Junkie XL - Studio Talk w/Armin Van Buuren
- Thread starter tokatila
- Start date
gsilbers
Part of Pulsesetter-Sounds.com
i know we went off topic a little but im still deciding between the mono or the mini korgs.
i didnt realize the minilogue didnt have the step seq..
also, how come the monologue is more aggressive?
and do you think the DM-12 gets aggresive enough?
Any "aggressive" synth recommendations?
I guess add distortion pedals but for example , to me the sub37 gets very "raw" and aggressive type sound. lack of poly is a bummer. maybe soon.
synthpunk
Senior Member
The Korg Monologue for $300 is allot of fun. Good starter presets by Aphex Twin.
The DM-12 is great bang for the buck.
If your looking at a Moog, I highly recommend the Sub-37. The Minotaur is good for bass It fills my Taurus pedal obsession, and the Mother-32 a great modular starter system.
The DM-12 is great bang for the buck.
If your looking at a Moog, I highly recommend the Sub-37. The Minotaur is good for bass It fills my Taurus pedal obsession, and the Mother-32 a great modular starter system.
dannymc
Senior Member
was a nice surprise seeing these two come together. Armin has made some amazing trance classics in his day, would of been one of my big influences back when i done the whole amateur dj thing. those superstar dj's have net worth that would boggle the mind. think Armin is worth about $50million dollars at this stage, so who is in the better game himself and Tom.
Danny
Danny
JaikumarS
Active Member
I can count maybe ten synths in there that I haven't owned at one point or another - and most of them are still leaning up against the wall in my spare bedroom, while I wait for their capacitors to leak and their value to decrease all the way to zero.Kidding. I still use the old guys when the situation calls for it. Maybe not on a SAW movie, but on less high-octane scores that need an interesting soundscape that you want to crawl inside, they might be just the thing. I did a score last year that wanted to be more muffled, distant, and dark than my usual murky slop, and ten minutes with the MS-20 and some guitar pedals got me closer than a week of tweaking soft synths. I wound up doing the whole score as audio, with no samples at all - just guitar, MS-20, and some EuroRack driven from the Pro-2 sequencer. It came out pretty cool, and no way would I have gotten that end result from "in the box" stuff. No way.
Not to say that everyone should run out and scoop up every eighties door stop that they can find - but if you have a history with these synths, or any fond memories of that one ESQ-1 bell sound or whatever, then it's a cheap date. Plus, you can use a certain gig as an excuse - Junkie did Deadpool, and just one mention from the director that it might be cool to have some tongue-in-cheek eighties references in the score is all the excuse Junkie needed to scoop up a DX-1, Synergy, PPG, etc. I use the same "justification" all the time to rationalize purchases, whether they're Kontakt libraries, EuroRack modules, or circuit-bent synths.
Thing is, sometimes you get on a score that needs just a certain thing, but you won't know what that certain thing is until you hear it. You might spend all day looking for it in the softies, trying to tweak them into submission, putting plugins on it to push the sound further away, but then get it in the first ten seconds of fiddling with the hardware. That's why I keep that old stuff around. While I do like the modern convenience of soft synths, there's no denying that Zebra / Diva / Arturia stuff sounds different to the hardware. In the case of the u-he stuff, it sounds "better" in that it's WAY more clear, crisp, defined, and up front - but while that might be good for modern, super-hyped "hybrid trailer style" music, it might not do the job if you're trying for that murky Michael Clayton vibe. But break out the Oberheim Xpander, Prophet VS, and Super Jupiter and all of a sudden the indistinct, less focused sound starts lighting up your detectors. Modern synths all have super-saw waves, scannable wave tables, four oscillators, etc., so it's too easy to make them sound "mega". The old boys are trying their best just to sound half as big as Serum or Zebra - but often that's what works better than the "all oscillators at maximum waveshape" vibe of the soft synths.
