Hope no-one minds a new thread. Keep this nerd stuff away from the general music chat. If there’s no interest I guess it will die / can be deleted.
808s now over 5k… I recently sold my RD8 for £180. Was lovely but wasn’t using it much, usually samples instead, and I have an TR6S which has a really nice 808 kit, sounds better.
Anyone tried these out? I’m pretty curious, and I saw A Guy Called Gerald has one. Not buying it though. Apparently sounds like a baby 808(?)
Haven’t had them out in ages but I stick an MFB522 into a monomachine when I do make tunes. Very fun (and easy) combo for someone not very tech like myself aha
Pretty unusual setup that, don’t think I’ve heard of the monomachine, but looking now it looks good! I only hear good things about Elektron. Got any stuff online?
This just came out, got to be the cheapest bit of proper kit of all time. £69! Behringer are pretty shifty though. I have a couple of their clones though, I mean a 909 for £180 used, just can’t pass that up
Here’s my little volca setup I’ve been playing with.
Volca drum, keys and FM. Little shitty volca mixer thing isn’t that good. Also have a little Alesis midi controller but I’ll probably swap it for a keystep eventually.
I think the next purchase will be an Electron Syntakt as it basically does everything. Finding these little things a bit constraining. Fun to play around with though.
Nice little setup. I had a couple of volcas but sold them, just too fiddly in the end. Good thing about buying 2nd hand you can generally sell for the same price you paid.
Yeah something like syntakt is the way to go I reckon, all in one device, otherwise it gets crazy how much gear you end up with. I’ve got an MPC one which does everything quite well. Still like to midi a load of machines together sometimes. Then there’s the problem of how to mix and record it all properly… I’m thinking of getting this for that
started an account to stop you buying this mixer. While the mixers actually aren’t that bad… if you’re buying for the fx? Don’t! They are so bad they are unusable. Plenty of decent utilitarian mixers out there to choose from, but if you have new gear then find one with as many stereo channels as possible.
Snurp: Elektron is a rabbit hole, be careful and that thing will be deep… although, it’s not a mixer
Hahah yeah I know. But space (and patience) is at a premium and I want one box to play with rather than stringing a bunch of stuff together inflexibly. Cheers
Yep, keep it fun, nothing more boring than getting the stuff that you actually need, mixer, monitors, patch bay etc… that shit’s crazy expensive boring.
The Syntakt looks incredible on paper, a progression on the Machinedrum, which I use constantly.
I haven’t followed much on the newer Elektron boxes because GAS is a real thing and I don’t want that again.
Thanks for un-lurking for that! I was going to get that next month as well. FX I guess was part of the reason but the pre amps and compression are meant to be good. What about the ones without FX? And is there a better option?
My other option was a used Yamaha mixer in return for my Neutron synth as a straight swap with a mate, maybe I’ll do that instead.
Yeah Im not massively into the bad gear guy I find it all a bit wacky and his jams are usually horrible. But he puts in the time and effort I’ll say that. And I like the idea that you can get results out of anything if you try
What yammy mixer is it? MG series? Yamaha mixers are great, fx are great too. i’m in the market for one to take out live, got an experimental band on the go and a new project to take out live at the end of the year. Need something with multiple stereo channels and those yammy’s usually have more than others.
That’s a neat little one for live, perfect for a little setup, whack in a suitcase etc. Mackie will be mackie, all good but no idea what their fx are like. Very basic too but sometimes that’s all you need.
The yamaha ones would be way better but obviously the ones with fx are bumpier in price.
Obviously if all your gear is stereo you can use 2 mono and hard pan them.
Yep the Yamaha is twice the price. But it’s the kind of thing you only buy once so tempted to get the better one. I’m assuming you can add different effects to different channels on the Yamaha? It seems you can only use one at a time on the Mackie which isn’t much good
Nah, until you get to big high end digi mixers the FX are global on all standard mixers. If you want to have different fx per channel you’re gonna need fx inserts per channel or extra channels to return on. Then an fx unit that you can use more than one fx at a time on multi ins/outs. I use an Ensoniq DP4 for this kind of stuff when I need it or I just use different units/pedals in each channel insert on my console.
Then you’re getting into patch bay territory.
Ah right… That’s good to know, cheers. In that case I’ll stick with my pedals and I don’t really need FX on the mixer.
All this is daft really when the sensible option is just to get FL studio and a midi controller and use samples! But I’m in now… I’m going to have to get a stereo delay pedal now as well
Yeah it’s more expensive but it’s way more fun and you can sound way more individual. Each piece of gear has their own colour whereas the inside the box will always sound like the box. Which is fine of course, it’s taste and subjective, nothing is better or worse it’s how much enjoyment you get out of the process is what matters.
Mixers are actually really fun and why people like Aphex have their own sound and techniques as opposed to producers now having every parameter at their fingertips and YT telling them how to use them.
