The ELZ looks wild but of course it is unobtanium right now. Has a metal chassis too but not having DIN MIDI is a huge wtf for me. The XFM is a plastic groovebox with less synthesis capability, but also $200 with DIN. They can run on 4 AA batteries which is pretty crazy.
1 Like
The Japanese are just elite at designing shit. We should turn everything over to them.
1 Like
I saw this today.
Lol wtf? Not sure what is unparalleled about an open circuit that has a bunch of screws soldered together between pulldown resistors.
1 Like
I actually haven’t watched the video. I had a lot of shit to do today but saw a few people on FB tell them to take their money.
1 Like
Damn maybe I should just get into the money-taking business.
1 Like
I’ve been on the waitlist for a Cirklon for 2.5 years. I’m expecting to have my number called
By the end of the year.
There is probably a ~ 30% chance I won’t be able to afford it when the time comes. If anyone is interested then let me know.
1 Like
This dude that I posted before recently sat in for a song with Umphrey’s McGee (not my favorite band but their drummer is the best touring right now or close to it).
He analyzes his performance and talks about what he was thinking during the whole song which I thought was cool.
I recently almost asked how all the guitar players on those bluegrass stages don’t play the same shit and give each other room in the musical ranges and his video actually was cool in that regard.
1 Like
I’ve been crushing sports betting since it became legal here in IL so I decided to buy something before I send all the money back to the bookies.
https://www.roland.com/ca/products/td-17kvx/
It’s so fucking cool. My acoustic kit has been at my best friend’s house for like 15 years so there’s been few and far opportunities for me to play. I’ve really missed it.
Anyway, now I have a house and the space for it so I figured fuck it, let’s buy something nice. The thing is awesome. I can sit down and put on headphones, turn on the drum brain, hit play on my phone and jam along with whatever I want on Spotify.
I’ve been the drummer of so many famous bands over the last few weeks. It’s also been really healthy for me physically (as I have otherwise ceased movement when possible) and mentally. So so so freeing to get back to a love of old. I’ve got a buddy in MI that I’m going to dry and record some stuff with via the internets. Anyway, highly recommended and I’m really glad I bought it.
5 Likes
I haven’t been making much music and it’s mostly because trying to get Linux audio going is too much of a hurdle. To get things up and running, I have to go into terminal and disable all audio then restart everything (including my audio interface) in the correct order. I’m talking command line stuff. Then I open Cadence to start JACK and hope everything sinks up correctly. Next step is open Guitarix/Rakarrack/Ardour/Reaper/etc. which behave erratically. If an x-run occurs have to restart it all. This doesn’t include the actual hardware like hooking up cables, synths, guitar pedals, and stuff.
The point is all of this is a major buzzkill for music creation. Trying to focus on getting these stars to align with hopes of laying down a somewhat complicated musical idea isn’t working. I’m not really sure what the answer is though. People will probably say get a Mac/Windows and that’s a hard no for me. My current idea is to find a cheap used laptop and make that the dedicated music workstation. Something with CPU power and tons of RAM like an older Thinkpad workstation.
In other words, my workflow sucks. When I’m writing music, I have to have an instrument in my hands, so touching a computer breaks that. Ideally I would never touch a computer / peripheral when I’m composing the music. Not sure what my options are there? Should I be gluing MIDI controllers together with assignable functions so all of the controls I need are at my fingertips?
So deep diving this a bit more and trying to decide which direction to go for a dedicated music production / performance box. Everyone saying CPU CLOCK SPEED is the most important factor followed by threading (depending on DAW or application). Some indication that an M.2 drive is beneficial for temporary loading of large data. Not too much focus on RAM although I’d think 16 GB is the absolute minimum and am looking more for 32 GB I guess. After that I think it’s rabbit hole levels of research required for coil whining and other idiosyncrasies.
Anyway, this is where I frequently see people recommend Macbook. My thoughts are that when I see someone performing live with a Macbook I find it very hard to take them seriously. They look and feel like toys to me. I could plausibly end up performing with friends or at a gig and just can’t imagine hooking up something from the Apple store to a dainty USB connector. Jesus. So my favorite laptops are Thinkpads but I’m actually considering going to an armored tank like a Panasonic Toughbook or Dell Rugged for this. Thoughts?
Thinkpad workstation that hit my target specs popped up so went with that for now. Also has a decent Quadro card and full sRGB panel so perfect for the (small amount of) rendering and color-sensitive work I do. Maybe I’ll get that Dell Batman Edition at some point in the future if I land some gigs.
I haven’t recorded a whole band or anything but people in the UAD user’s threads always claim Mac are more stable and I’ve heard this since college. I’ve not used an Apple computer since college and most of my time in the lab then was trying to learn Apple shit because I’ve only had a PC since the old Apple IIc. That being said, my 7700k with 32 GB of RAM and an SSD drive has never had any issue with dozens of tracks in Ableton with VST plugins etc on the tracks. I had a Dell XPS 17" several years ago (still do but don’t ever use it) that was pretty solid too so most anything now days should be fine imo.
1 Like
I’m probably confused here but what are you recording into Linux with? Your audio interface is going to likely be the biggest issue if you plan on recording during playback of other tracks, etc. The PC can handle some of that but it’s mostly on the audio interface and their drivers now days. Good interfaces aren’t cheap and if they are they probably aren’t that great.
I was going to move into Universal Audio stuff but my Behringer UMC 1820 and an ADA8200 ADAT expansion gives me enough tracks and pretty decently low latency for the price. If I was recording more instrumental stuff and doing it for a living I’d probably move into UAD though. They have a ton of great plugins but you need to buy each one after you buy the interface. Kind of scammy imo but they are well known as one of the best audio interfaces.
MOTU M2. Latency is good and haven’t had any issues. I don’t really need more than that at the moment because it’s not like I have a ton of gear to hook up. I either run the guitar analog or K2000 as a MIDI controller. Can’t use the UAD hardware with Linux so I didn’t even entertain it. RME stuff might work can’t remember.
MOTU is good from what I remember. That’s what ProTools interfaces are right?
This box seems pretty good. It’s not expensive but specs well for the category. Not sure about Pro Tools these days. What’s weird is I was in a music duo about 20 years ago and we were using Pro Tools. The other guy was rich so we basically had the best of everything at the time and I don’t really remember much of anything about any of it.
What would be the advantage of going to one of the expensive interfaces like RME Babyface? I mean it at least has class compliant mode and should work in Linux whereas UAD is dependent on running their shit which is only developed for Win/Mac.