I did some pretty elaborate testing between the real hardware and the Arturia soft versions of the Prophet VS, Xpander, MiniMoog, etc. and the difference was not subtle. The Arturia Prophet VS can actually load SysEx dumps from the hardware synth, so that's the first thing I tried - and the difference was shocking. The real thing sounded like it had a chorus unit enabled even when it didn't - with just one oscillator going and no effects, the sound was "alive". The soft version just sat there. Flat. Motionless. Lifeless. Technically, the soft version was more "accurate" in that it was doing what the parameters on the front panel said they should do, without any "fudge factor" or drift, but is that worse, or better?
Sometimes, worse is better.
Mr.Clouser, Could you please share, what will be your go to tools especially (software synths) when you are working for TV Series with tight deadlines. Thanks.
charlieclouser
Senior Member
To be honest I use almost no synthesizers, soft or hard, at all. I'm so much more interested in manipulating acoustic sounds, guitars, etc. these days. I do have a lot of samples I've made from my hardware synths like the Xpander, Prophet VS, etc. and in many cases I just use these samples inside EXS-24. Most of the time my cues are 99% EXS-24 - drums, metals, synths, strings, brass, orch chaos samples - everything.
But. When I do use synths and I'm in a hurry:
- ES2. Yes, the free, ancient ES2 synth that's been a part of Logic's base set of instruments for many years. It is not "spectacular" and surprising in the way that synths like Serum are, but I know it well and it does what I need, and it does it quickly. The sound is solid. This is what I go to most of the time. Boring, I know. But it works.
- Arturia CS-80, Arturia Arp-2600, and Arturia Moog Modular-V. I have a few patches in CS-80 that I use from time to time, but I don't tweak excessively. I think the CS-80 (hard or soft) only makes about four sounds that I like and would use anyway, so it doesn't take a long time for me to decide whether they will work, deploy them, and move on. The Arp-2600 is a synth I'm very familiar with and the Arturia plugin works well. I've owned the original hardware, and now I have the TTSH hardware clone, but I still use the Arturia plugin when I just want something that pulses and want to move quickly. Same story with the Arturia Mood Modular-V. I own an original System-10 from the late 1960's but it is more of a museum piece than a useful tool, so I often use the Arturia plugin as a way to get fat pulses quickly.
- Korg Legacy MS-20. Again, I own both the original hardware from the 1970's as well as the re-issue Korg MS-20 full-size kit, and I quite like the Legacy plugin. It sounds cleaner and more precise than the hardware, and I have a few interesting patches that I can use quickly.
- U-He ZebraHZ and Diva. These are recent additions to my collection, and I love ZebraHZ. Much more full-featured than ES2 or the Arturia simulations of old hardware, and I can move pretty quickly on it. Diva is less thrilling to me, since it is closer to an emulation of vintage hardware, but the sound is quite nice. But I tend to use ZebraHZ since it has a wider set of features but still has the Diva filters etc.
To be honest, I would be fine with just these, even though I have pretty much every other soft synth there is. It's a similar story with the hardware - I've owned dozens of hardware synths over the years and the only ones that I keep around are:
- MiniMoog Model-D (reissue) = sounds just like the originals (I've owned four over the years) and everything works as it should. Only useful for about four types of sounds, but it does them like no other. That slightly overdriven, warm bass, where notes in the second octave have the same type of "thump" as notes in the first octave - this is part of the MiniMoog "magic" that other synths don't seem to capture.
- Korg MS-20 (original and reissue) = I have the original MS-20 and MS-50 but I tend to use the reissue since everything works as it should. Harsh, aggressive, and good at band-pass style thin sounds. A nice contrast to other synths that only have lowpass filters.
- Prophet VS and VS-Rack = these sound very different (more "alive") than the Arturia simulations and although they are fragile and troublesome they are unique. Good for slippery pad sounds and ultra-aggressive digital unison parts.
- Oberheim Xpander = similar to the VS, the hardware sounds very different to the Arturia simulation and there are a few sounds that its weird filter types can create that I can't get from other synths. I do have a pair of the Doepfer EuroRack filter that is a clone of the Xpander filter and it is very very good - and you can run external audio through it.
