2021: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2021)

[vurt]

ive decided i hate modular videos as well
been watching some, well listening, to chill at night, not even researching purchases.
but obviously, everyone uses something awesome
stupid lists getting longer!!!

This is exactly what scares me about going modular! It all looks awesome. It's a good thing I don't have the space to go modular (yet)!

that's the issue!! i only have so much rack space available, and no more plugs for more racks!!!

tbf, the same thing happens with pedals
there's just so much lovely stuff!

[justin3am]

I've talked to Aaron at 1010 a couple of times, when I was testing the Waverazor module for Taiho and Rob (MOK). He's a great guy and has a lot of interesting ideas. He certainly has a keen sense of how people use the stuff he makes and I think shows in his UI designs. My friend KD says Aaron used to work at NI's LA office, with him.

I love the idea of the Black Box and the Blue Box. If I were still playing live sets, I might use of each (I had been using a second Octatrack, so I would't have to pull the main one out of my studio, lol).

[rob_lee]

It's been a busy 2021 so far, today I purchased a Yamaha 01v96i digital mixer brand new for £899.00 in the UK, Iv'e seen them priced a lot more elsewhere today so think I got a great price.
Also taken delivery of an iConnectivity MIO XL midi/usb interface and also the Faderfox Trio of the EC4/PC4/UC4 modules from Thomann. Iv'e ordered a Modal Cobalt 8M to play alongside the Modal Argon 8M purchased from BAX at Christmas.

The studio set up is looking pretty good now. I think the only thing I'll buy this year is the Behringer RD-9 whenever they decide to release it, I heard March or thereabouts.

[spunkmuffin]

Faderfox Trio of the EC4/PC4/UC4 modules

All three?! That's a lot of control. You must really really really need control.

[elxsound]

I've talked to Aaron at 1010 a couple of times, when I was testing the Waverazor module for Taiho and Rob (MOK). He's a great guy and has a lot of interesting ideas. He certainly has a keen sense of how people use the stuff he makes and I think shows in his UI designs. My friend KD says Aaron used to work at NI's LA office, with him.

I love the idea of the Black Box and the Blue Box. If I were still playing live sets, I might use of each (I had been using a second Octatrack, so I would't have to pull the main one out of my studio, lol).

He definitely seems to respond to feedback too.

As I get on more and more with the Blackbox, I have some questions and feature requests that I hope he'll consider. The one thing I hate right now with Blackbox is that it has 3 outputs, but I can't turn off monitoring of the output to use as a proper send.

I know this is where Bluebox falls in place... but I'm really hoping that adding this option can be thought of as a gateway to wanting a Bluebox. For me, I'm still going to get the Bluebox, but I want the feature in so I can use Blackbox independently when it makes sense.

I've spent this week reorganizing all the little gadgets and pedalboards and yes you are 100% right, the "right-size" pedalboard is a myth! I'm not done yet, but I think I'm getting a better picture of how I'd like to work (when not in the box).

I still have to go this (pedalboard) route because of the shared space of our NYC apartment. Everything needs to have a home but still needs to be accessible so it's not a chore to make music and record something. It's an expensive, time-consuming dilemma, but necessary.

[justin3am]

Some recent studio additions...










Too much fun to bother dusting. lol
I have all the synths set to Local Off, with all MIDI I/O routed through a pair of MIO XLs and a MIO XM in the other room, so I can play any synth from any keyboard or sequencer. Really nice that the MIOs are USB hosts and communicate between each other via ethernet.

The Linnstrument is fast becoming my favorite thing to play. I still don't have any skill/technique for it yet but I'm getting there. It's also great for sound design stuff. Just drawing patterns leads to some really neat stuff but I'm on the lookout for more unconventional ways to play it.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Nice. Couple of boxes I don’t recognise there - what are the cream box next to the hydrasynth and the silver grey unit on the left in the tier below?

I also use my poly synths with local off so sometimes find I’m playing both from each other’s keyboards.

[justin3am]

The cream colored synth is an Ambika. More info here: viewtopic.php?f=180&t=416644
The silver one in the middle tier is a Tasty Chips GR-1. It's an interesting thing. MPE compatible granular synth that's well suited for big, dense grain clouds. Really nice for evolving drones and textures.

