I was looking at Knobby and Phat-Boy:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/knobby.php
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/phatboy.php
Did they get so much attention because the 90's was more or less free of such stuff, or why would otherwise anybody make an big deal about midi controllers?
I mean what can Knobby do, that Arturia BeatStep can't ?
90's MIDI controllers, did they have anything special?
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
Last edited by Numanoid on Fri Oct 17, 2014 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRian
- 908 posts since 10 Jan, 2010
the 90's WAS very different from now... it was actually a little similar today, in that there were a lot of synths coming out without much of a control interface (all the 80s-90s digitals and digital/analog hybrids). they all had different programming methods (CCs, sysex, NRPNs) each too, and were mostly incompatible. also, some of them had their OWN dedicated programmers, mostly Roland (e.g. the PG300, PG200, PG800, etc) - and these were hooked directly into the box, I don't think you could control e.g. an MKS70 from a PG800 plugged into a JX10 sending midi to it, it had to be hooked up locally.
same problems, same solutions, but it's true, there weren't many of these around... there were these two, plus another one from encore, the kawai mm16x, the peavey pc1600 (probably the best one, though i never owned one), maybe a few others.
what can they do that today's can't? two things, primarily - they talked MIDI, not USB, so if you're primarily midi, it may be a better option (of course some newer ones can do both, e.g. the KMI stuff with the adapter). but second, they supported dealing with a lot of the quirks of many hardware synths directly - the Rolands in particular, to change a setting required a particular sysex string. most modern controllers only speak midi CC. you can usually do some transformation in the PC, but then they were doing that back in the 90s too (using midi ox or other things, and even e.g. trying to decode PG800 sysex and send out PG300 and so forth) - having it built in so to speak was (still is, I think a few support like the Remote SLs but it's not that common) a fancy feature....
same problems, same solutions, but it's true, there weren't many of these around... there were these two, plus another one from encore, the kawai mm16x, the peavey pc1600 (probably the best one, though i never owned one), maybe a few others.
what can they do that today's can't? two things, primarily - they talked MIDI, not USB, so if you're primarily midi, it may be a better option (of course some newer ones can do both, e.g. the KMI stuff with the adapter). but second, they supported dealing with a lot of the quirks of many hardware synths directly - the Rolands in particular, to change a setting required a particular sysex string. most modern controllers only speak midi CC. you can usually do some transformation in the PC, but then they were doing that back in the 90s too (using midi ox or other things, and even e.g. trying to decode PG800 sysex and send out PG300 and so forth) - having it built in so to speak was (still is, I think a few support like the Remote SLs but it's not that common) a fancy feature....
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
The LPD8 was maybe not the best thing to compare the older MIDI gear with.
But I would think something like Arturia BeatStep, got the ability to "talk" directly with the hardware, as well as Knobby or Phat-Boy:
http://www.arturia.com/products/hybrid-synths/beatstep
But I would think something like Arturia BeatStep, got the ability to "talk" directly with the hardware, as well as Knobby or Phat-Boy:
http://www.arturia.com/products/hybrid-synths/beatstep
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- KVRAF
- 5139 posts since 27 Jun, 2004
It has high quality knobs (difference 1) that can send 14-bit messages with actual ~12-bit accuracy (difference 2), and it can even send sysex messages (difference 3, read linked text).Numanoid wrote:I mean what can Knobby do, that Akai LPD8 can't ?
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Claudio Monteverdi
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
See my post above, I think Arturia BeatStep is a better comparison, that is priced under €100 also.
Last edited by Numanoid on Fri Oct 17, 2014 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
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- KVRAF
- 5139 posts since 27 Jun, 2004
I think not, because the build quality is truly crap, and only 7-bit (128 steps), and I haven't checked about its sysex ability.
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Claudio Monteverdi
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
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- KVRAF
- 5139 posts since 27 Jun, 2004
No, but it's not meant to, because it's just a MIDI controller. And BeatStep's CV control is incredibly disappointing (I considered it mainly for usage as a sequencer).