- Waldorf MicroWave II xtk = this is a strange and very aggressive digital synth and I keep it around for just a few sounds that were a big part of some records I made. I am looking forward to the new Waldorf Quantum which may (will) replace the XTK I hope.
- Dave Smith Pro-2 = very full-featured and aggressive sounding mono synth, with a great step sequencer and CV+Gate outputs to drive modular synths. A great "front end" for a EuroRack system.
- TTSH Arp 2600 clone = sounds very very close to the original hardware, with the identical feature set, and is brand new and fully functional. I've owned two of the originals and I prefer this one. Hopefully the reason that they stopped making these third-party "illegal" kits is because Korg will do their own version as they did with the Arp Odyssey. That would be nice.
- Roland MKS-80 + MPG-80 = I bought these brand new back in the 1980's and I'll keep them around just for the unison saws and that cross-mod sound.
- Nord Rack v1 = almost like a soft synth in a box, it's not a "thrilling" sound but it does what you expect and it does it quickly.
- Roland V-Synth + V-Synth XT = strange and unique and amazing. Rarely used but capable of doing things that no other synth can do. Weird, glassy-sounding time stretching, manually scrolling through samples from the X-Y pad - just a wild and cool synth.
- Roland JP-8080 rack = has an amazing filter bank setting that can process external audio and has a clean and clear sound unlike other filter banks. Within a very small window of tone it can create low end like no other synth I've heard.
JaikumarS
Active Member
Thank you Mr.Clouser for the post.
givemenoughrope
Senior Member
Charlie and others,
Just curious how you are printing HW synths. In mono or stereo, with fx, dry and fx on another track. I'm setting up some fx boxes through a mixer for quick printing but I also want to monitor through plug ins.
Just curious how you are printing HW synths. In mono or stereo, with fx, dry and fx on another track. I'm setting up some fx boxes through a mixer for quick printing but I also want to monitor through plug ins.
charlieclouser
Senior Member
I don't have one specific way or dealing with hardware synths. It really depends. My synths come up in a patch bay, with the first 8 channels normalled to analog inputs on the MOTU 1248 for quick-n-easy monitoring through MOTU's CueMix software, or recording "dry" - but I can easily re-route them to the following alternate input paths:
- A pair of Avalon U-5 tube DI's with its passive eq that has six preset curves. The outputs of these are normalled to the line inputs of a pair of AMS-Neve 1084 re-issue mic pre / eq. The U-5 has such a hot output that I can go into the line inputs on the 1084's, while my quick recording mics in the room are going into the mic inputs of the 1084's. If I don't have enough level or want to do it "correctly" I just go behind the rack and move the XLR cables from the line inputs over to the mic inputs.
- The line inputs on the CraneSong Spider. This is an 8-channel mic-pre / mixer with digital output and a version of CraneSong's Phoenix tape-sim / saturator on its A>D card. If I am layering synths I can do an 8x2 mix right then and there and commit on the way in, adding some tape sim at the same time. I have a UBK-modded Fatso normalled to the hardware inserts of the Spider's 2-bus so I can put large amounts of hurt on the signal before the A>D. AES output of this goes into the MOTU rig.
- Another stereo pair of line inputs on the CraneSong is normally fed by the SansAmp PSA-1 (which is mono) and Sansamp RBI > Distressor (also in mono), which is nominally a bass signal path but can get some synths sounding dirty as heck. I can get into these either by the rear-panel inputs, which are in the patch bay, or by the front-panel 1/4" jacks if I am in a hurry, lazy, or confused.
- I have a single UA 6176, which is a 610 tube mic pre and an 1176 in a single unit. I usually use this for mic signals or for clean guitar type stuff, but it's good on mono output synths like the Model D, MS-20, etc.
