What will Santa bring you this year?

[Gunnar J]

Santa has arrived! (early)

I've just sold my MG10XU unopened due to lack of need.... so Santa came early to him as well.

[sonic2000gr]

I've just sold my MG10XU unopened due to lack of need.... so Santa came early to him as well.

One / two keyboards is not a problem but it seems I allowed myself a few too many toys...

[davlippo7]

Santa needs to be bringing me some jobs like yesterday.

[amwilburn]

I've just sold my MG10XU unopened due to lack of need.... so Santa came early to him as well.

One / two keyboards is not a problem but it seems I allowed myself a few too many toys...

Have you *seen* Davlippo's mancave?? That might be a few too many toys

But also awesome as hell (and I thought I had a lot of instruments!)

Mark

[sonic2000gr]

Have you *seen* Davlippo's mancave?? That might be a few too many toys

Davlippo's setup was all I could think of while I was setting up all this madness this afternoon (and still missing the SP-404 and all the MIDI cabling needed):

madness

At least I can say I will now put a stop. Next step probably rent a place

[Derek]

Hope everybody is having a good day. This is what Santa left under the Christmas Tree for me.....

An Arturia PolyBrute 12 (left) and a Moog Muse (right). I have been regressing over the past few years into completely analog synthesis, and I think these two are the current pinnacle.

I must confess this year has been a bit extravagant. I was after something to celebrate a milestone birthday this year and couldn't make my mind up, wether it would be the PolyBrute or Muse, so ended up with both (well either that or UK Labour are after your disposable income!). On the plus side, I now literally cannot fit anything else in.

My old SY99 and AN1x that used to be in the corner where the Polybrute now is were stacked, but these two new units are quite deep and that stacked arrangement wouldn't work without the upper unit obscuring the controls of the lower unit. So I opted to go side by side for now and see how I get on.

What this has meant is that I have lost the free desk space where the Moog now is - this is where laptops went (like the video laptop) when programming them. But I found some stands that raise the laptops behind the synhs and I have underdesk trays for keyboard and mouse.

Also, because the Polybrute is quite far from the main DAW (as can be seen in final picture) I have set up the laptop by the PolyBrute so that I can use it to Remote Desktop to the DAW PC, so I can access the PolyBrute app (library) more conveniently.

I am still diving into the PolyBrute and Muse and just starting to program them - I often start off with some signature sounds to see how they turn out on a synth.

I also took the plunge and got Synthesizer V Studio vocal software, which I have had in mind for a while after Parametric started highlighting it and what it can do. People who have been here for a while might remember I had a project called Carreg Ddu with a local singer. For all sorts of reasons that collaboration came to an end five or six years ago with a few songs in an unfinished state, and I have not been able to find a suitable singer to complete them. Every time I listen to these demo songs, I keep thinking I need to finish them, and I decided that if I had not found a singer by the end of this year, I would take the plunge with a synthesized singer. With the little time I have had today, with Synthesizer V I am seriously impressed!

So plenty to keep me occupied over the holiday....

[Saul]

That is one very neat setup you have there Derek. I would not find any use for those analog keyboards but they certainly look nice

[Joe H]

Since I'm into EDM, I'm content with my AN and FM plug-in boards installed in my Yamaha MU128 sound module. I also have several analog expansion packs from Easy Sounds located in Germany installed in my PSR S970 arranger. I'm getting ready to create new Club Dance and Trance custom styles using StyleMagic software.

Joe H

[sonic2000gr]

Very neat and tidy setup there Derek. I would definitely love to play with all the knobs on that Muse!

[Joe H]

Very neat and tidy setup there Derek. I would definitely love to play with all the knobs on that Muse!

I have a vintage Peavey PC1600x MIDI controller with 16 buttons, 16 faders and a data wheel and 2 CV inputs connected to pedals. I have programed lots of presets to edit and control my all MIDI gear real-time. I also have an stand-alone editor for my Motif Rack XS.



