The drum machine is dead. LONG LIVE THE DRUM MACHINE!

Anything about hardware musical instruments.

Do you use hardware drum synths or software and samples only?

Hardware drum synths all the way, how dare you use a computer!
3
3%
Software and samples only please.
34
32%
Software or hardware is fine as long it it gets me where I want to go.
58
55%
You'll pry my x0x box out of my cold dead hands.
1
1%
I hit things with sticks. (sometimes fish)
9
9%
 
Total votes: 105

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foosnark wrote:
deastman wrote:The reason I never got Maschine is the same reason my Machinedrum sits unused- too many key combinations to memorize. Too much "hold shift and now this button becomes a different button". Push is large enough and logically laid out enough that its operation quickly becomes incredibly intuitive.
Honestly, with Maschine (though I can't speak for Maschine Mikro) there's very little memorizing to do. 95% of shift functions are labeled on the device, and if they're commonly used (like transpose, undo, etc.) muscle memory takes over quickly anyway.

To each their own though.
Yeah, I agree. Maschine is pretty excellent and I imagine that Maschine Studio is even better... but my problem with Maschine is I still hate the weird way it's song sequencer is crippled. I think I may abandon it and get a Push but I'd have to sell my beloved Novation Remote 25SL to make room for one.
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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Yes i heard most of what the usual (and already mentioned here) hardware can do.
And i still think that for the sounds that i find useful for my music, Synth1 and Drumatic3 plus some also freeware effects go at least as far as the hardware or in some cases beat it by far in diversity and tweakability.
[====[\\\\\\\\]>------,

Ay caramba !

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vurt wrote:ill hit anything. including fish.
I'll hit anything too (but not fish, since I'm vegetarian ;-) ).

I feel weirdly in-between the worlds of hardware and software. I have a drum set that I don't have set up because I've no room for it, and because my stupid town has an actual statute against drums for noise (yet they don't have any statutes against the grocery store blasting leaf blowers at 3am). But I like having the option for times when I can drag the kit out and play a bit during the daytime and get away with it. I also have tins from food that make great sounds when struck. I like mixing as much real acoustic stuff with my synths as I can, and that includes real drums, or anything that makes a satisfying thump, whack, klang, boom, thud...

Being a lover of synthesizers and sampling, I love having the options and minutia of control on the DAW and software, but I find it lacking in immediacy and feel. I have a Korg PadKontrol, which helps with stuff like BFD. I absolutely love the simplicity of Linplug's CM-505 and its sounds, but it's never going to go 64-bit on Mac, so I'm leaving it behind. But my appreciation for it makes me think I'd enjoy a piece of hardware designed that way. Every other drum plugin I've looked at is more than I need and I'd rather have hands-on with a physical gadget nowadays.

Maschine looks really cool as a hardware controller, but it is expensive, large (I'm already out of workspace), yet another thing to integrate into a DAW, and still just software (not standalone)... and it kinda killed Kore, which I still feel was a mistake.

I'm a bit sick of mousing on a screen to make music (it partially has to do with a small screen but I really like the immediacy of hardware, in theory), though i've done well with with software thus far. I'm more sick of the complexity of software, especially over time as things revise (I don't know how anyone can lock their system down and never upgrade anything ever; we're forced to by something). The idea of instant recall on plugins was great until we discovered it was a lie. How instant recall is that project you worked on five years ago when you've moved to a new version of your DAW, synths, OS, or platform? Maybe we were better off when we didn't have instant recall because we didn't expect it and weren't disappointed.

I'm trying to find a comfortable way to make use of my hardware synths to make music. I'm not an instrumentalist; the use of a sequencer is really part of who I am as a musician, so I do still need to use MIDI and prefer its flexibility. Recording pure audio only isn't something I'm comfortable with (I've done this in the past and have regretted it because of finding recording defects that I can't remove, and not having any idea what the original sound source was, to recreate it, because it was an impulsive recording session- tip for beginners: make notes!!).