- I also have a pair of Distressors in the patch bay to deploy as needed on input. There's also a cheap TC M-300 multi-effect unit that has S/PDIF i/o in the rack so I can put some splash on the Haken Continuum which has digital output.
- Three different flavors of rack-mount Line6 Pods - the first two generations I really only use for heavy industrial guitars, because their lower resolution models sound harder and more "cyber" than later revisions which supposedly sound more realistic or authentic - which I don't care about! But my favorite of all the Pods is the X3-Pro rack unit, which has stereo mic inputs, stereo guitar inputs, stereo line inputs, stereo AES and S/PDIF inputs, USB, etc. The AES output of this feeds the MOTU rig, and I use this quite often as a synth input stage since it has so many mic preamp models, vintage eq models, a zillion effects. There's a million tones in there and it's easy to get a lame-sounding synth to be a thousand feet tall. People sneer at the Pods, but I use that thing all the time.
- The Pod X3-Pro is in the top part of a gigantic case I had made 20 years ago which has two four-space racks, with the U-5's in the middle, above four 48-inch wide pull-out shelves that hold all my pedals, the Pro-2, the Roland VG-99, and other miscellany. Right below the Pod is a pair of Pro-Co 1/4" patch bays that all the pedals are hardwired to - this way I can quickly patch through any of 48 channels of guitar pedals, all of which are powered up and wired in at all times - no searching for a 9-volt battery, no cable clutter on the floor - it's great. Bottom drawer has 24 pedals of various flavors, most mono distortions, pitch shifters, etc., and the second drawer has a stereo pair each of MoogerFooger filters, phasers, ring mods, and analog delays, plus an Eventide H9, Strymon Timeline, Mobius, and Big Sky, a TC Ditto x4 looper, and the irreplaceable Line6 green delay pedal (I also have the rack version which has digital i/o, MIDI sync, and stereo XLR i/o). On top of this behemoth is my large EuroRack setup, and next to it is a three-tier stand with the MicroWave2 XTK, Oberheim Xpander, and Prophet VS. The outputs from these appear in the 1/4" patch bays so I can go into the Pod, and hit guitar pedals on the way in. There are tie lines from the 1/4" patch bays directly to the TT patch bays and to a pair of analog inputs on the MOTU so I can record a synth clean into the MOTU, go through the Pod, or go over to the TT bays to access the Neve or whatever. Since the U-5's are right there also, I can come out of the 1/4" bay right into the U-5 > Neve chain. It's all very flexible.
Most of this stuff is visible in the Spitfire Cribs video they made at my place a while back. Very little has changed. I set up the behemoth case back in the NIN days and although some of the pedals have come and gone the basic layout and concept is the same as it was in the 1990's. The NIN studio sessions were usually such a mess of pedals and cables all over the floor, boxes of 9-volt batteries, AC adaptors, etc. it always drove me crazy and it's no way to work when time is of the essence. So I wanted to have a "catch-all" for all that stuff and the behemoth has served me well for two decades. If I had to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same.
I rarely track through plugins. With hardware synths, I make the sound in hardware with hardware effects and just record that. I sometimes go further (much further) with plugins but I don't generally mix-n-match while getting sounds. If I'm experimenting and just making samples that will be used later as raw material for an EXS instrument or whatever, then I might record through plugins - but I generally don't do that when I'm just trying to track a 16th note bass pulse from the Pro-2 or whatever. I just use the various hardware chains to get it sounding fat and then ruin the sound later. There's already too many options to decide while tracking, so I often just record clean, edit the audio, and THEN process through plugins or route out to the hardware. I can easily send from Logic back into the TT or 1/4" patch bays to process sounds outside the box.
It's a pretty complex setup but it's a LOT simpler than what we dealt with in the 1990's - it's sort of the "greatest hits" version of what we used when making NIN records. I got rid of a room full of gear and just kept the stuff that I actually used all the time.
These days I have no interest in a Junkie-XL-sized collection that includes every synth ever made.
Been there, done that, kept the best, sold the rest.
