Music Making

[Dusty Chalk]

Also, don't rule out the physical modeling synths, even from decades ago.  When people asked me what analog synths I had -- even back then -- I would tell them what I had, then mention the Nord Modular and the Roland JP-8080.  And then they'd say, "those aren't analog".  And I'd stage-shush them, and stage whisper, "don't let them hear you --  they don't know that" or "try telling them that" (if I was in a position to play it for them, I would -- they really did sound analog delicious -- the Roland JP8080 (and it's older sibling, the JP8000) sound nice and moogy, and the Nord Modular was just crazy versatile -- there were times it sounded like a polyphonic ARP 2600, and sometimes it would sound vaguely Prophet-y, but not as good as my Prophet5, so I didn't usually say that out loud, much less think it).

I should try to resurrect them. 

The Prophet5 has a power supply problem, and probably needs to be recapped again. 

The Nord Modular -- you program it through proprietary software that speaks to it through (non-USB) MIDI, not sure how that would work now, need to figure it out.  Nord really should resurrect that whole paradigm -- it was so much fun. 

I should power on the JP8080 and see if it boots.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Dusty Chalk

[acidbasement]

Hell yeah you should. The JP8080 looks like a lot of fun. 

[Dusty Chalk]

My gear is a mix of old school 5-pin MIDI and newer USB-MIDI.  Anyone have a good converter solution for that?

Also thinking about this:

ghttps://www.cme-pro.com/widi-master-old/

[ironbut]

Hopefully that converter is durable and fairly cheap.

I know a couple of guys that had their portable keyboard/controller and it was kind of delicate. One guy went through 2 in an equal number of months (IIRC) and gave up on them.

 

[acidbasement]

@Dusty Chalk

 

[Kattefjaes]

My strange obsession with live, improvised modular jungle persists. This was 100% modular, recorded straight from the rack, one take, so please excuse it being a little.. ruff 😎

[ironbut]

Very cool! 

I'm a real sucker for that kind of stuff.

BTW, is that a blown cap on the board of the background image?

[Kattefjaes]

1 hour ago, ironbut said:

Very cool! 

I'm a real sucker for that kind of stuff.

BTW, is that a blown cap on the board of the background image?

Thank you , I was happy with it too.. literally just a lunchtime patch and it all clicked into place. Old junglists never quite reform, it seems.

Yep. That's a blown cap on a Eurorack power bus board. I had a cap pop on me, in an unpatched but powered rack. I pulled all the modules out, and nothing seems to have been damaged thank goodness (especially not my shiny new Disting EX module, which are hard to come by right now). It was a brand new case, too. I was a bit shaken by that. It's not like I was drawing much at all, either.

That happened the day before. I transferred those modules to a spare skiff case I had kicking about, and felt like I should mark the lucky escape.

[Dusty Chalk]

Re: image: Egad!  Someone let out the magic smoke and the chimney is utterly demolished!

Re: music: Effin’ groovy!

[Kattefjaes]

15 hours ago, Dusty Chalk said:

Re: image: Egad!  Someone let out the magic smoke and the chimney is utterly demolished!

Re: music: Effin’ groovy!

I just knew that of anywhere on Her Majesty's Interpipes, here would be where people were alert to the sight of a popped capacitor 😇

Also, thanks, having a lot of fun with my little modular, even if I'm barely scratching the surface of some of the more complex modules.

 

Regarding your MIDI question, if you just want to turn a device with USB MIDI into old-style DIN MIDI, this is one of the more straightforward and bombproof solutions:

https://kentonuk.com/product/midi-usb-host-mkii/

Kenton have been making MIDI problem solvers for years (their MIDI to CV converters are justly famous for their reliability). It ain't fancy-looking, but it will get the job done. That said, I would hate to make assumptions- if you want something more fancy that can tie ALL THE THINGS together, these are very well-regarded:

https://www.bome.com/products/bomebox

If you need to connect multiple USB-MIDI clients to the Bomebox, I believe that an MTT-compliant powered USB hub will work nicely.

 

(I have one of these- https://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/fh2.html - but it's probably overkill for anyone who doesn't already have a rack to bolt it into. Lovely, if cryptic, bit of kit.)

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks for the pointers. I especially appreciate the comments regarding bombproofness.  I actually only have a couple USB-MIDI, most of my devices are from the 90’s.

[Kattefjaes]

It's a shame they use a wall wart. I suppose that goes with the territory when something is small/cheap. However, Kenton have always been a bit of a go-to for weird little MIDI problem solvers, saving many headaches.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[Dusty Chalk]

Want.

 

[HiWire]

I enjoyed this one... even with the volume turned really low, my heart started beating faster as if a real set of drums was in the room... that's a crazy feeling when the drum sounds are going through your body

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by HiWire

[ironbut]

Rick's my favorite "Sad Old Dude" on YT!

