Funny thing actually, I had a guitarist friend over this weekend. First tried to jam off Ableton Live, then just said fuckit -- it was too weird clicking around with a mouse and interact.gosh wrote:oops - that sounds like me.NewSc2 wrote:Be mindful of your budget. I went the hardware-only route, and several grand later still felt like I needed more effects and cables. Probably spent too much on sound modules, and didn't leave enough room aside for the little things. In the end I went back to software... latency ended up not as big of an annoyance as scrolling through letters with a knob, just to name a sound. And I got frustrated with virtually every sequencer's "song mode."
But FWIW, I went MPC + several drum machines and 3-4 synths, plugged into a Korg Zero 8, with a send to a multi-efx unit. Virtually everything was sequenced live via the MPC. It's a little different than step sequencing, but really natural.
MPC2500, Blofeld, Tetra, Future Retro Revolution, Machinedrum all plugged into a Korg Zero 8!
Still, I have fun on it but do get caught in the merry-go-round of staying in the all-hardware world and not getting finished productions done. I keep being really tempted to sell a load (keep MD and Tetra) get Maschine and work out how to fix my latency issues that held me back in the first place...but then I know that I'll miss the immediacy of the hardware. Would be interested to see how you coped?!
i think truth be told the grass is always greener. you can finish a job on any set-up it just whether you have the conviction to do it! I'm trying to learn to practice what i preach!
Spent a drunk half hour hooking up everything back up to the MPC, couldn't get things to work, so just synced up my Machinedrum, Monomachine, & TR909, friend played on guitar hooked up to Logic's effects, and me w/ keys on a Motif. First time I'd actually made music on 100% hardware in about a year.
As far as software.. it was a very valuable experience. I don't consider myself very "good" at electronic music right now, still struggling with a few mindblocks, but it was difficult for me to learn certain things on hardware.
Things like synthesis was difficult to suss out on a Virus or a Waldorf Pulse, but when I got Sylenth (software synth), it all made sense. One knob for one setting, everything clearly laid out. No creativity-killing menu diving, you can save your whole song with a couple clicks, bring up all patches and samples the next morning in 10 seconds, etc.
Software is a lot more efficient in many things—especially in effects and arrangement. How else are you going to figure out how compressing a kick drum, then sidechaining your bass, then compressing your drum bus, then applying parallel compression, and limiting the whole mix would sound like? I don't have the money to buy all those hardware boxes, or the patience to bounce everything down and process each track individually. Before I was able to experiment with that on software I would always blame my poor sound on stuff like that, but now I know where that can help and where it can hurt.
It's like that one quote, I think it was by Donald Rumsfeld -- "there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know." When I was putting together my hardware rig, there were a lot of things I didn't know I didn't know, and lots of things I knew I didn't know, of which I had no idea how to achieve.
Now, when I go back to hardware, I have a much clearer picture of what I want in mind, and I'm not worrying about a synth or sampler's limitations or unnecessary extra features, cuz I've learned how to work it around in my head.
For the time being I am going to stick with software—there's still a lot I'm learning from it, and I enjoy its workflow. I'm not sure if I would recommend a Maschine, personally I work best with just a MIDI keyboard and Logic or Ableton. I tried integrating my MPC and Machinedrum into my setup, but it kind of goes against my whole software stripped-down workflow.
Edit: And yeah, it does sound like we have the same setup
. Tetra = Pulse, Future Retro Revolution = x0xb0x, Blofeld = Virus. Machinedrum, MPC2500. I managed to keep most of my gear, for some reason I seem genetically wired to hoard things, but am thinking of eBaying some off in my next move. Like I said, they rarely get used.