The only hardware synths that are still around are: 1344hp of EuroRack, Prophet VS, VS-Rack, Xpander, MicroWave2 XTK, V-Synth v1, V-Synth XT, JP-8080, Nord Rack 1, Virus TI, MKS-80, SVC-350, TTSH Arp 2600 clone, MS-20 (original), MS-20 (reissue kit), MS-50, MiniMoog Voyager, MiniMoog Model D (reissue), Dave Smith Pro-2, Arp Solus, FolkTek Euphonos Field, Haken Continuum and about a dozen circuit-bent devices like Casio SK-1 and SK-5 samplers, Alesis HR-16 (which is mental!), various bent Speak-N-Spells and stuff like that.
Oh, and an original 1969 Moog modular. But I never use that old thing.
- A pair of Avalon U-5 tube DI's with its passive eq that has six preset curves. The outputs of these are normalled to the line inputs of a pair of AMS-Neve 1084 re-issue mic pre / eq. The U-5 has such a hot output that I can go into the line inputs on the 1084's, while my quick recording mics in the room are going into the mic inputs of the 1084's. If I don't have enough level or want to do it "correctly" I just go behind the rack and move the XLR cables from the line inputs over to the mic inputs.
- The line inputs on the CraneSong Spider. This is an 8-channel mic-pre / mixer with digital output and a version of CraneSong's Phoenix tape-sim / saturator on its A>D card. If I am layering synths I can do an 8x2 mix right then and there and commit on the way in, adding some tape sim at the same time. I have a UBK-modded Fatso normalled to the hardware inserts of the Spider's 2-bus so I can put large amounts of hurt on the signal before the A>D. AES output of this goes into the MOTU rig.
- Another stereo pair of line inputs on the CraneSong is normally fed by the SansAmp PSA-1 (which is mono) and Sansamp RBI > Distressor (also in mono), which is nominally a bass signal path but can get some synths sounding dirty as heck. I can get into these either by the rear-panel inputs, which are in the patch bay, or by the front-panel 1/4" jacks if I am in a hurry, lazy, or confused.
- I have a single UA 6176, which is a 610 tube mic pre and an 1176 in a single unit. I usually use this for mic signals or for clean guitar type stuff, but it's good on mono output synths like the Model D, MS-20, etc.
- I also have a pair of Distressors in the patch bay to deploy as needed on input. There's also a cheap TC M-300 multi-effect unit that has S/PDIF i/o in the rack so I can put some splash on the Haken Continuum which has digital output.
- Three different flavors of rack-mount Line6 Pods - the first two generations I really only use for heavy industrial guitars, because their lower resolution models sound harder and more "cyber" than later revisions which supposedly sound more realistic or authentic - which I don't care about! But my favorite of all the Pods is the X3-Pro rack unit, which has stereo mic inputs, stereo guitar inputs, stereo line inputs, stereo AES and S/PDIF inputs, USB, etc. The AES output of this feeds the MOTU rig, and I use this quite often as a synth input stage since it has so many mic preamp models, vintage eq models, a zillion effects. There's a million tones in there and it's easy to get a lame-sounding synth to be a thousand feet tall. People sneer at the Pods, but I use that thing all the time.
- The Pod X3-Pro is in the top part of a gigantic case I had made 20 years ago which has two four-space racks, with the U-5's in the middle, above four 48-inch wide pull-out shelves that hold all my pedals, the Pro-2, the Roland VG-99, and other miscellany. Right below the Pod is a pair of Pro-Co 1/4" patch bays that all the pedals are hardwired to - this way I can quickly patch through any of 48 channels of guitar pedals, all of which are powered up and wired in at all times - no searching for a 9-volt battery, no cable clutter on the floor - it's great. Bottom drawer has 24 pedals of various flavors, most mono distortions, pitch shifters, etc., and the second drawer has a stereo pair each of MoogerFooger filters, phasers, ring mods, and analog delays, plus an Eventide H9, Strymon Timeline, Mobius, and Big Sky, a TC Ditto x4 looper, and the irreplaceable Line6 green delay pedal (I also have the rack version which has digital i/o, MIDI sync, and stereo XLR i/o). On top of this behemoth is my large EuroRack setup, and next to it is a three-tier stand with the MicroWave2 XTK, Oberheim Xpander, and Prophet VS. The outputs from these appear in the 1/4" patch bays so I can go into the Pod, and hit guitar pedals on the way in. There are tie lines from the 1/4" patch bays directly to the TT patch bays and to a pair of analog inputs on the MOTU so I can record a synth clean into the MOTU, go through the Pod, or go over to the TT bays to access the Neve or whatever. Since the U-5's are right there also, I can come out of the 1/4" bay right into the U-5 > Neve chain. It's all very flexible.
