Sometimes I just feel like getting rid of it all

The Lounge General Discussion
#149

I’ve been through 2 big clear-outs. One in the mid-90s and one in the mid 2000s. I did regret selling some of the gear in the second clear-out, like the expanded Supernova 2. Emu e5K sampler (with RFX32 card and various bells and whistles) too.

I ended up re-buying some of the kit, but I couldn’t necessarily find the same expanded versions. I’m very glad I kept some stuff though, like the Korg Z1 (which has the extra voice card).

Selling my old Korg Workstations though, is something I’ve never regretted. I’ve been through Trinity and Triton Extreme. I was only using them for traditional keyboard gigs, so moving up through to Kronos - haven’t had any problems finding patches which work.

I’ve now got to the point though, where I’m seriously considering selling a good chunk of my Elektron boxes. My work-flow is better with a centralised sequencer (Cirklon or DAWs) and tbh, I’m not overly impressed with the raw sound of some of the Elektron toys. The Elektron magic, usually happens when the sound engines are combined with the on-board sequencers.

I’m waiting to see if the new OB suits my work-flow, otherwise there might be various bits up for grabs.

#150

An approach that I have adopted is to work backwards in the order that you bought your gear and then re introduce the next element with the commitment that motivated you to buy it in the first instance.

If it still doesn’t work out you can sell it knowing that you have been truthful, even if you loose money.

Last autumn I bought myself an expensive laptop for running ableton. Totally not needed as all I need a DAW to do is record the audio and mix down.

I sold the laptop for a big loss and bought an iPad. I feel relieved, refreshed and inspired again.

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#151

Exactly this is true. It’s the strength of the units. If used otherwise, or shall replace traditional gear, people seem to get disappointed too often.

#152

This is gold actually!!!

#153

Actually to be serious for a second. I have GAS…and sometimes i make no progress at all because all time is taken trying to sync…clean…service…integrate kit…blah blah…

But when i got the dt i started to take individual bits of kit out of the studio and into the loungeroom to sample with the digitakt and have a bit off a play plocking lfo and midi for some unusual samples…

Fell in love with every bit of gear i used in this way all over again…!!! I gained fresh perspective and spent 1 on 1 time with synths i have had for a decade but never realized certain potentials until i took them out away from a larger more complex set up…

Try going on dates with your synths…just you…1 synth and a nice bottle of wine…

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#154

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS.

I can identify. As a guitarist I love the immediacy of learning a tune quickly - then playing the fuck out of it - to the best of my ability.

I had AK for couple of years, got a DK last year, then DSI desk top. Found the Elektron AK a challenge (still a little) but - fucking love the stuff.

Get the WTF am I doing a lot recently ! Now realise I got to map this shit out to get something cohesive - get the most from it .

I like to call this Analysis Paralysis.

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#155

Moby selling most of his classic gear and more:

//Edit
OOoppss was already mentioned, was not reading the thread but watching YT and adding the OT to my setup (ooo the irony) :wink:

#156

I prefer threesome, love pairs ! :wine_glass:

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#157

I’m curious about who’s that dub techno legend you’re mentioning :stuck_out_tongue:
the description sure sounds like something I would enjoy, would you mind telling me?

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#158

yes, Bwax’s description somehow is incredibly uplifting and clears the way forwards as regards the daily, weekly, monthly challenge of maintaining a fresh and refreshing approach to creative productivity, arrangement thinking, instrumentation overview.

so important to remember it is totally cool to drop the bass drum out of the mix or make it less prominent sometimes.

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#159

I have a gig tomorrow and I have set that is mainly house/breakbeat oriented, with somewhat heavy/prominent beats… but the last few weeks I’ve hear some really good techno - with more emphasis on space and texture than rythmic complexity or abundance…

wich brings me to another thing: I noticed that I was sometimes making rythms that were too complex - maybe several tracks had an uneven rythmic structure, wich ended up making the tracks too tiresome to follow after a while, or hard to understand. I realized that sometimes is better to keep the “weird” rythm to one layer/track, rather than have them compete against each other.
also, I noticed that I tend to do this when constructing a track from zero (in other words, from silence) - but considering I like performing live, I need to also think it in context of a liveset… and when transitioning between tracks, sometimes those accentuations (I don’t know how it’s called in english, when the floor hit “turns around”?) don’t matter/work as much.

here’s an example of a track were I kinda did that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw0qpAhm3RI

so… tomorrow is my gig, and I started a few things in quite a different style (story of my life)… simpler beats, focusing on modeling the sounds, resampling, using percussion to “insinuate” melodies rather than doing them with synthesis… then bringing some harmony to emphasize it, etc…

I would love to play that stuff, but it’s too different and underdeveloped yet :stuck_out_tongue:

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#160

very cool … going over content that seems to be completely prepared is often a fabulous thing to do, bringing subtlety and finding the elemental interactions that are so essential to defining the momentum of a given track or moment.

i guess the question is, when to do the reworking?
perhaps when there is more than ten tracks “prepared” … to then “re-prepare” the songs, reinterpret them, and perhaps in so doing, find musically relevant conversations that are then possible to recount in a performance.

#161

Interesting…Go on then…You, A Hot Lover, A Bottle Wine and a Synth…Threesome…:zipper_mouth_face:

#162

could make a movie and call it Deepmind! :joy:
oh dear… i better get back to work :sunglasses:

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#163

my answer: all the time! haha
I always go through them (for example, that video I posted… I simplified it quite a bit)

another advice: if you ever find yourself humming one of your songs/tracks, pay attention… that’s the most important element of your track, and quite probably there’s a lot of it around it that is unnecessary

EDIT: oh and another thing I do… I try to go back to the rythmic/percussions of a track and make them interesting by themselves (delete unnecessary/reduntant hits, add or remove ghostnotes, conditional trigs! one shot trigs! finding the right spaces for each layer )…
if there’s not much going on until the melody appears, then the track is probably going to get boring fast(er)… good arrangements on the rythmic part gets a longer life span for a track

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#164

Nice track @depuratumba…liked the sounds…simple but it works! … I’m still learning every week that simple often means better…
( may I ask what’s the patch for the acid sound?:wink: )

More in the post, nice talking and interesting propositions from people. I’m also there sometimes (getting rid of…). I always think that is not a problem with gear (less or more or GAS), it’s a problem with myself and life and expectations, frustrations, procrastination…

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#165

some pedal boards will be deep enough for a OT

#166

the problem is always us! hehe
the patch for the acid sound… can’t remember now, but it’s probably one I did myself.
I never use overbridge (for now) but if you PM me and have some patience I could share it with you

#167

:smile: Seriously, yesterday I made a wavetable based on “I love you” words for my MicroMonsta synth and Octatrack ! Works pretty well !

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#168

Great track

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