Joe H

[Derek]

Very neat and tidy setup there Derek. I would definitely love to play with all the knobs on that Muse!

Thanks, the Muse is quite immediate and really well thought out. Virtually everything is accessible directly on the front panel.

There are some less often used parameters that are accessed via menus, but that is via a small button in the top right of each module (e.g. oscillators, Filters) that directly calls up the extra parameters for each module.

And it sounds great. There is something about that Moog sounds, and whilst I have had it in emulation VSTs for a long time, there is something about having it for real in front of you.

[Derek]

Very neat and tidy setup there Derek. I would definitely love to play with all the knobs on that Muse!

I have a vintage Peavey PC1600x MIDI controller with 16 buttons, 16 faders and a data wheel and 2 CV inputs connected to pedals. I have programed lots of presets to edit and control my all MIDI gear real-time. I also have an stand-alone editor for my Motif Rack XS.



Joe H

I do something similar for VSTs using the control surfaces on my Montage and Kronos, and that certainly works to control what you need most frequently, but it is not quite the same as having a dedicated control for most things - there are around two hundred knobs and switches on the Muse front panel, so when programming patches you whiz around the front panel very quickly when tweaking - once you know where everything is of course!

Whether or not that matters is a personal thing of course.

My very first synth in 1981 was a Yamaha CS15 monsynth (all old school knobs and switches), which I sold circa 2007 as I could get identical sound tucked away inside my Yamaha EX5, and the CS15 was gathering dust - around the time CS15s were the darling of the trance community due to the dual filter and VCA architecture (unusual for the day, so I doubled my money on it (unusual for me!).

So, between 2001 and 2019 I was quite happy with workstations and no dedicated controls. And I am still very happy with my workstations as general workhorses, but since 2019 I have been going for synths that are more "knobby" and great for tweaking

[Derek]

That is one very neat setup you have there Derek. I would not find any use for those analog keyboards but they certainly look nice

I think it depends on the style of music you are interested in, and I have certainly been happy over the years with workstations and VSTs to get my analog fix, but since 2019 have been adding what I consider to be the best of breed for, first, hybrid analog (digital oscillators, analog paths) and now full analog.

Going back to traditional synths, they are of course more limited in terms of sound compared to what a workstation can do, but think of all the great music was served to us using devices with those limitations!

These sort of devices fit in quite well with my Spectral Streams plans over the next few years, and I now consider myself well setup for that - I have no sonic excuses that's for sure!

[davlippo7]

Ah, yes, the luxury of a whole room and each piece has it's own computer control center. You have room to breath. I have 13 pieces plus other gear in a 6'x8' corner. All because we have 9 people living here and opposite this corner is my office desk in our master bedroom for engineering work. Thanks to C19. At this point in my life this will likely be all I will ever have but can't complain. I'd die for a real studio out back with nothing but a studio for music but that will have to be in another lifetime. Like Derek, I'll be 56 on Saturday and we aren't getting any younger. I'm not getting any richer either buying all this gear.

[Derek]

I am lucky, but remember where I came from (which you should always do). My first studio was against the end wall of the attic of our first house, in which I had a Yamaha EX5, DX7II and CS15. I had to cut and restrengthen the end joist to get the EX5 to fit in. And it was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. As I had started gigging around then, I also had to devise a scheme to get 25Kgs of EX5 and its flight case up and down from the loft access (hatch in the ceiling) into a really small hallway. That involved a reversible direction ratchet lever hoist.

When we moved house in 2001, my one stipulation was that we needed a room (ideally ground floor) for a small music room. It's taken me 23 years to max it out! But that is it for me (I am not going into "I need a bugger room" territory!). My only hardware changes now will be sell and upgrade if later variants of the boards I already have get updated and it is worth updating (like going from the classic Montage 7 to the M7).

Your comment about not getting richer, reminded me of this meme...

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