Most of this stuff is visible in the Spitfire Cribs video they made at my place a while back. Very little has changed. I set up the behemoth case back in the NIN days and although some of the pedals have come and gone the basic layout and concept is the same as it was in the 1990's. The NIN studio sessions were usually such a mess of pedals and cables all over the floor, boxes of 9-volt batteries, AC adaptors, etc. it always drove me crazy and it's no way to work when time is of the essence. So I wanted to have a "catch-all" for all that stuff and the behemoth has served me well for two decades. If I had to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same.
I rarely track through plugins. With hardware synths, I make the sound in hardware with hardware effects and just record that. I sometimes go further (much further) with plugins but I don't generally mix-n-match while getting sounds. If I'm experimenting and just making samples that will be used later as raw material for an EXS instrument or whatever, then I might record through plugins - but I generally don't do that when I'm just trying to track a 16th note bass pulse from the Pro-2 or whatever. I just use the various hardware chains to get it sounding fat and then ruin the sound later. There's already too many options to decide while tracking, so I often just record clean, edit the audio, and THEN process through plugins or route out to the hardware. I can easily send from Logic back into the TT or 1/4" patch bays to process sounds outside the box.
It's a pretty complex setup but it's a LOT simpler than what we dealt with in the 1990's - it's sort of the "greatest hits" version of what we used when making NIN records. I got rid of a room full of gear and just kept the stuff that I actually used all the time.
These days I have no interest in a Junkie-XL-sized collection that includes every synth ever made.
Been there, done that, kept the best, sold the rest.
The only hardware synths that are still around are: 1344hp of EuroRack, Prophet VS, VS-Rack, Xpander, MicroWave2 XTK, V-Synth v1, V-Synth XT, JP-8080, Nord Rack 1, Virus TI, MKS-80, SVC-350, TTSH Arp 2600 clone, MS-20 (original), MS-20 (reissue kit), MS-50, MiniMoog Voyager, MiniMoog Model D (reissue), Dave Smith Pro-2, Arp Solus, FolkTek Euphonos Field, Haken Continuum and about a dozen circuit-bent devices like Casio SK-1 and SK-5 samplers, Alesis HR-16 (which is mental!), various bent Speak-N-Spells and stuff like that.
Oh, and an original 1969 Moog modular. But I never use that old thing.
givemenoughrope
Senior Member
Charlie, thanks. That is probably thee most thorough response I've ever received to any question ever. I'm currently in "mess of pedals and cables all over the floor" mode now. (Looking for my SansAmp pedal...)
I have the Strymon BS/TL and Eventide H9 and I'm trying to decide whether to print them into the synth tracks or print them separately as a delay or reverb like having an aux send in the box. I guess that is mostly dependent on the part and if that effect needs to be altered, boosted, lowered, replaced, etc. later on. i.e. if they are PART of the sound or just the sound's reverb/delay effect. I worked on something with another composer recently and when getting into the groove of transferring sessions his assistant stressed to me that they only wanted to delays/flangers/short verbs that were PART of the sound on each track and things like long reverbs printed separately, so I'm in that mindset now. I WOULD just make the executive decision to only use the Strymons/H9 for shorter "part-of-the-sound" fx but they each can do some really nice long and big reverbs. I've also read about Brian Reitzell just going for it and printing whatever hw reverb he was using along with a synth most times on Hannibal. It's the same old rub though: I want quick and streamlined and what sounds good but that may not be the most easily recallable workflow (maybe that doesn't matter so much with these kinds of sounds). All it takes is one measly video edit and half of these printed synths may need to be recalled and done over again (ugh).
