Old man analogue numpty moments

[kritikon]

So...was finally getting to have a full blown twiddle around with my MonoPoly today. Making some great noises - especially the arp cycling-oscillator thing - which is one of the main reasons I bought it. Always loved that, especially when you start bringing in the sync and cross mod. Even got to wiring up my old rack FX (Lexicon and an Alesis SR24 thingy just so I can slap on some trippy FX as I twiddle away my happiness), so there goes another hour of fartarseing around at the back of the desk in a dark studio trying to find 12 ins/outs and patch them all up to the patchbay for ease of use - did I say ease? No, I meant aggravation, and tripping over at least 2 keyboard stands to get to the back of the desk and the racks. Old men don't bend anywhere near as well as young men, let me tell you. (Around the back of desks, you filthy minded pervert)

Then I think I'll get it in a nice dubby track I'm working on, with a shitload of delay all over the arp (as you do). Only of course...being analogue I can't for the life of me sync the arp clock to the DAW. Was thinking as it has midi already that it would automatically sync up to midi clock via the DAW, but no. So I check the back panel cos I know it's got all kinds of CV inputs etc. Yeah - it has a trig in and a separate arp trig too. I have an old Kenton fancy 4 channel thing with all kinds of CV/aux controls/trigs/clocks etc that I've had for years - still use for my MS20, though fuctifino how to set it up properly nowadays as I set it up yrs ago when I was stoned. Spent another 30 mins finding the f**king manual then reading the gobbledygook.

So...try to set up a clock trig. No way that worked on the arp though common sense says it should, but I figure maybe that's actually what the arp clock input is for you eejit! . So I fiddle about for another 30 mins trying to figure out how the hell I get an arp clock from the Kenton into the MonoPoly. No can do. Finally think just maybe it's an idea to read the Behringer manual - which is about 2 pages long. I mean f**king hell...it says very clearly that I go to Behringer and d/l some app to change the settings in the MonoPoly and it tells me to get Synthtool to change all kinds of settings in not only the MonoPoly but every other Behringer synth I have. That would have been nice to know. If only they had suggested that maybe the manual is there for a really good reason - oh yeah, they did. Twats!

So I spend another 30 mins trying to find Synthtool going round and around but can only find SynthTribe which seems to be pretty pictures of their synths so I dl it then delete it. It did nothing useful. Spend another 30 mins surfing their forum that tells me actually Synthtool has been renamed SynthTribe and dl that, connect your analogue synths via USB and all will be revealed. I mean, I'm an old man and I don't expect USB to actually do anything on an all-analogue synth. So I redownload SynthTool-that-has-been-renamed SnythTribe and lo and behold! In one easy click I reset the MonoPoly to receive arp clock via midi and Bingo! it works. I also in several easy clicks update the OS on 4 different Behringer analogue synths. I'll repeat that - update the OS via USB on all-analogue synths...WTF!

It amazes me how I can be such a f**king numpty sometimes. Have I turned into vurt or something? I haven't touched drugs for years...Times like these, I realise how the world has sped on past my slowing-down awareness. It was dark by the time I got my f**king arp playing - and very nice it was too.

[BONES]

Yeah, hardware is so much less hassle than software, isn't it? Mind you, it's not all roses - my new monitors' on/off switch is around the back of the speaker so I have to get up to turn them on or off. It's a total f**king nightmare!

[kritikon]

On/off switches on speakers - that's just not acceptable. That's what amps are for.

As for s/w - trouble is yeah, you can do that all so much quicker, but personally I would have given up after 15 minutes and not played on it at all because of the sheer joy-sucking misery of using a mouse or pad for anything creative. I'll get joy out of the knobs once I figure out how to set it up. I won't get joy out of a plugin and I'll go do something else instead of music. Not that I don't have lots of things the missus would like me to do but that's another story...

[pixel85]

" Old man shouting at clouds because he has to get up from his char"

Fun fact with Behringer arp/sync synced to DAW: just because it works today, it doesn't mean that it will work tomorrow
Recently seq decided to play about 100 times faster than it should. What a beautiful sound to enjoy!

At least you could move your stiff bones and do some physical activity under the table

Don't know bout you, but I still enjoy those inconveniences of hardware. After all, it's an additional activity for the body and a bit different task for the brain, than just sitting in front of a computer like an old fart

[cryophonik]

Don't know bout you, but I still enjoy those inconveniences of hardware. After all, it's an additional activity for the body and a bit different task for the brain, than just sitting in front of a computer like an old fart

Nailed it

[kritikon]

Yeah. Mind you, I fiddle around the back of hw like an old fart too. I like the sound of a too-fast sequencer. You could give some Dutch deathcore megaBPM a go - 250BPM is a prerequisite for that isn't it?

Actually - re Behringer syncing - I set the arp to the fastest definition - was 24ppq or something but it had 4 options. I haven't tried the lower ones - do they slow the arp down? One of them is 1pps or something that sounds very slow. It seems to work OK at 24ppq.

[BONES]

On/off switches on speakers - that's just not acceptable. That's what amps are for.

Maybe in the '60s but I'll take built-in amps that are designed to work specifically with the speakers every time. Especially these days, where they have separate amps for the driver and tweeter. Active monitors are actually a big deal for me because they allow me to live on the boat. I don't think I could manage an amp in the space I have.

