Photo example (from just now):
Let's kick off with something new and that I've reviewed already, the Lyra-8.
I like the Lyra because I can always approach it and start playing it. I hit a note, I begin to respond and start messing with the controls, any effects, whatever. It has a responsiveness and immediacy that is important to me, plus it has a definite range of sounds and behaviours that I understand now. If I want to change it for a bit, I swap some of my effects chain. It's an instrument basically.
An obvious follow-on from this is the Synthi. In many ways it offers the same kind of responsiveness and immediacy, but with an incredibly rich and endlessly fascinating palette. I rarely use the eurorack plugin board I have for it. Partly this is still a fear leftover from the days it blew my power supply (resistors since added to the design so should never recur) but also because it leads me into a different realm, and Eurorack is a whole different ballgame, about which more anon (as I so often say).
The Synthi has to be my desert island synth. And in a way I like it because it isn't endlessly expandable, has its own recognisable sonic footprint and has that 'alive' feeling that very few electronic musical instruments have.
What next?
The P3, well why not? It seems to be the sequencer to which I compare all others and find them wanting. And it boils down to what is starting to look like a set of requirements already: immediacy, responsiveness, a certain range of capabilities that's wide enough to be interesting yet not too wide as to be brain-numbing. It has good knobs, fast access to what you need, and can store a limited number of patterns - not so many I can't keep track. Paired with a Novation KS4 or Vermona Perfourmer and it gives me what I need in sequencing terms.
The Vermona Perfourmer should be next really. It seems to have as ridiculously simple architecture. And yet, I can start playing or sequencing it and happily lose myself. There would be no point to it if it didn't sound good. I could wish for better MIDI control, more synthesis options and so on, but instead I do clever tricks with sequencers and voice swapping, with cross-mod and external filtering and it never gets old. I should probably have Tony look at its stability though as it's a bit too variable lately.
Well, I seem to have established a pattern here so perhaps it's time to look at some things I keep even though they annoy me, sometimes quite a lot. Elektron, I'm thinking about you. Sometimes I really like my Octatrack and Analog Four, at other times I find them difficult, obtuse, frustrating and crap-sounding. It's true. Take the Analog Four, which can sound great, can store lots of patterns and projects, has a nice reverb and delay which can even process a couple of external instruments. Lots to like. Indeed, I used to process my DSI Pro2 through its effects, leaving the Pro2's own delay off completely. But where the A4 starts to drive me crazy is in its basic design. I dislike encoders. There, I've said it. At best, I put up with them, but I truly hate Elektron's way of having to push and turn to get large increments.It should be the other way - push and turn for fine adjustment. Or there should be an option for it. I also really dislike the menus, the low resolution of filter env depth which means that you get just 63 values (cos they made it bi-polar) to play with. Sometimes a single increment makes way too much difference. Anyway, it can take me ages to set something up on it, and when setting up a new kit, creating a performance config from scratch takes forever. Building structures on it is ugly and I really despise the 4-bar thing they obsess about. I keep thinking of just putting it aside, or finding some role it can fill like percussion or chords (each track is locked to the same timebase!).
The Octatrack is slightly better in some respects. Hugely powerful but stupidly obtuse, it can at least run tracks at different clock divisions and the conditional trigs does introduce variation that is much-needed to its static replay. BUT, its effects are horrible, the inability to name patterns becomes a real issue when you've spent ages setting up D03 to do something cool and interact with Scenes etc.... then later you have no way to remember which pattern was the good one, what tempo it should be. It's even worse returning to old projects and wondering what's in them.
Don't get me started on the Arranger, cos I've tried and just hate it. The OT does amazing things nothing else does, but it also drives me mad and I've lost more time to it than almost anything else and I still don't have a way I always like to use it, probably never will, just periods of love and hate. I can't even save mutes in each pattern so end up programming complex mix type things in Scenes to compensate. Inevitably, later I have no idea how the Scenes interact with the rest of the bank. It's a mess.
So whenever I contemplate more Elektron stuff, such as the cool FM Digitone, these ideas hit and deter me.
Other brill stuff includes the SH-101 - probably my favourite Roland, just perfect really especially with Tony's mods and put through the Moog ring mod. The sequencer's awesome, the arpeggiator useful, the sound impeccable and the UI spot on. Just can't fail with it. The Minimoog is similarly fab, although oddly enough I'd probably take the 101 in a straight battle between them, especially as I have the Behringer Model D (which I probably use more than the Mini as it's so easy to sequence). The Korg Odyssey should have been better than it is, the sliders are already starting to fail (I keep it under a dust sheet usually). Sounds good though and maybe will be better if I get Tony to sort the LFO nonsense. Can never be universally loved because of the coarse tune sliders.
In case you're wondering 'why all this typing?', it's cos we've been up since the early hours awaiting new chair and sofa delivery. Sitting around, basically.
What else?
Well, there are things I keep that are useful even if I'd love to replace them with something better. The Waldorf Blofeld does so much, it has Duncan's great mellotron samples and so on. But mostly I just dial up sounds I've already made. It takes a while to make new ones and although I like the wavetable implementation, I wish the UI were faster, more like the Microwave 2. OK, its encoders were crap and got worse over time but the menu system was brilliant.
I keep the Emu Proteus 2000 because it's maxed out with my favourite cards and is always there for a spot of worldy percussion. I like its reverb too but would rarely program it now, not like I used to. The Morpheus was ropey when I got it (a foolish trade for a Korg Electribe) and is now turned off permanently. I still have the Electribe sampler but the UI sucks, even if it can do cool stuff. Getting samples in and out is a pain and the stupid 24Mb memory limit is insane. In many ways I still miss the ESX-1, even if the new one does offer 16 tracks of chromatically-playable samples. Hey ho.
I have a JV-2080, maxed out, and have probably not heard every sound in it. It's there to dial up random stuff when I run out of ideas.
I'm rambling now. Just heard the sofa delivery is another half hour, so really pleased we set the alarm for 06:20. :)
In conclusion, if I'm going to form a lasting bond with any piece of gear, it must be direct, accessible, responsive, logical. If it's an instrument it needn't have a zillion functions as long as it sounds good, isn't covered in encoders or menus, isn't designed by a fucking idiot... oops. Yeah, the point is that it needn't do everything, shouldn't be unfinished or in an ongoing state of development. It shouldn't need me to print shit out and hang it on the wall just to remember its button combinations, it shouldn't work in exactly the opposite way to all classic gear developed over the last 30-40 years just because some 20-something had an idea in his bedroom. If a synth, it should have nice envelopes.
You'll notice I didn't mention Eurorack...
That's because it's an almost entirely different discipline to me than regular music-making. It's about building an instrument conceptually then thinking of something to do with it before you strip it down again. It's about taking a lot of time to make something and is a solo activity, not about spontaneity or collaboration. It's more like meditation than anything else.
The sofa arrived so it's back to business as usual, which today involves me possibly finishing a review I started or starting that painting or just faffing around achieving nothing. Hey ho. Dunno what other gear I was going to talk about, possibly the RC-505 (fab), the V-Synth (fab), the KS-4 (fab), the Pro2 (OK), the various drum machines I have...
At some point I'll have to decide if I'm attending Superbooth this year.
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