Music Making

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, that was just an example.  I had this for a while, it was...fine.  Probably below the caliber of what you should be looking at, though.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Studio-RTA/Mix-Station.gc

[acidbasement]

I spent the evening tidying and organizing my desk. Cable management, schmable management.

My studio is in the corner of an unfinished basement, and I think this fall and winter I'm going to try framing in a room and finishing it. 

[VPI]

Anyone have experience with the Genelec monitors with the DSP SAM room treatment system?  I am thinking they might work well for my shitty space.

[Dusty Chalk]

No, but Genelec makes good shit, would recommend.

[VPI]

This thing is fucking hawt, but I forgot to order the $50 windscreen. So far it is behaving even better than I had expected in my shitty space. 
 

 

[acidbasement]

I'm going to get a new analog synth, thinking of the Circuit Mono Station. It's got the OG Circuit's sequencer and then some, with the Bass Station II's (approximate) synth engine, and it sounds filthy AF.

Anyone want to tell me to spend my money on something else? Waldorf Blofeld has me curious and there's a second-hand one in Winnipeg.

Or I could just get a few Volcas.

But damn, the Mono Station has a wild mod matrix.

[ironbut]

20 hours ago, VPI said:

This thing is fucking hawt, but I forgot to order the $50 windscreen. So far it is behaving even better than I had expected in my shitty space. 
 

 

Nice mic!

Pretty delicate though. The one they had in my schools locker spent half the time in the shop (butterfinger students).

What?

No Bit-O-Honey?

You need to have a serious talk with your Sweetwater Sales Associate!

[Dusty Chalk]

2 hours ago, acidbasement said:

Anyone want to tell me to spend my money on something else? Waldorf Blofeld has me curious and there's a second-hand one in Winnipeg.

Nope, trying to step down my opinionatedness of other people’s GAS.  I’m also just plain not familiar with it.  You can try asking in Muff Wigglers or Dungeon Synth.

 I have an interest in Waldorf gear, but never got anything by them.  (Thomas Dolby used a Waldorf PPG back in the day, and I’ve only heard cool things about them ever since.)

3 minutes ago, ironbut said:

No Bit-O-Honey?

You need to have a serious talk with your Sweetwater Sales Associate!

WTF?  I hadn’t even noticed that.  I hate Bit-O-Honey and I always get at least one.

[VPI]

I do not think I have ever seen a bit o honey or whatever in the 30-40 of these packs I have thrown away in the last couple of months.

[acidbasement]

1 hour ago, Dusty Chalk said:

I’m also just plain not familiar with it.

It's super cool. I just don't know how practical the sequencer is (but you can set all parameters differently in every step in the sequence - super cool!), but if nothing else it's a good-sounding paraphonic analog synth that I can sequence with the Deluge. It's been discontinued for a couple of years, and they must have made way too many of them, because you can still get them for well below MSRP.

Edited August 28, 2020 by acidbasement

[Dusty Chalk]

6 hours ago, VPI said:

I do not think I have ever seen a bit o honey or whatever in the 30-40 of these packs I have thrown away in the last couple of months.

Oh, I’m going to give Charlie such a piece of my mind the next time I almost order something from them.

[VPI]

It is entirely possible I get one every time, i do not know what it looks like and just throw them all away with the stickers immediately. 

[VPI]

Is there any interest in a 20 minute video review of a $50 piece of foam?

I have signed on to produce live performances in Zoom for local talent so I am trying to narrow down on a Digital Mixer that can act as an interface to Zoom.  Looking at Allen & Heath QU-16 but I am thinking that the options from Zoom and Tascam seem to actually offer more features for less money  

Edited August 30, 2020 by VPI

[blessingx]

A. Yes

B. You're aiming for quality audio through Zoom? That's a hero's journey. I assume you're going to push down camera channel using original audio? Curious how you're going to accomplish, but good luck.  

Edited August 31, 2020 by blessingx

[VPI]

I can connect Zoom to an interface and ignore camera audio. It is not for anything important. Just locals performing for locals. 

[blessingx]

Right, but you have to send the audio down the “camera” channel or the “content” channel. Advantages to each - content expects music, but camera applies noise reduction, where it expects voice only and suppresses anything else, including music (try to play The Stones’ Paint it Black to see how it fights itself). They’ve recently introduced “original audio” on camera which turns off some of the noise reduction, and if you’re matching camera work, probably want this. But there are trade-offs with each and of course Zoom is constantly adjusting. Anyway, good luck. If you need anyone to test with let me know. 

[Kattefjaes]

On 7/5/2020 at 1:26 AM, Torpedo said:

OK, let us know

Ah, it took a while!

I connected it to a Schiit Jotunheim, a fairly inexpensive but relatively clean headamp, via balanced. It was.. clean, unsparing. I didn't notice much stereotypical delta sigma harshness, but it certainly sounded somewhat surgical. That's exactly what I'd want it to sound like, honestly- I have a Gungir multibit for when I went things to sound a little more.. forgiving.

I essentially, it sounds clean and pleasant. I don't think the built-in headamp is stellar, not enough grunt to really have "grip" on the drivers, especially on sluggards like old HD650s, but it's fine for casual monitoring. Via the various line outs, however, it gives an impression of precision. Whether that's to your taste for recreational listening would be an ecumenical matter 😉

  

On 8/28/2020 at 6:06 PM, acidbasement said:

I'm going to get a new analog synth, thinking of the Circuit Mono Station. It's got the OG Circuit's sequencer and then some, with the Bass Station II's (approximate) synth engine, and it sounds filthy AF.