His book is excellent too.

[HiWire]

I only heard about the copyright strikes on his channel recently... it's tricky to navigate music rights at the best of times. 🥺

I watched his breakdown of Sting and the Police's song composition earlier this week. Fantastic stuff.

Edited June 10, 2020 by HiWire

[Craig Sawyers]

On 6/7/2020 at 9:47 PM, Dusty Chalk said:

Want.

 

Alternatively

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, not that ambitious.  Besides, wouldn’t want to take away from him.  That’s like his whole shtick.

[Dusty Chalk]

On 6/6/2020 at 6:51 AM, Kattefjaes said:

I just knew that of anywhere on Her Majesty's Interpipes, here would be where people were alert to the sight of a popped capacitor 😇

Also, thanks, having a lot of fun with my little modular, even if I'm barely scratching the surface of some of the more complex modules.

 

Regarding your MIDI question, if you just want to turn a device with USB MIDI into old-style DIN MIDI, this is one of the more straightforward and bombproof solutions:

https://kentonuk.com/product/midi-usb-host-mkii/

Kenton have been making MIDI problem solvers for years (their MIDI to CV converters are justly famous for their reliability). It ain't fancy-looking, but it will get the job done. That said, I would hate to make assumptions- if you want something more fancy that can tie ALL THE THINGS together, these are very well-regarded:

https://www.bome.com/products/bomebox

If you need to connect multiple USB-MIDI clients to the Bomebox, I believe that an MTT-compliant powered USB hub will work nicely.

 

(I have one of these- https://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/fh2.html - but it's probably overkill for anyone who doesn't already have a rack to bolt it into. Lovely, if cryptic, bit of kit.)

 

 

I thought at first you meant the standard 19 inch width rack -- I do already have many rack MIDI modules (e.g. the previously mentioned JP8080 and elsewhere mentioned Furman conditioner).

I have enough old MIDI gear that I should probably get a USB-hosted DIN MIDI hub -- any thoughts on those?  MOTU 8x8?

[HiWire]

Soviet synth

 

[Kattefjaes]

On 6/18/2020 at 5:37 AM, Dusty Chalk said:

I thought at first you meant the standard 19 inch width rack -- I do already have many rack MIDI modules (e.g. the previously mentioned JP8080 and elsewhere mentioned Furman conditioner).

I have enough old MIDI gear that I should probably get a USB-hosted DIN MIDI hub -- any thoughts on those?  MOTU 8x8?

Apologies for the super-delayed response!

Personally, I'd be inclined to ignore MOTU these days. I know they used to be go-to option once upon a time, but there's a bit of a stench of decay around their driver support and maintenance these days- I think that function could be the responsibility of an unhappy skeleton crew. They seem to take a lot time to track OS changes and bugfixes can be painfully slow.

I don't use a lot of MIDI personally, I have MIDI I/O on my FH-2, my soundcard and on the main Euro sequencer if I need it. I think if I was after a lot of ports I'd probably be looking at this:

https://www.iconnectivity.com/mioxl

Lots of people seem to be happy with how solid they are- they seem to be sufficiently boring, which is what you want in such a device 😎

 

 

 

Oh, while we're at it, treated myself to a new non-budget soundcard, it has been years since I had anything decent quality at home. Suddenly, recordings aren't muddy any more, even when internally mixed on the modular and output via the little output module- clearly the bottleneck was the cheap soundcard. Behold a quick test recording:

 

It sounds clean and clear without being harsh, praise be! Straight out of the modular, no post-processing. I am a happy bunny.

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[Dusty Chalk]

Oh, no worries, not your responsibility to answer my questions.  Funnily enough, I got the small mio and successfully updated the OS on my Prophet 6 and now it sounds awesome.  Will try to get away with that until it’s not enough.

Will listen to your track later, on the good system.

EDIT:  Dude, that sounds awesome!  Crystalline highs, tectonic bass, pleasant non-recessed mids, super low noise floor.

[Torpedo]

6 hours ago, Kattefjaes said:

...

Oh, while we're at it, treated myself to a new non-budget soundcard, it has been years since I had anything decent quality at home. Suddenly, recordings aren't muddy any more, even when internally mixed on the modular and output via the little output module- clearly the bottleneck was the cheap soundcard. Behold a quick test recording:

 

It sounds clean and clear without being harsh, praise be! Straight out of the modular, no post-processing. I am a happy bunny.

What's the non-budget soundcard that produced such good sounding result?

[Kattefjaes]

Oh duh, sorry- RME Fireface UCX in this case. RME make wonderfully boring soundcards and have for years. Effortlessly clean and clear, rock-solid clocks, great drivers  and spec sheets that don't lie. Not cheap, but I should have remembered "buy cheap, buy twice", which was very true here.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[Torpedo]

Do the line outputs sound like a good DAC?