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Claudio Monteverdi
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- KVRAF
- 3080 posts since 17 Apr, 2005 from S.E. TN
Control voltage and gate/trigger interface fell drastically out of fashion for the first couple of decades of midi. CV was such a wiring spaghetti nightmare, most folk who had been using cv were glad to be shed of it at the time.
CV may be easier with modern computers and modern CV interfaces, haven't studied it or tried it. Not so much fun with no computer or extremely limited "dumb" terminal interface type computers.
One of the first sequential circuits products before prophet 5 was a "digital memory" CV sequencer amazingly strong for the era. I helped a friend modify various synths to talk the same gate/trigger lingo and CV scaling, to wire several synths to several SC sequencers. It was painful to program for ordinary music with chords and melodies and such. He had in mind live duo automatic bass and drums, several years before midi, but it wasn't practical and I don't think he ever even once toted it to a gig.
It was similarly impractical for recording "conventional music" into analog tape.
Such sequencers probably more practical for different ostinato pattern based music, especially with modern computer control
CV may be easier with modern computers and modern CV interfaces, haven't studied it or tried it. Not so much fun with no computer or extremely limited "dumb" terminal interface type computers.
One of the first sequential circuits products before prophet 5 was a "digital memory" CV sequencer amazingly strong for the era. I helped a friend modify various synths to talk the same gate/trigger lingo and CV scaling, to wire several synths to several SC sequencers. It was painful to program for ordinary music with chords and melodies and such. He had in mind live duo automatic bass and drums, several years before midi, but it wasn't practical and I don't think he ever even once toted it to a gig.
It was similarly impractical for recording "conventional music" into analog tape.
Such sequencers probably more practical for different ostinato pattern based music, especially with modern computer control
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- KVRAF
- 35271 posts since 14 Sep, 2002 from In teh net
I have a Phatboy 2 but it's mostly been replaced by Kore - although I do use it with my VL70 module.
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- KVRian
- 908 posts since 10 Jan, 2010
the beatstep is pretty cool...
a better example might be the novation remote SLs... i got my remote zero (mkII!) just over $100 used IIRC. it _does_ do all the fancy sysex programming etc... in pretty much every way it stomps all those old controllers.
however, it's plastic.... all those old controllers were real faders/knobs, built into metal boxes, intended to be used more or less in fixed positions... built for durability... modern ones are built, not just to be cheap, but also small/light to be portable and throw into a laptop bag... different purposes, different design tradeoffs. i'd rather have my remote SL, but the knobby will probably be working long after mine dies.
putting CV on a general controller like this really doesn't make a lot of sense anyways... after all, if you have 16 knobs, but only 2 CV outputs.... what are the other knobs doing? also, anything that uses CV probably already _has_ a knob for it. it's only there because of the sequencer.
a better example might be the novation remote SLs... i got my remote zero (mkII!) just over $100 used IIRC. it _does_ do all the fancy sysex programming etc... in pretty much every way it stomps all those old controllers.
however, it's plastic.... all those old controllers were real faders/knobs, built into metal boxes, intended to be used more or less in fixed positions... built for durability... modern ones are built, not just to be cheap, but also small/light to be portable and throw into a laptop bag... different purposes, different design tradeoffs. i'd rather have my remote SL, but the knobby will probably be working long after mine dies.
putting CV on a general controller like this really doesn't make a lot of sense anyways... after all, if you have 16 knobs, but only 2 CV outputs.... what are the other knobs doing? also, anything that uses CV probably already _has_ a knob for it. it's only there because of the sequencer.
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- KVRAF
- 5139 posts since 27 Jun, 2004
Change the step length, in sequencer mode. A shitty sequencer, with bad scaling/tuning accuracy and no slave clock sync except when synced via USB. And as master, no accurate BPM or indication of it.chroma wrote:putting CV on a general controller like this really doesn't make a lot of sense anyways... after all, if you have 16 knobs, but only 2 CV outputs.... what are the other knobs doing?
Last edited by Shy on Fri Oct 17, 2014 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not." - Claudio Monteverdi
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 25852 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
But what about the software that shipped with it, can that still be used on the latest Windows versions?chroma wrote:the knobby will probably be working long after mine dies.
