What Instrument or Piece of Equipment made your work Prolific

This. I wonder how you lay down melodies in the sequencer. Do you just hit record and play the notes in live? Or is there a fancier/better method you use?

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nope. thatā€™s it! or it was with the Monomachine and Octatrack mainly. with the Cirklon thereā€™s more options to do interesting things. but thatā€™s typically not how Iā€™ll write a lead/bass part though. itā€™s more for background textures and such.

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Yep! Thats how I work. Want an 8 bar/16 bar phrase? Chain patterns, hit record, play. Either have quantise on, or tidy them up after (Iā€™m a crap keyboard player) Then go back and add the chords, or counter melodies, call and response etc

No magic trick really.

Sometimes I think Id like an MPC for more flexible sequencing, but I enjoy working with the elektron sequencers.

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My music isnā€™t prolific by any stretch, but I made this one video with a Volca Drum that got a butt load of views in comparison with anything else Iā€™ve done.

I think it was just timing. It was very new at the time, and I was just playing around with it.

I donā€™t even have one anymore, but if anyone here doesnā€™t already have a dedicated drum machine itā€™s VERY good for such a small thing.

Definitely awakened my love for sequencing rhythm though. Even now I have a Model:Cycles, XFM and MC-707, but I spend most of my time just zoning out making beats.

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Nice. I definitely watched this video right after I bought one and it led me in some happy directions. Cheers!

I also donā€™t have one anymoreā€¦hahaā€¦but it is definitely a cool toy.

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I bought a Korg Oasys in 2005 and It enhanced my skills and productivity immensely.

And during those time I received more offers to release my music than Iā€™d ever receive previously or since.

Really amazing times but unfortunately I never did release anything.

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How come?

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Too precious about things.

Thinking tracks werenā€™t ready when labels were saying otherwise. There was 1 occasion though, when I couldnā€™t provide stems for a track, that I was happy to release, but the label wanted to optimise the individual elements. I didnā€™t/donā€™t work that way, so that was disappointing.

Thatā€™s why I bought that Blast Radio box. Just going to knock things out and broadcast, ready or not.

In fact I no longer care about releasing music in the traditional sense.

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Iā€™d be interested in this one! Couldnā€™t find it in the ā€œyour modularsā€ thread, care to share?

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Fair enough. I wouldnt provide stems either. A) I dont have any to give as I record a stereo mix from the mixer B) even if I did have stemsā€¦ er rude! They either like my music or they dont. Optimiseā€¦ get stuffed.

Labels suck. Do it yourself :slight_smile:

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Yep. I agree 100%

It caused a little bit of tension at the time with myself, the label and others that had heard the track.

People saying that it should be released as it was.

But I understood the labels concerns.

Thing is, the label later went on to start a subsidiary label that released old, forgotten demos that were on dats. Simple stereo mastered tracks without stems available.

Oh well.

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Iā€™ve always thought this too.

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None :joy:

ā€¦ :sob:

this instrument has also been prolific for me.

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Analog Rytm mkI here. Iā€™d estimate Iā€™ve made around 350 fully jammable patterns with it.

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Rytm mki, Model:Cycles, Digitone Keys.

Sure Iā€™ve got Ableton and a PC, but limitations seem to help me not retreat into overcomplicating a production.

I need to give the Blackbox another try, I had a hardware issue with mine and didnā€™t get very far.

Got a link? I can always find a local one, but that looks sturdy enough :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Cant find the link, maybe they dont have them at the moment. Iā€™m in Australiaā€¦ I got it from a shop called fantastic furniture in the nearby town about 30km away. It was about 70 AUD if I recall correctly.

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Canon M6 and Mitakon 35mm 0.95.

The M6 is a workhorse mirrorless APS-C. Itā€™s actually the size of an old prosumer film SLR - current dSLRs are huge. The magic is in the Mitakon lens. I donā€™t know enough about optics to say learned things about the history of optical formulas. It is a very fast lens that softens wide open and handles point light sources very well. Finally, the Canon has an 1/8" stereo audio in jack.

My video production process is:
2TR out from my mixer into the M6, video set to VGA, Mitakon somewhere between 0.95 and f/2.0, press play, press play on the sequencer, press stop, done.

I suspect that both the ritual aspect of publishing a track in the form of a short video and the likes and views from whichever sharing or social media service is popular encourage me to finish things.

Edit: Two things have happened since I bought the Mitakon lens - prices have gone up, and several other 35mm 0.95s have entered the market. Five years ago, if you wanted a lens that fast you had to spend $11k on a Leica Noctilux plus an additional $5k+ on a Leica body.

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Itā€™s the OP-Z for me. Itā€™s so direct and easy to a) come up with ideas and b) screw with them until you have something really interesting.

I like how itā€™s all-in-one, including separate keys for the sequencer, and for playing the notes.

The step components let you add a generative element to any track, and the key combos for things like pattern length or switching sounds/samples make it really fast. The Elektron sequencers could pick up a few tips here.

I just wish it was easier to track into Ableton. TE Overbridge would be cool, but given how weird the OP-Z app is, maybe not. Recently Iā€™ve started recording it into the Octatrack. Maybe thatā€™s the answer.

(Pro tip: For me, the very tightest, easiest, and fastest way to get stems from the OP-Z has been Beatmaker 3 on iPad. Solid).

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@Lauli +1

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