2023: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2023)

[elxsound]

It's a very strange piece of kit for sure. A bit too early to say if I'll keep it or not. I have a colleague who has owned the thing twice, always ended up selling it and I can definitely see why. It's a bit of a bipolar piece of equipment.

My idea was to use it as a "live" performance mixer, not that I do any live gigs ever, but for my own experimentation and then just record the output into Reaper. I'm slowly but surely going towards simplifying my setup and trying to quench my obsession with always keeping all revisions and takes. I'm trying to go back to the old me, before I got all audio nerdy, and just hit record and be done with it. To hell with fine tuning and tweaking when it comes to just messing around with things. I obsess with details and fine tuning as my day job so I'm going to start ignoring those traits on my days off.

When I sold off some pedals earlier I was offered a MK1 Octatrack as trade. It was a good deal, but that work flow scares me a bit.

I never had hands experience with Octatrack, but I was also trying to simplify things so turned it down.
I still want one though!

I’ve also been trying to just hit record more and just play. It’s not always easy to let go but it’s more fun when I do!

[justin3am]

It's a very strange piece of kit for sure. A bit too early to say if I'll keep it or not. I have a colleague who has owned the thing twice, always ended up selling it and I can definitely see why. It's a bit of a bipolar piece of equipment.

My idea was to use it as a "live" performance mixer, not that I do any live gigs ever, but for my own experimentation and then just record the output into Reaper. I'm slowly but surely going towards simplifying my setup and trying to quench my obsession with always keeping all revisions and takes. I'm trying to go back to the old me, before I got all audio nerdy, and just hit record and be done with it. To hell with fine tuning and tweaking when it comes to just messing around with things. I obsess with details and fine tuning as my day job so I'm going to start ignoring those traits on my days off.

That's rad! Hope you are enjoying your Octatrack so far!
I still have a mk1 OT which I use for performances and I have a mk2 to use in the studio.

I think the key to getting the most from the OT is to not try to use everything it does (as counterintuitive as that sounds). I've known a lot of people who got one to use as a multi-channel effect processor/dynamic mixer and I think that's a good way to start. Then one day, you may have the desire to resample something or send MIDI to something else and it'll just feel easier to do so directly from the OT.

That's kinda how it happened to me. I got the OT to playback samples in weird ways but the more I worked with it the more I felt like, "well, I could do that from the computer or something else, but I'm already have the OT in front of me..."

[bmanic]

I finally had a few hours to play with the Octatrack. It's very weird how people on various forums seem to dislike the actual sound quality of it but to my ears it sounds awesome! It's not hi-fi in any way but to my ears it's really pleasant sounding and I love the wonky effects.. even the weird reverbs. They are really unique sounding and thus useful to me. I have plenty of high-end reverbs both as hardware and plugins so having these really strange sounding things in the Octatrack is very nice!

I also really like the compressor when used as more of a saturator than a compressor. It's surprisingly versatile and of course due to how trig locks work, it can be a beast when you start mangling incoming audio or samples with it.

Perhaps due to my experience with various older digital hardware (like the Kurzweil Kxxx series) I don't find the Octatrack at all difficult to understand or use. Sure it has some strange menu options and some questionable oddities but difficult? Nah..

It's a whole other ballgame though when trying to do choreographed and carefully planned live playing. I guess it really benefits from being treated as a "true" instrument, one that you have to really practice. Then again, that's true for all of these things to get the most out of them (like MPE controllers, MPC, Push etc), right?

[whyterabbyt]

Elmyra 2 Desktop kit came back into stock at Thonk. Ordered.

[vurt]

Elmyra 2 Desktop kit came back into stock at Thonk. Ordered.

im expecting my prebuilt one hopefully soon!!!
looking forward to endlessly looping it through cosmos

thanks for bringing it to my attention in the first place

[whyterabbyt]

Ah, somehow I thought it was either/or with the Cosmos, didnt realise you'd ordered both. Nice, should be pretty interesting together.

[vurt]

Ah, somehow I thought it was either/or with the Cosmos, didnt realise you'd ordered both. Nice, should be pretty interesting together.

i sold some bits for a decent wedge of cash (super heroes, not music) so figured id get both before it ends up being unobtainium or in my usual way, just dont get around to ordering

after a few days with cosmos, im finding more subtle use, is quite something too!
far more than just a huge spacey reverb sound.
and really nice on all manner of sounds, synths, guitar, orchestral stuff.

[justin3am]

Had a blast playing with Terra and Cosmos at our synth club meetup on Monday. I didn't get an opportunity to chat with the LA SOMA folks but it sounds like they may be handling support in the US. Sorry, I didn't have an opportunity to get their contact info, as I was mostly demoing my own gear.
I'm very torn about Terra. An incredibly expressive instrument! It was a lot of fun and felt pretty intuitive right away... but I just don't know how I would use it in my own music.

I haven't been buying stuff because we're saving for our next round of home improvements (new studio in the works) but Terra is very tempting. Then this morning, I was offered a C-L Plumbutter 2 for a price I couldn't refuse. So I didn't Can't wait to get it hooked up with my Coco and Lorre-Mill stuff.

[cryophonik]

Am I the only who has to consult Google every time someone mentions their new modular synth acquisition (i.e., 20x per day)?!

Google Translate needs "Modular Synth Geek" as a language.

[justin3am]

I know what you mean, lol! I used to keep up with all of the latest modular stuff but there's just too much these days.

[vurt]

I'm very torn about Terra. An incredibly expressive instrument! It was a lot of fun and felt pretty intuitive right away... but I just don't know how I would use it in my own music.

yeah, i put my name on the list as soon as it was announced, got my notice a few weeks back i could have one now, but id sort of backed off.
it does look fun, but it also looks like it deserves a performer, not someone who sits around at home

[elxsound]

Got my shipping notice for Gliss! The estimate is tomorrow, but given that it's shipping from Mouser in Texas and hasn't been scanned by UPS yet, I am skeptical.

Nice!!!!

Not sure where I fall in line, but can’t wait

Edit: Just checked and mine still says estimated ship date on August 11th. No shipping notice, so hopefully it’s on the way soon .

And just received my shipping notice.

Tracking is showing activity with a possible delivery date of Saturday!

[vurt]

[Moe Shinola]

Bought:
Roland J-6
Ibanez acoustic guitar
Mackie ProFX 10 v3 mixer
Modal Craftsynth 2.0
Ampeg 30-watt bass amp

WTB:
Roland MV-1 or MC-101
Korg Volca Kick
Waldorf Blofeld

[justin3am]

Got my shipping notice for Gliss! The estimate is tomorrow, but given that it's shipping from Mouser in Texas and hasn't been scanned by UPS yet, I am skeptical.

Nice!!!!

Not sure where I fall in line, but can’t wait

Edit: Just checked and mine still says estimated ship date on August 11th. No shipping notice, so hopefully it’s on the way soon .

And just received my shipping notice.

Tracking is showing activity with a possible delivery date of Saturday!

I've really been missing my Soundmachines LS1 lately and totally forgot about the Gliss. I'd be interested to hear how y'all like it. The LS1 was so simple and immediate, hoping that Gliss is similar in that regard.