The Gear Myth - hardware fetishisation

[nowaysj]

Well hello Roland! Korg! You're being beat by some Czech's with bad haircuts!

[wub]

And definitely don't watch these;

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xctp3o ... kexp_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcthkt ... kexp_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xctkta ... kexp_music

[wub]

Also don't read this;

303s and 404s: Mr. Dibia$e

http://heavyinthestreets.blogspot.fr/20 ... -pt-1.html
http://heavyinthestreets.blogspot.fr/20 ... -pt-2.html

[paradigm_x]

while i agree with some parts, part of the reason the 909 etc is so famous is because they are so good! Amazing sounding, amazing sequencer (far more memory than the AIRA 20 years later, flam, shuffle), individual outputs, will sync really well with anything. AIRA doesnt do half of that. Theres far more to musical equipment than the sound, how its used, how it interacts with you and other bits of gear is at least as important imo.

I have tried an awful lot of kit over the years, from hardware, ITB then out again, and the 909 is a stone cold classic. same with 808, 303, 202, 707, 606, ms20, minimoog, etc.

[deadly_habit]

Yea some of the gear I have is a bitch to patch and wor with compared to plugins but wouldn't change it in a heartbeat.

[wolf89]

yeah claiming that gear doesn't matter as the 909 was used because it was cheap is missing out that if it sounded like arse it wouldn't have still been used all the time.

[nowaysj]

I take offense to the notion are you going to say something that Jeff Mills hasn't said with the 909? Like that is my aim. Haha. I'm not in a dialog with Jeff Mills. Maybe I just like the sound, or as px says, maybe I like working with it, or maybe I achieve results I like. Fahk off.

Now, if you're like I can't make music because I don't have a 909, I take offense to that, as well. I was making music with a metal rod, a string bending it into tension and one side of a headphone for a pickup. You can make music with anything, or nothing.

So to the extent that the article says, go out and make music, you don't need unobtainable devices, fuck yeah! And then an addendum,
if you find instruments that you like, fahk off anyone that tells you that you shouldn't use that instrument.

[deadly_habit]

yeah claiming that gear doesn't matter as the 909 was used because it was cheap is missing out that if it sounded like arse it wouldn't have still been used all the time.

That and it wouldn't fetch such a hefty price on ebay

[Genevieve]

I've always found it odd that a forum mainly inhabited by members who scoff at materialism have such a hard-on for new, big expensive boxes with buttons and big flickering lights that don't really do a whole lot they can't already do with their DAW. The music making/talking-about-and-lusting-over-gear ratio seems rather off.

[Genevieve]

yeah claiming that gear doesn't matter as the 909 was used because it was cheap is missing out that if it sounded like arse it wouldn't have still been used all the time.

It's impossible to make a claim about the sound of a 909 in 2014. We all grew up hearing electronic music with drums generated by 808s or 909s. Those machines are what electronic percussion is supposed to sound like to us. I love 909s because I was raised to love 909s.

The article actually has a point. The 808 and 303 for example, didn't catch on originally because they sounded weird as fuck. And when the first track with a big 808 boom came out, or when acid house first hit the dancefloors, those sounds were revolutionary, not because they were 'great', because no one had ever heard something that sounded so weird. House and techno producers just made the best of the gear that they had.

Had I been a producer in the mid '80s, passionate about creating electronic music, but without the money or know-how to invest in a proper studio with the latest high-end gear, I would've tried to find the cheapest, workable gear that I could find just so that I can produce. Which I think, given the stature of the now classic Roland products at the time, is what those producers did back in the '80s.

[wolf89]

Yeah but think about the numerous other cheap drum machines that haven't court on. It's not solely a case of people getting used to it

[fragments]

I've always found it odd that a forum mainly inhabited by members who scoff at materialism have such a hard-on for new, big expensive boxes with buttons and big flickering lights that don't really do a whole lot they can't already do with their DAW. The music making/talking-about-and-lusting-over-gear ratio seems rather off.

