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toine6
- KVRian
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1273 posts since 28 Mar, 2002, from Salt Lake City, Utah - U.S.A.
by toine6; Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:24 pm
Re: Hurrah for your hardware bargains (as well as your secret bargain lustings)!
Congrats on your Sherman Filterbank 2. I've got one, but have barely touched it in the last 5 years, only because life gets in the way, but I'm ready to use it again. I just noticed yesterday that Audio Damage has a plugin called Filterstation2 based on "the classic serial/parallel/stereo dual filter topology, made famous (and some would say "indispensable") by the Sherman Filterbank and its many clones. "
The future is now as far as great potential bargains. I'd have to say that the Behringer Model D, Neutron, OB-XA-, and possibly Pro-1 are all crazy deals, although they may end up showing their discounted prices weakness in terms of longevity (time will tell). I'd throw the more costly Roland SE-02 in there, I know Studio Electronics, who helped them design it, are TOP notch in quality and sound.
From the past. I love my Korg Monologue, it really has THAT mono analog sound that I've been looking for all these years. Arturia's Minibrute is really well made, so I'm gonna throw it in there, even if it's sound quality needs a bit of coaxing with external fx to make it exciting, no presets, and it's not a sound for everybody. My Alesis Ion is a great synth just in terms of power under the hood, it's knobs, lights, and screen, but it needs external fx and is not immediately satisfying preset wise, also the text size and color are horribly hard to read. The Roland JP-8000 is a hell of an interface, even if I barely use it. Gary Numan used the JP-8000 and it has a great aggressive sound if you use it right, it's not just a trance machine, it can sound kind of cutting, agressive and dark.
Here's what potential future bargain may be in the works, and got me excited today. Tracktion has apparently made their Waveform DAW work for the Raspberry Pi operating system. Now, not many people know much about Pi, myself included, but the potential bargain awaiting there is something to keep an ear on the wire for. Pi is basically an incredibly cheap and simple computer based around Linux. Supposedly, having such a simple and straightforward machine means that it will run audio super efficiently, like 30 tracks. As far as I can tell it's still a work in progress, they need to finalize a proper soundcard, and I have no idea how streaming samples would work, but there's something freeing and exciting about it's potential. Windows is so bloated and long in the tooth. It would be nice to have a really simple, cheap, and dedicated machine, with a snappy and immediate response, just for making music and doing basic things like browse the web.