Hardware Snobs

[Komplex]

Maybe it is psychological, but I feel much more relaxed blending hardware and a laptop together.

I completely know where you are coming from.

I could easily live without hardware and I didn't touch it for over a year at one stage but now with Live 4 being such a well developed sequencer, all the hardware is coming back into use and the music seems to be sounding a lot better and more fun to write.

[SonnyBonnier]

[quote="anonymouse"]

I don't really agree with the debate about some 1980s analog monster sounding better than a properly done VST or reaktor ensemble. Lots of the emulators sound amazing. If your composition if going to suffer because some slight nuace of true analog is missing, then you are making music for a tiny audience that can appreciate these things. Your composition is based on the instrumentation rather than the strength of your idea ... so that's another debate.

quote]

Word.

Actually I know a guy who got sent to jail and brought his computer, his turnables and a couple of hardware synths to his cell (after proper examination by the authorities, of course...). He had been studying musical science at the university a couple of years earlier, and claimed he had to bring all this stuff to finally finish his Master degree and stop being a criminal.

[zeitgeist]

Actually I know a guy who got sent to jail and brought his computer, his turnables and a couple of hardware synths to his cell (after proper examination by the authorities, of course...). He had been studying musical science at the university a couple of years earlier, and claimed he had to bring all this stuff to finally finish his Master degree and stop being a criminal.

In what country did this happen? Obviously not the US! I always love hearing about places with more reasonable criminal justice systems, though!

[feyshay]

Makes me want to commit an armed robbery or an attempted murder. I could use some time to make some music or get some reading done. Too many interruptions out of the slam.

[suburbanbather]

Makes me want to commit an armed robbery or an attempted murder. I could use some time to make some music or get some reading done. Too many interruptions out of the slam.

I would worry about having my stuff stollen or atleast being shanked to death over it.

[feyshay]

Actually,
If you're a lunatic or a pedophile, you get put into a special section that is safer for you (other prisoner don't like pedophiles). If you kill someone in the prison, you get put into supermax and get your own cell! . That would be the way to go. I'm finally gonna make some progress with making some good songs.

[SonnyBonnier]

Actually I know a guy who got sent to jail and brought his computer, his turnables and a couple of hardware synths to his cell (after proper examination by the authorities, of course...). He had been studying musical science at the university a couple of years earlier, and claimed he had to bring all this stuff to finally finish his Master degree and stop being a criminal.

In what country did this happen? Obviously not the US! I always love hearing about places with more reasonable criminal justice systems, though!

Sweden

[zeitgeist]

Actually I know a guy who got sent to jail and brought his computer, his turnables and a couple of hardware synths to his cell (after proper examination by the authorities, of course...). He had been studying musical science at the university a couple of years earlier, and claimed he had to bring all this stuff to finally finish his Master degree and stop being a criminal.

In what country did this happen? Obviously not the US! I always love hearing about places with more reasonable criminal justice systems, though!

Sweden

Not surprising--Scandinavia is far more progressive than the rest of the world in its approach to criminal justice.

I teach in a US prison in my spare time, and I've recently been allowed to bring in a sampler to teach music production to one of the inmates there. (Which has been a LOT of fun!) But you wouldn't believe the number of bureaucratic hoops I had to jump through to make that happen--and he gets 1.5 hours per week to work with me on the sampler. It's obviously better than nothing, but it's a far cry from what a system might do if it *really* believed in rehabilitation.

But I'm getting way off topic. But at least it's still music-related!!

[montrealbreaks]

I used to be 100% hardware. Back in the late 80s it was two decks, a sampler (Akai S-01) and a four track. Then I used a sequencer / drum machine (MC 303, then a JX-305) to control external synths and a sampler.

When I bought my first computer in 2001 (a Powerbook G4, I'm relatively new to software!) it was just to be a multi track recorder.

Today, I have sold almost all of my hardware.

Gone (but not forgotten):
Alesis Andromeda A6
Nova
Virus C
MS2000R
A&H Xone 464 mixer
27 rack spaces of effects, including EVERY single Electrix box.

I kept one virtual analog synth and a mixer. For the rest, I miss it all, but in the end, I needed portability. What's the point in having a monster rack and a legion of synths if you write tracks with them and then can't gig with 'em? It's ok for a studio, but I was gigging at the time, and taking the bus. So, it all went.

Why do I miss it? Bragging rights, and status... Now, I'm just another laptop musician. I hate to say it, but with all the gear I had a weekly residency getting $350 a show. I took six months off gigging while I dropped all my gear, and when I came back with software, all the gigs dried up. Today I can't find a gig (though admittedly I stopped looking around a year ago). Is it the gear? People are impressed with "wiz bang" gear, and it certainly didn't hurt my gig seeking efforts when I had promo shots of me with ten grand worth of electronics...

Honestly, as far as sound quality goes, a disciplined and experienced engineer with the right vsts can coax truly analog sounds he needs out of software. Virtual analog emulations (Virus C, Pro-53, Alesis Ion / Micron) are INDISTINGUISHABLE from analog. They're good, really. Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me that the analog purist naysayers are case studies of "the emperor's new clothes" where they can't admit that analog emulations have finally caught up.

Believe me - I have owned the best analog gear, have a trained ear, and I can't tell the difference between the high end emulations and real analog gear.