosing music to listen to, my opinion is what matters to me.

All of that still doesn’t change my point which is, Artis the Spoon Man believes one can express themselves with minimal gear. Don’t you agree?

#256

Conflating the entirety of a “scene” with the marketing assumptions, negative public reception, and utterly terrible “fashion” that mocked the basic PNW dress is also not telling the whole story either.

Which hey, we like what we like. But the criticisms came off like a Jay Leno routine :stuck_out_tongue:

Kids[quote=“Suspect_Frequency, post:255, topic:168440”]
All of that still doesn’t change my point which is, Artis the Spoon Man believes one can express themselves with minimal gear. Don’t you agree?
[/quote]
Kids with cigar box guitars can whoop my ass with enthusiasm, dedication, and intentionality, total agreement.

#257

There are genres that are an actual movement of likeminded artists who share a certain sound. Grunge really isn’t one of them. What grunge bands had in common were distorted guitars and vaguely mid tempo, and that’s about it.

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#258

Feels like you need one more, smaller, device to complete the setup.

#259

Well, I do have another Op-1. But just after taking the photo I put a Volca FM on the desk.

I’m going to use one or 2 FX pedals for the Volca. Probably the Ottobit jr and BigSky. And that should be it.

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#260
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#261

(Bah, the preview does not load the image, which is Trader Joe’s Irish Bangers, sold by a niche US supermarket owned by Aldi.)

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#262

Awesome!!

#263

Not sure if I should have posted it here or on the your setups thread. I robbed the Switch of my daughters. This will probably be my one and only setup for the upcoming month.

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Goal is to do a mini album with this only, I took it for a spin for like 10 minutes while my gf was in the shower and already had the canvas of a decent but unmixed 2min30 electro track. It is quite limitated but the note sequencer and the song arranger are so quick to use and there is a record feature for automation . I may just add vocals with a DAW (but I may just try to use some voice effect thingy on my smartphone, koala and the superposition feature of the TASCAM to keep it small and focused).

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Your Setups (Part 1)