Yea. But I don't like using the mouse and MIDI controllers, for the most part, bore me.

[SunkLo]

Would be nice if more people got into DIY stuff. Every once in a while I pervert over some of the midibox creations and go off into daydream thought-bubble mode, but it's still ultimately a lot of effort and time to invest in a one-off device. Most people would rather pay for a device that's well integrated with their software and not have to worry about troubleshooting a bunch of issues.

Imagine if everyone were programmers and could print off circuits on a 3d printer though. I think ultimately we'll see a resurgence of that kind of scenario. Back in the day anyone who owned a PC was writing their own programs. Then program design was abstracted in favor of the casual user. Once kids are growing up learning programming in elementary school, you'll see a lot more customization of software and hardware by the end user.

[wub]

Would be nice if more people got into DIY stuff. Every once in a while I pervert over some of the midibox creations and go off into daydream thought-bubble mode, but it's still ultimately a lot of effort and time to invest in a one-off device. Most people would rather pay for a device that's well integrated with their software and not have to worry about troubleshooting a bunch of issues.

Imagine if everyone were programmers and could print off circuits on a 3d printer though. I think ultimately we'll see a resurgence of that kind of scenario. Back in the day anyone who owned a PC was writing their own programs. Then program design was abstracted in favor of the casual user. Once kids are growing up learning programming in elementary school, you'll see a lot more customization of software and hardware by the end user.

Agreed.

Hopefully stuff like the Raspberry Pi will kick start things.

[wolf89]

I've always found it odd that a forum mainly inhabited by members who scoff at materialism have such a hard-on for new, big expensive boxes with buttons and big flickering lights that don't really do a whole lot they can't already do with their DAW. The music making/talking-about-and-lusting-over-gear ratio seems rather off.

Yea. But I don't like using the mouse and MIDI controllers, for the most part, bore me.

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid. It's a completely different way of working for me. Not to mention the amount of abuse you can give hardware. I've never jammed out some weird noisy shit in a DAW in same way I can on what I have

[Simulant]

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid.

You can't be serious? What can't you do in a DAW?

[leeany]

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid.

You can't be serious? What can't you do in a DAW?

Analog Clipping
Tape Saturation
Decent Modular audio synthesizing/processing

Just to name a few. Plus thousands of things that would completely change your workflow if you had the hardware

[Simulant]

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid.

You can't be serious? What can't you do in a DAW?

Analog Clipping
Tape Saturation
Decent Modular audio synthesizing/processing

Just to name a few. Plus thousands of things that would completely change your workflow if you had the hardware

I have software for all of those! Admittedly you can't do true analog anything in a DAW, but it's hard to tell the difference these days.

[wolf89]

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid.

You can't be serious? What can't you do in a DAW?

I can't run my tempest though my MS20's filters with the gain turned up enough at the external input section that it clips. Then have the resonance turned up on the high pass filter and cut off set at a low frequency so that there's a sub bass part added to the tempest sounds every time they hit. Then use the semi modular nature of the MS20 to set it up that the oscillators play notes due to either the Tempest's sounds or an LFO on the MS20 or something triggering the gate input. Then I can play notes on the MS20 at the same time as the already distorted sound is going through the filters and it sort of mashes together and clips further going through the filter. At this point I can then jam the fuck out on the Tempest with it's pads live or using the step sequencer or by changing the sound or using it's filters and modulation options and by playing stuff on the MS20 and messing with stuff on that. All in a way that's entirely hands on and without looking at a computer screen once.

Just for one example

[leeany]

Yeah the idea that you can do everything in a DAW is fucking stupid.

You can't be serious? What can't you do in a DAW?

Analog Clipping
Tape Saturation
Decent Modular audio synthesizing/processing

Just to name a few. Plus thousands of things that would completely change your workflow if you had the hardware

I have software for all of those! Admittedly you can't do true analog anything in a DAW, but it's hard to tell the difference these days.

On a modular system you can plug CV output into an audio input for weird noises for example, not possible on a computer afaik (correct me if im wrong)