What is it you like so much about the Alesis HR-16?
synthpunk
Senior Member
I would always print because when the magic happens you want to capture it and it's near impossible to get that back again.
Some good solid front end to put them through (mixer, preamps, or good interface) you'll be in business you don't need a room full of eye candy to look at that you're not going to use.
Some good solid front end to put them through (mixer, preamps, or good interface) you'll be in business you don't need a room full of eye candy to look at that you're not going to use.
charlieclouser
Senior Member
Well, my HR-16 is a circuit bent unit, with about 20 switches installed on the top panel that short circuit and glitch out various bits of the internal circuits, resulting in destroyed digital mayhem. As a drum machine, an un-modified HR-16 is an absolutely lame piece of crap, with terribly dated plastic sounds. But, when bent, it unleashes torrents of semi-tonal digital garbage. I used it a lot on the SAW scores, and in the Hello Zepp theme it's creating the little tonal digital percussive sounds in the rhythm track.
So... definitely do NOT buy an HR-16 - unless it's been bent.
Many digital synths, drum machines, and samplers that were made in a certain time period (eighties and nineties) can be circuit bent, but more modern units that have more custom VLSI chips cannot. So there was a golden age of gear that can be bent, and often they were originally pretty lame sounding units like the HR-16. A partial list of bendable units include Kawai R-100 and R-50 drum machines, E-Mu Control Stations, Casio SK series samplers and RZ-1 drum machine, many Speak-N-Spell machines, etc. So, early and cheap digital stuff.
Apparently the circuit bending trend began with a guy named Reed Ghazala, who bent some Speak-N-Spell units back in the day and they created the most amazing torrents of digital glitch mayhem. His original units were sold for exorbitant prices and then the whole eBay thing happened and here we are - where folks pick up the gear for $100, spend an evening or three installing the bends, and re-sell them for a few hundred.
Search eBay for "circuit bent" to get an idea of prices, and check out this site which is a thriving community of benders in the UK:
https://circuitbenders.co.uk
As well as this guy who has made some neat bent instruments that I have:
https://x1l3.bigcartel.com
They're not for everybody, and the results are usually unpredictable, but they are just right for some of the SAW movie stuff I've done.
givemenoughrope
Senior Member
Ah! That’s a horse of a different color, har. I was wondering why there were so many bent ones on Reverb. I’ve always liked circuit bent stuff but never felt like the results were repeatable or varied enough to justify buying them and keeping them. But that was mostly with Casios and furbie toys that I used to annoy the employees of Vintage Gear and Future Music with years ago (there’s a YouTube of 100 bent furbies that is plenty disturbing). And there’s that Fantomas Suspended Animation album that makes good use of them (plus probably plenty of other albums where I didn’t even know I was hearing them). I’ve never thought about what it could do to a drum machine with something like short, one-shot sounds though. That’s a great idea. The closest I can get to something like that is just digital bit crushing on my P12 and Ambika...but I’ve been wanting a HW drum machine anyway. Hmmm... thanks again!
whinecellar
Jim Daneker
+1 on the Korg Minilogue. Picked one up primarily to use as a mobile controller for programming while on tour. It hits a rare sweet spot for me in that it's small, yet actually feels like a real piece of hardware rather than all the crappy, cheap USB keyboards out there. 3 octaves rather than 2, halfway between "mini keys" and full size, real knobs that send CCs (easily remappable in Logic) - fits in my overhead bag. Sexy little piece of gear.