Anyone want to tell me to spend my money on something else? Waldorf Blofeld has me curious and there's a second-hand one in Winnipeg.

Or I could just get a few Volcas.

But damn, the Mono Station has a wild mod matrix.

Have you seen that new smol Dreadbox thing? It looks like fun:

 

..if you like modulation craziness, their Erebus V3 is a delight, I have one of those, and can't bear to part with it, even though I probably have too many synths. It sounds stunning, classic fat subtractive sound for such a small desktop synth. Very underrated and has a very nicely-appointed patch bay for all your weird modulation needs too.

 

Also, if you like weirder, have you seen the Make Noise  0-Coast?

 

Sorry for the massive video spam, but if you're in the mood for a fun smallish mono, those are potentially dangerous to your free time.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[acidbasement]

Those look neat, but I don't think they check all the boxes for me in terms of being able to play with the rest of my setup the way I want. Plus I don't want to try any modular gateway drug because it's apparently as addictive and expensive as cocaine.

I ended up ordering the Mono Station. It has a pretty good synth, but also being able to step-sequence the filter, distortion, and other modulation stuff with external audio - that makes it a killer external effects unit IMO, similar to the Octatrack. I want to sing through it.

Edited August 31, 2020 by acidbasement

[Kattefjaes]

17 hours ago, acidbasement said:

Those look neat, but I don't think they check all the boxes for me in terms of being able to play with the rest of my setup the way I want. Plus I don't want to try any modular gateway drug because it's apparently as addictive and expensive as cocaine.

It fucks your nose up less, however.

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Kattefjaes

[Dusty Chalk]

 

[acidbasement]

I need to play that at 1/10 speed.

[Torpedo]

3 hours ago, Dusty Chalk said:

 

This channel, Beato's, Jens Larsen's and Tomo Fujita's are my favourites for music/guitar improvement.

I've tried to use some "hide" or "nsfw" tags to hide a music theory comment, but I didn't get it to work so don't bother to read that follows if you're not into that stuff.

My teacher says that Sus2 chords don't exist because they're inversions of another Sus4 chord (Csus2 is Gsus4) but once you add the 7th to the triad the plot thickens, the Sus2 becomes a major chord which if used in inversion provides nice textures. It's a lot of fun looking at music at this structural level.

[Dusty Chalk]

3 hours ago, Torpedo said:

This channel, Beato's, Jens Larsen's and Tomo Fujita's are my favourites for music/guitar improvement.

I've tried to use some "hide" or "nsfw" tags to hide a music theory comment, but I didn't get it to work so don't bother to read that follows if you're not into that stuff.

My teacher says that Sus2 chords don't exist because they're inversions of another Sus4 chord (Csus2 is Gsus4) but once you add the 7th to the triad the plot thickens, the Sus2 becomes a major chord which if used in inversion provides nice textures. It's a lot of fun looking at music at this structural level.

That was the original point of this thread, so I’ll more than allow it, I’ll encourage it.

I only just discovered this channel, myself, so feel free to share any others.  I found it by way of this video from Paul Davids:

My crazy talented vocalist friend, Tash, introduced me to a book written by her choir director, Brinegar.  In it (I’m told, haven’t read it yet), that notes can have multiple meanings, depending on context and how you got there.  I would assume the same is true for chord voicing.

https://www.pitchperfectmusictheory.com/

I would love to hear more of your guitar instructor’s thoughts, especially after being introduced to the above concept.

It was that context that made certain portions of the above video so interesting to me.  I had only recently discovered the concept of not playing the root in the bass because of a completely different song:

... and am definitely going to let that inform my arrangement of an original I’m working on.

5 hours ago, acidbasement said:

I need to play that at 1/10 speed.

Lollers, yeah, I need to review it about 10 times, I think.

[Torpedo]

Thanks, Dusty. My teacher plays mostly jazz so most of his theory lessons are focused on the understanding of harmony, so you have a strong grip to know always where you are and where are you heading, which is very helpful (once you can think fast enough) to improvise melody and also chord melody and comping. He has the conception of a tonality being actually comprised of 5 tonalities that are somewhat siblings, and every tonality and its modes can be arranged in "chainings" (I don't know how that would translate into English) that are based on a specific scale: diatonic, harmonic, major melodic, minor melodic, etc. His system is not much different from classic harmony and music theory that they teach at Berklee or what Beato explains in his book, but it gives you a more comprehensive view so you actually need less memorization and using all those chords and voice movements end up being easier and more usable.

Then there's the part of training the ear and the part of learning the fretboard, and the part of having a capable hand, the part of keeping rhythm...  

[Dusty Chalk]

Actually, that makes perfect sense, especially as a learning tool. I love the concept of inversions and voicing, but I’m trying to compose, so unlike improvisation, there’s no time pressure.  It still strikes me as a useful way of thinking of things.

I would like to know more about these “chainings” (“families”?) , but that’s an area of music theory that I am sorely lacking, and will have to research on my own.

Thank you, as always, for the thoughtful response.