Whats your all time favourite bit of gear?

frisbeedisk · Post by **frisbeedisk** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:38 pm

Whats your fav bit of hardware gear, it can be owned or on the wish list??

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:43 pm

My Nord Micro Modular. It is just sooooo cute...

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:44 pm

Simple and easy to use ...Awesome bass and blippy bloopy stuff and the fact it was from Radio Shack...

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:48 pm

Its a toss-up between my Akai S3200 sampler and my powerbook.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:49 pm

Aw man.. I'm getting all misty-eyed here.

Favourite *past* equipment:

The Transcendent 2000. Died after a fall from a keyboard stand shortly before a gig... yes.

Favourite current piece of kit:
The Doepfer Schaltwerk. Easily the coolest hands-on experience EVER!
You simply haven't tried step sequencing until you've tried the Schalt.

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:59 pm

The Transcendant... I have never seen one of those ... Who made it and where?... Looks like a monosynth..

bradelectro · Post by **bradelectro** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:02 pm

@Machinate! MG-1! Awesome!

My fave piece of gear ever isn't as cool as what's been mentioned so far. And even tho I used to use an MMT-8, virus B, Yamaha RY-70 and other legendary, respectable old boxes- I hafta say my fave bit of live kit was my recently dear departed Roland MC-909!

I could flow so well on that thing- both in terms of composing and performing. Sounded great too.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:12 pm

cosmosuave wrote:The Transcendant... I have never seen one of those ... Who made it and where?... Looks like a monosynth..

I believe Maplin made the line as kits in the mid- to late seventies. It is a monosynth, but it has the fattest fucking pwm I have EVER heard! It's just that good. And the filter self-resonance was amazing. Even the keys felt great.

I still have the whole thing in the attic. I should get it to see a tech, I really should. I'm just afraid of rejection

Bummer. Even the Roland SH-2 I have here pales in comparison - and that's two osc with sub-oscillator.

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:16 pm

Machinate wrote:
cosmosuave wrote:The Transcendant... I have never seen one of those ... Who made it and where?... Looks like a monosynth..
I believe Maplin made the line as kits in the mid- to late seventies. It is a monosynth, but it has the fattest fucking pwm I have EVER heard! It's just that good. And the filter self-resonance was amazing. Even the keys felt great.

I still have the whole thing in the attic. I should get it to see a tech, I really should. I'm just afraid of rejection :-(

Bummer. Even the Roland SH-2 I have here pales in comparison - and that's two osc with sub-oscillator.

:cry:

Falling off a stand it can't be in that bad of shape... What got broken? If the keyboard is fuct you could always rack it and kit it with midi... I would get it fixed plus all those electronic parts are fairly easy to replace xcept for the filter chips... Get on it..

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:18 pm

Bah. You're right. Grr.

It has seized to make any noises when plugged in, except a gentle, audible humming noise. And the woodwork is farked, but the main thing is the electrical, and that's really not that bad-looking, from what I can tell.

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:20 pm

Machinate wrote:Bah. You're right. Grr.

It has seized to make any noises when plugged in, except a gentle, audible humming noise. And the woodwork is farked, but the main thing is the electrical, and that's really not that bad-looking, from what I can tell.

Have you opened it up to see if anything came loose inside?

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:33 pm

Yeah, I'm not that afraid of it

I have had it fixed for a while and then it died.. like. totally. Many of the parts are things you don't see in modern equipment anymore, so it'll be tricky, I think. God, how I miss her!

FaX-01 · Post by **FaX-01** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:33 pm

Though I don't own hardware anymore well bar one thing which is the first I will list here .....
This would be my top 10 from years of hardware use.
Odd top ten I know and unlike alot of my buddy's I was never a huge analog gear nut and found this selection gave me a pretty unique sound to be brutally honest.
I have days when I miss it all and days when I don't.
That said software affords me more flexibility but I have days when I miss the hands on tactile nature of hardware gear that's for sure.

1.Emu Systems - Emulator II + (still have it + a massive sound library)
True analag LFO's , VCA , VCF and Eg's ...still sounds quite amazing actually.

2.Yamaha RS7000 - knock the Tone Generator all you want still the best hardware sequencing experiencing I've had outside of a QY700 and the slice&sample options on it are superb.

3.Roland SP808EX - alot of people loathed this thing but I found it highly inspirational (the internal Virtual Synth was very much like an SH101 with cross modulation and good audio input routings).

4.Waldorf MicroQ - great sounding and highly flexible rack synth ...did killer FM too IMHO and some of the weirdest shit I've ever heard come out of digital hardware.

5.Yamaha RY30 - quite possibly my all time favourite digital drum machine ever made.

6.Oberheim Matrix 6 - still miss this board after selling it some 8 years ago.
Great Pad , Atmosphere and FX machine.

7.Akai S950 - only 2 meg ram total but had awesome time stretch algo's that would do the wierdest things to field recordings imaginable at extreme settings.Was also great for breaks and sampling drum hits off vinyl etc...

8.Ensoniq EPS - the original unit (rack version) in all it's gritty 12 bit glory.
Good digital filters , great synthesis facilities and looping + sample modulation options. You could sample right down to around 4khz sample rate also for lots of gritty digital dirt and the like.

9.Korg Electribe ER-1 & ES-1 - great X0X box sequencing combo with a great sound and hugely flexible for the price ...also great fun to use and jam on.
Get's top marks purely for ease of use and instant inspirational fun.

10.RedSound EleVata - had poor output volume but sounded remarkably like a cross between a MS10 & MS20 when fed through some good valve mic pre's too boost the volume. Lots of nice pos/neg polarity mod routing also and a very raw gritty in your face sound.

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:43 pm

how come you sold/gave away your stuff, FaX ?

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:48 pm

if I had to give everything away, the last thing I would give away would be the sherman filterbank (& a decent ad/da)