And then I actually listened to it one day. Sweet mother of honey... what a great little synth! Couldn't stop smiling while scrolling through presets, twisting knobs and goofing with the arpeggiator. Made me feel like a kid again, and reminded me that just as Charlie says, there's no substitute for a real analogue piece of gear. It just oozes character.
The only problem with that little keyboard is it has awakened my love of analogue gear, so I too am now on a buying spree. And dang, their new Prologue looks insane... 16 note polyphony among other improvements... sign me up!
And then I actually listened to it one day. Sweet mother of honey... what a great little synth! Couldn't stop smiling while scrolling through presets, twisting knobs and goofing with the arpeggiator. Made me feel like a kid again, and reminded me that just as Charlie says, there's no substitute for a real analogue piece of gear. It just oozes character.
The only problem with that little keyboard is it has awakened my love of analogue gear, so I too am now on a buying spree. And dang, their new Prologue looks insane... 16 note polyphony among other improvements... sign me up!
charlieclouser
Senior Member
I played the Korg ProLogue at NAMM for only about five minutes - but that was enough to impress me. It's definitely got a much wider sonic range than a glance at the front panel would suggest.
Jack Weaver
Senior Member
Charlie,
How do you sync synths and modular with your DAW? Reaktor Blocks, E-MR MultiClock, Expert Sleepers?
Thanks!
.
How do you sync synths and modular with your DAW? Reaktor Blocks, E-MR MultiClock, Expert Sleepers?
Thanks!
.
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charlieclouser
Senior Member
These days I just send MIDI to a Doepfer MIDI>CV module in the EuroRack, sometimes the Dave Smith Pro-2 (which is a great front end for a Euro system), sometimes a Flame ClockWork module, sometimes to a Sequentix P3, sometimes to a Kenton Pro-2000, or sometimes to an old Roland MPU-101.
But I did mess with direct CV interfacing with my DAW - for a minute.
Before all the Expert Sleepers stuff, MOTU had a plugin called Volta, which was the first DAW-based thing to send actual CV from the audio outputs on your interface. Since MOTU audio interfaces are all dc-coupled, it worked with all their stuff. Since I have been using MOTU forever, I jumped on Volta, and even had some custom panels made for my EuroRack system that ran a rear-panel db25 jack to a front-panel 8x mini-jack panel. I used this setup for a while.
Then Expert Sleepers came out with all of their cool interfaces for Silent Way, including direct USB and ADAT boxes - all very cool stuff. I don't have any of those. So my expensive custom panels were made obsolete by $300 off-the-shelf modules. Bummer.
As cool as Volta / Silent Way is, I actually prefer not to clutter up my DAW project with too many tracks of weird trigger stuff. I kind of prefer to just throw MIDI clock across the room and record the audio into the project. I sequence notes and controllers on the Pro-2 or Sequentix, or just throw notes and clock at the Doepfer.
But, as often happens, MOTU basically invented a revolutionary concept that languished in their product line until other companies took the concept and ran with it. All glory to the minds at MOTU!
...and Hypnotoad.
Jack Weaver
Senior Member
Well.... that was all interesting.
- So I understand correctly, does the original MIDI clock come from a track on your DAW before it goes into the Doepfer CV>MIDI (or a generator that feeds both the DAW and the Doepfer)?
- If you were starting all over with a clean slate, would you do it a different way than you are now?
- I want to get my ducks in a row before I jump down this particular rabbit hole. So far my investigations are leading me to one or the other of the popular softwares (Silent Way, Reaktor6 Blocks or CV Toolkit), sending CV thru an Expert Sleeper ES-8 module (don't have MOTU interfaces here) into whatever sequencers/controllers I get, then the various control data from them (CV's, MIDI, etc.) into the synth modules and then sending their audio back into the DAW via an Expert Sleepers ES-6.
That's about as direct as I think it could happen from what I've gathered so far. I'd like to hear more about the basics of your MIDI clock distribution. I'd like to make it as straight forward as possible. I do see the beauty of using MIDI.
Multiple thanks for the time you've taken to get back to me.
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