I just got the Prophet 6 hooked up tonight and the sound of it is absolutely glorious. I'm running it through a Phoenix dual Nice DI as a line driver, and the transformer saturation works so well with the character of this synth. There are a lot of great analog polys out there right now but I think I made the right choice, for my needs. It's definitely a sweet-spot machine but it can get weird enough. It's just super lush and huge sounding.

[WatchTheGuitar]

The cream colored synth is an Ambika. More info here: viewtopic.php?f=180&t=416644

Had only heard of Mutable Instruments in relation to eurorack before, had no idea they did that sort of thing. Looks cool. I know from past experience that I only have to look at a kit and it explodes (yes I did see you had some fun with resistors and a display) so kudos for the self build.

I do a lot of stuff in the box sequenced and bounced in a DAW so a hardware granular synth seems like massive overkill, but I guess you're trying to do most of your stuff 'as live'? Or is the hardware granular synth a massive leap over software equivalents?

[rob_lee]

Faderfox Trio of the EC4/PC4/UC4 modules

All three?! That's a lot of control. You must really really really need control.

I do indeed PC4 is dedicated to the drum machines control, the EC4 controls all racked and desktop synths and the UC4 controls various other stuff in Live and Logic.

[SHall1000]

Iv'e ordered a Modal Cobalt 8M to play alongside the Modal Argon 8M

I have an Argon 8M and like the look of the Cobalt. Let us know what you think. Do they compliment or overlap?

[RichieWitch]

I've been shopping around for about six months for a tube compressor to replace my HHB Radius 3 "Fat Man". What I love about the Fat Man is that it has tons of character--super crunchy and gritty--but because the circuit is based on a single tube, there is too much crosstalk and you lose the stereo image.
What I ended up with is the Radius 30, which I thought would be a true stereo version of the Fat Man. However, what I ended up with is a clean, silky smooth workhorse and mix-bus compressor. Even when pushed hard, it remains mellow and under-stated compared to the Fat Man. It sounds really damn sweet to my ears, but I've had to keep the Fat Man stashed with the extra gear in case I need that crunch and grit again.

radius30.jpg

I also picked up Eventide's Black Hole pedal this week. I've used the plugin since it was first released and the thought of having it as a hardware unit on an aux bus was too much to resist. Today, I had it patched into my Hypersynth Xenophone, recording some weird and wonderful bass loops and drones.

blackhole.jpg

My only other plan for 2021 is to finally expand my Eurorack rig, the "Chaos Mangler". I've kept it at 84 hp x 12U for the last several years, so I'm looking to expand to 104 hp x 15U. That will let me buy duplicates (or triplicates) of my favorite modules to double the amount of layering I can do, and I want to add some super-slow modulation and a few more logic modules. I'm thinking I'll pull the trigger around May.

[pekbro]

That Xenophone looks cool, those Hypersynth guys have been around for a long time, though most
have no idea who they are probably.

[justin3am]

I do a lot of stuff in the box sequenced and bounced in a DAW so a hardware granular synth seems like massive overkill, but I guess you're trying to do most of your stuff 'as live'? Or is the hardware granular synth a massive leap over software equivalents?

Probably overkill, lol. ITB software mostly has the advantage when it comes to granular stuff. But there is something about a focused instrument. The GR-1 is actually pretty simple but it's really easy to work with and sounds good with a wide variety of material. When I'm in sound design mode, I'll still turn to Reaktor and Bitwig devices with a MIDI controller, for the most part. When I'm working on a song, especially if I'm collaborating with someone, I'm more likely to use hardware.

[whyterabbyt]

Incredibly unexcitingly, a Doepfer PSU3 to sub into my older LC9 9U case.

Also a set of busboard cables, since the 5V isnt connected to the existing PSU2 (*)

The PSU-2 will get subbed into my very first original A-100 case, which has a PSU-1 at the moment, and at the same time, I'll probably start taking my 6U G6 cases apart to rebuild as 9U cases.

Added in an A-151 Quad Sequential Switch and an A-138E Quad Toaster(**)

(*) Anyone have a clue what the spade connector and cable specs are that Doepfer use, cant find a reference to it anywhere?

Also, anyone tried retrofitting proper keyed box headers onto a pre-v6 Doepfer busboard?

(** Actually Polarizer/Attenuator/Crossfade/Mixer. But like most of my recent module acquisitions, its very bread and butter stuff, boomtish)