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

[vurt]

gonna get some food sorted, then get upstairs and feed it to nebulae

the bowl, not soup, that would be messy.

[cryophonik]

Just replaced my MOTU 828mk3 and Yamaha HS80Ms/HS10W monitoring system with a UAD Apollo Twin X and Genelec 8020ds and 7040a subwoofer. I'm also about to upgrade my Maschine mk2 to a mk3 later today because I want the new pads, better screens, audio input, etc. Looking for a compact bass amp for my small studio, but nothing jumps out at me yet, and also trying to decide on another hardware synth.....

[WatchTheGuitar]

Minilogue XD arrived and I love everything about the hardware and I hate everything about the software. It’s a pain in the posterior getting the USB MIDI driver installed as it needs to appear in a MIDI device 0-9 slot and then when I finally managed that it screwed up detecting the synth for the firmware update so I had to set all manually, then with that done I couldn’t get the librarian software to connect at all, kept timing out. So currently no way to load any fun new devices which was a major reason I bought the bloody thing.

Edit: Got the librarian thing working. Basic fix was to untick all the tickboxes and perform operations manually plus tip from a web site worked which is never use 'Receive all/Send all' but use shift click to select all the rows then use 'Receive/Send'. Then it finally worked.

[WatchTheGuitar]

In a change of pace I just bought a Raspberry Pi 4B and an in/out MIDI port expander for it. I'm a coder, but as that's the day job I try to avoid doing it with music which is a hobby, but got so exasperated with a couple of shitty Roland decisions around their hardware - namely that it's nigh on impossible to get my Boss GP-10 pedal to output MIDI into Windows 10 and also losing the multitrack audio option from the TR-8S unless I make the drum machine my main bloody interface* that I'm going to see if I can write some code that lets me take GP-10 USB in and provide MIDI out and also something that lets me record the audio streams from the TR-8S onto the Pi so I can use the network with my PC to start/stop that recording and export the files over to the PC. I think both are going to be tricky, but the first task with the MIDI may be easier to get my head round as I haven't touched streaming audio in yonks.

* In ASIO, I did get it working in ASIO4ALL, but it made my DAWs very crashy and not worth using it.

[pekbro]

Pre-ordered a Hologram Microcosm for August...

[Tveten]

Picked up a Roland JV-1010 in a flea shop, ~9 usd...it also had the keyboard of the 60-70s expansion card in it . Works like a charm!

Not a synth guy but I also have the korg ex-800 (which I got for free long ago), so maybe I should have a nice way to control them. Any suggestions how to get the most fun out of them?

[fairlyclose]

Roli Lightpad - seems pretty good although I wish it were more sensitive so I could tap it with much less pressure

[ondevive]

Really wanna buy a Microcosm pedal this year to pair with my dawless setup I'm working on (novation circuit tracks+digitakt as main grooveboxes, with volca keys and bass)

[elxsound]

Roli Lightpad - seems pretty good although I wish it were more sensitive so I could tap it with much less pressure

Yeah, you gotta save the violent thoughts before trying to take advantage of velocity input. It does fine for everything else though. Its crazy to me that this is a big improvement over the first version!

[toonertik]

Mindphaser dropped in today!

Nice one.. Mine arrived 22nd... in system on 22nd..

It fits in well with the Omega-Phi and Generate 3.. I'm finding the sounds I want from it and still much more to find.

Here's a kinda thrashing grungy gtr with just the one Mindphaser... any OSC that lets me abuse it with injecting volts and does this is ok by me.. I've got some other stuff that is so different.

viewtopic.php?p=8151442

[pekbro]

Really wanna buy a Microcosm pedal this year to pair with my dawless setup I'm working on (novation circuit tracks+digitakt as main grooveboxes, with volca keys and bass)

The Microcosm is cool, though I guess its not suited to every kind of sound, it detects breaks or transients or something, so it can be difficult to trigger on mixed tracks. Thats what I want actually, just be aware of that. Still things that dont rely on that eg the reverb and individual effects can work separately i believe. And i dont even know what you can do with midi yet. i will report back.

*I only mention this because of the DAW-less workflow thing.

[elxsound]

Just ordered an A-101-2v. I watched too many LPG videos. I can see why Natural Gate stands out but it’s not an option yet.

I still want to grab an optomix later but I think the Doepfer one will still have a home because of the filter controls.

I was really hoping to like the NE Sinc Bucina but at least in the videos it couldn’t pull off the rubbery or wooden sounds. I think it was the source audio but just couldn’t tell.

I also was hoping to like the Pico LPG because it’s 3hp would be a nice fit, but I knew I’d miss the res controls.

[pekbro]

Just ordered an A-101-2v. I watched too many LPG videos. I can see why Natural Gate stands out but it’s not an option yet.

I still want to grab an optomix later but I think the Doepfer one will still have a home because of the filter controls.

I was really hoping to like the NE Sinc Bucina but at least in the videos it couldn’t pull off the rubbery or wooden sounds. I think it was the source audio but just couldn’t tell.

I also was hoping to like the Pico LPG because it’s 3hp would be a nice fit, but I knew I’d miss the res controls.

LPG are cool, but also boring "most of the time" imo. YMMV of course.

[elxsound]

Just ordered an A-101-2v. I watched too many LPG videos. I can see why Natural Gate stands out but it’s not an option yet.

I still want to grab an optomix later but I think the Doepfer one will still have a home because of the filter controls.

I was really hoping to like the NE Sinc Bucina but at least in the videos it couldn’t pull off the rubbery or wooden sounds. I think it was the source audio but just couldn’t tell.

I also was hoping to like the Pico LPG because it’s 3hp would be a nice fit, but I knew I’d miss the res controls.

LPG are cool, but also boring "most of the time" imo. YMMV of course.

I think most of my next modules will fall into the boring category.

There’s some sounds I’d like to be able to pull off that I can’t quite get with the LPG on 0-coast. I know it won’t be every day use, but I’m on my way with some decent shaping options between the dual mini ADSR, Cascade and now the doepfer LPG.

I think Maths is next.

[pekbro]

Just ordered an A-101-2v. I watched too many LPG videos. I can see why Natural Gate stands out but it’s not an option yet.

I still want to grab an optomix later but I think the Doepfer one will still have a home because of the filter controls.

I was really hoping to like the NE Sinc Bucina but at least in the videos it couldn’t pull off the rubbery or wooden sounds. I think it was the source audio but just couldn’t tell.

I also was hoping to like the Pico LPG because it’s 3hp would be a nice fit, but I knew I’d miss the res controls.

LPG are cool, but also boring "most of the time" imo. YMMV of course.

I think most of my next modules will fall into the boring category.

There’s some sounds I’d like to be able to pull off that I can’t quite get with the LPG on 0-coast. I know it won’t be every day use, but I’m on my way with some decent shaping options between the dual mini ADSR, Cascade and now the doepfer LPG.

I think Maths is next.

Maths is great, also a decent envelope will get you pretty far. I need to get another Maths
at some point. It's friggen huge though.