I love the idea of turning on a hardware gadget and playing, as much as I love the ideal of integrated instant recall, and love even more the idea of plugging bits of gear into other gear to get new sounds from old gear. I like direct control over things with actual buttons, knobs, sliders, instead of the frustration of awkward mouse-based stuff (or the time spent mapping screen controls to generic hardware). So all this drum machine and hardware synth stuff intrigues me ... But I'm poor and have lots of stuff to use already. So I watch the hardware with curiosity. I'd love to get some hands-on time with these gadgets, just to know if it would be something for me in the future.

This is what the original post got me thinking about. I assume that the "TL;DR" summary is: I'd love to have a drum machine in my studio as an option, and hope they continue being made.

As for whether drum machines are dead... I'm not qualified to opine.
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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Jace-BeOS wrote: Maschine looks really cool as a hardware controller, but it is expensive, large (I'm already out of workspace), yet another thing to integrate into a DAW, and still just software (not standalone)... and it kinda killed Kore, which I still feel was a mistake.
Maschine does have a stand-alone executable. Also, there's the Mikro version that's fairly small and only $300 USD. Not too bad considering what it does.

However, I think if I were in the market for such things today I'd pass on Maschine and stick to Live/Push. I really like the way I can create clips in the session view and then drag them into the arrangement view that's up on my second monitor. When I get the song structure like I want it, I just start looping the arrangement. Maschine is far clumsier to use for something like that.
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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I just meant that the Maschine controller is attractive but still is tied to software.

I never could learn Live's loop view. I don't work with loops much, and find it tedious to turn my own music into loops, so that's probably why. Then again, I also find it would be really nice if my musical sections COULD be moved around more easily. But how would I deal with offsetting delayed content (my last track has a custom built orch hit from several tracks of instruments; the effects and unavoidable string swells added significant delay and I had to offset these clips a lot, which made extending my song a real chore because drag and drop of copied clips with snap to time wasn't so helpful).

But again, it's the desire to escape software for everything that interests me in hardware. I think I'm just suffering computer complexity/bug PTSD :hihi:
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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nm
Last edited by 3.141 on Thu May 08, 2014 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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not having to save.
after using a computer for a long time, you go to exit a mode..
and now you pause, because you think, 'should i save?' and you
don't have to, of course. that pause might be introducing a bit
of lag in the workflow now though.

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nm

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mztk wrote:not having to save.
after using a computer for a long time, you go to exit a mode..
and now you pause, because you think, 'should i save?' and you
don't have to, of course. that pause might be introducing a bit
of lag in the workflow now though.
Then don't buy an Electribe. You can program very fast on them, faster than on anything else, but you have to save.

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I want the Nord Drum II! Sounds so good, don't know why but no software I've used sounds so snappy and crisp.
Aiynzahev-sounds
Sound Designer - Soundsets for Pigments, Repro, Diva, Virus TI, Nord Lead 4, Serum, DUNE2, Spire, and others

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lynxx wrote:
mztk wrote:not having to save.
after using a computer for a long time, you go to exit a mode..
and now you pause, because you think, 'should i save?' and you
don't have to, of course. that pause might be introducing a bit
of lag in the workflow now though.
Then don't buy an Electribe. You can program very fast on them, faster than on anything else, but you have to save.
oh yeah... :) and on the volcas...must've been thinking about yamaha..
what i wish, with the electribe, is that you could save without stopping
playback ;) (that's the one)

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Having to save really irritates me. I can understand having to do it if you're going to work on something else on the machine, but if you want to shut down for a while and come back to it, you have to think of a spare location, remember where that is. No big deal maybe, but if the thing has flash memory, why can't it resume as you left it when you switch it on?

Some Nord keyboards have a "Live" mode. When in Live mode, switch off then switch on and it's back. You don't have to save. It remembers the live setting even if you switch to normal program mode. Every edit you make is immediately stored to flash - no need to save!
Don't know if the Nord drum has this - probably not. My Nord Electro has 4 live memories and in the studio these are all I work with - I can't be bothered saving patches.

I think it's about time gear reviews marked a "con" for any digital gear that doesn't resume it's last setting on power up.

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