As for s/w - trouble is yeah, you can do that all so much quicker, but personally I would have given up after 15 minutes and not played on it at all because of the sheer joy-sucking misery of using a mouse or pad for anything creative.

I'm the exact opposite. For me, my computer is creativity. It allows me to be a graphic designer and 3D artist and to make music at a level I could never have imagined, even 20 years ago. I spend 12-14 hours a day in front of a computer and 90% of that time I am doing creative work. If I was still using hardware, my production level would be where it was 25 years ago, when I had my Trinity, because that stuff hasn't really improved since those days.

OTOH, what you describe in your first post is the absolute death of creativity. With hardware you have to be an engineer first and creativity spends too much time playing second fiddle.

I'll get joy out of the knobs once I figure out how to set it up. I won't get joy out of a plugin and I'll go do something else instead of music.

You must have a lot more time on your hands than I do because I have hardware sitting around the cabin but no time to even consider setting any of it up. I'd much rather spend that time actually working on music - tweaking something for our next album or running through a set for our next gig. Always so much to do, so little time.

Don't know bout you, but I still enjoy those inconveniences of hardware. After all, it's an additional activity for the body and a bit different task for the brain, than just sitting in front of a computer like an old fart

Hardly. It's like owning a street cafe - every morning you have to bring out all the tables and chairs and set them up before you can serve a single customer. The worst part of the day is spent doing pointless tasks instead of what you want to be doing. If I want to do something different, I'll cook dinner or clean the bathroom or something as mundane as setting up my hardware.

[zerocrossing]

Don't know bout you, but I still enjoy those inconveniences of hardware. After all, it's an additional activity for the body and a bit different task for the brain, than just sitting in front of a computer like an old fart

To me, software is like skiing downhill, and hardware is like cross country skiing. With software I can really fly and get things done and even experiment more because things are so easy to try. Hardware is slower, but if almost forces me to regard what I’m doing and find different paths.

[BONES]

I still have all the discipline I developed in my hardware days and I still spend a lot of time improving the efficiency of my projects. I'm still always looking for ways to achieve my aims with less. Just in the last few days I've removed parts from a couple of songs I've been working into a new live set. If I can't hear straight away what it's doing, it goes. Or if there are two parts I can combine into one, I'm always up for that. So I'm also looking for those different paths, I'm just doing it in the same place I do everything else.

I look at the way people work in YT videos and I can't believe they ever get anything done. They seem to just keep adding and adding and adding stuff, where I'm always trying to get rid of stuff - effects, tracks/parts, anything that simplifies the project and makes it easier to work with. e.g. My bandmate invariably ends up using multiple drum instruments, because he'll start with a simple 4/4 kick and add stuff to make it more interesting. So the first thing I do when he sends me something he's been working on is combine all the drums into a single instrument or replace his 2 or 3 drum instruments with something else entirely. It's a kind of profligacy that really annoys me for some reason.

[pixel85]

Yeah. Mind you, I fiddle around the back of hw like an old fart too. I like the sound of a too-fast sequencer. You could give some Dutch deathcore megaBPM a go - 250BPM is a prerequisite for that isn't it?

Actually - re Behringer syncing - I set the arp to the fastest definition - was 24ppq or something but it had 4 options. I haven't tried the lower ones - do they slow the arp down? One of them is 1pps or something that sounds very slow. It seems to work OK at 24ppq.

Yeah it was all fun and giggles until I turned synchronization off and seq didn't stop (it hang up until I turned Odyssey few times off/on)
I don't remember seeing option to change ppq in Odyssey/app. I need to look again.

[jdoo]

Great story, that I am certain a lot of us have a heaping amount of empathy for. I've lost many an afternoon crawling around behind equipment, re-arranging stuff, etc. Would it be more efficient going full ITB? Sure BONES. I'm hoping hearing that makes you settle down and quit shouting at windmills. You're working yourself in a lather needlessly. Some of us, are not on the clock anymore.

[BONES]

I'm not sure why you might think I am. Yes, my time is limited but it still takes me 6 months to get a song right. As I intimated, I categorise this kind of shit along with cleaning the bathroom and cooking dinner. i.e. Something I'll go out of my way to minimise my exposure to. It's just utter tedium and I have to do more than enough of it when we play live (or rehearse), I hav eless than no desire to expose myself to it for no benefit.

[ChamomileShark]

I've spent many hours trying to work out why something isn't making a sound. I'm just grateful that most of the MIDI gear has a light that shows if it has recieved a MIDI message so that's one thing that can be eliminated. Then it's simply a matter of audio routing from the equipment, the patchbay, the mixing desk or DAW. Or the synth itself in the case of the modulars.

[kritikon]

Oh yeah...the number of times I found out why something wasn't making noise after I repatched every lead...not turned the f**king thing on at the wall. A particular one that I seem to like doing to catch myself out is that sneaky little knob on the sound interface that has "DAW" at one side and "input" on the other side. For some odd reason I like setting it to DAW when I want to play my synths.

[cryophonik]

Yeah, hardware problems are a PITA, but the majority of the time (for me) it ends up being user error. Regardless, I think I've lost 100x more time troubleshooting software problems/crashes and anything related to bad Windows drivers than I ever have with hardware.