Is there any real value in buying hardware?

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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selig
RE Developer
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

17 May 2018

normen wrote:
selig wrote:
17 May 2018
OTOH, if you approach guitar from a piano player’s perspective, then there is one tone, period. All others are sacrilege, and no sample can ever come close to how the “real deal” feels, now or in any foreseeable future. [emoji6]
Well, let's not play as if ALL great musicians are that esoteric :) A great many of them don't care HOW as long as they can feel and play - but obviously the tried way is most of the time the safest. But yeah, there is "clubs" where that is so, in (European) classical music theres also a lot of that going on, an outright fear of electro-acoustics, certain manufacturers being fetishized etc.
I see both types, which is why I mentioned both approaches. Neither is right or wrong, some are esoteric, some are not. That was my point! (Or that was my INTENDED point, maybe I missed the mark).


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jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

17 May 2018

raymondh wrote:
06 Apr 2016

But... I don't think hardware always sounds better than software. I really like the sound out of software synths and there are some damn good synths in the Reason environment that will more than meet most sonic requirements. And soft synths are so much easier to use than hardware too.
Let your own ears be the judge rather than buying into the academic hardware vs software or analog vs digital online debates.
I sampled Europa today into the Ensoniq EPS 16+. There was a dramatic and immediate effect and deepening of the sound....especially the low end. I have a pretty extensive (enough to make my studio room 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the house) collection of vintage and modern analog synths and digital samplers....they get extensive use in every single song I write, and I don’t spend too much time wibbling away at BS patches either. I go for a great sound, sample it through a nice analog chain, and play the sampler in via EMIs. It’s the very best of both worlds, as I can use all the automation and control of Reason via MIDI CC controls on 20-30 EMIs on the same instrument.

Then again, I’m not sampling records or loops from some other song. My samples are unique creations based on sounds created in hardware that I can’t really recreate with stock Reason devices alone. That said, The Legend sounds like a freaking Moog. It’s uncanny....so of course I sampled that too :-)
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

17 May 2018

Faastwalker wrote:
03 May 2018
sublunar wrote:
02 May 2018


Same. I'd love to get that foot controller that was posted about in this forum recently so I could spend even less time staring at the screen. Hardware just feels good, man.
It does. The tactile interaction is STILL what's missing from software. We've had MIDI controllers for years now. Not many have come close to being the holy grail of hardware control. How many x8 knobs / sliders / buttons controllers have there been? Hundreds! Okay for many jobs. Not so good for controlling synths. There are some controllers with large numbers of knobs. But these tend to offer little in the way of feedback so you quickly loose track of which physical control is mapped to which software parameter, especially over multiple software instruments or FX.

One of the best controllers I've seen is the Push 2 designed for controlling Ableton. It's not cheap but it's a serious hardware controller for Live. Only 8 main physical knobs but there is a detailed LED panel that shows what each knobs is doing & provides real time feedback & other functions. It's very cool. I'd love something like this but with 3 or 4 rows of the 8 knobs with the LED panel under each. That would be an awesome controller for any music software. But the ultimate hardware controller is still something of an enigma.
I’d like to add Maschine to this statement. Dedicated hardware controller for a software instrument.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

18 May 2018

As a long time User of ,,expensive´´ Hardware i ...

uh.... ok.....
Image

Matt van K wrote:
17 May 2018
Hello,

As a long time User of ,,expensive´´ Hardware i would say:

Hardware NO! except it is an Instrument! No need for expander, no need for modules(except complete Systeminstruments with an own Idea of creating sounds) Not another Monosynth and not another polyphonic Version of ,,this´´ monophonic synth.

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normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 May 2018

selig wrote:
17 May 2018
I see both types, which is why I mentioned both approaches. Neither is right or wrong, some are esoteric, some are not. That was my point! (Or that was my INTENDED point, maybe I missed the mark).
Hah, nah I guess it was me subconsciously categorizing piano players as "proper musicians" and synth and guitar players as... not ^^

..which of course is complete nonsense and either comes from insecurity for not being a good piano player or from the idea that theres somehow a "proper" way to do music - which exists especially in European culture.

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selig
RE Developer
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Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

18 May 2018

normen wrote:
selig wrote:
17 May 2018
I see both types, which is why I mentioned both approaches. Neither is right or wrong, some are esoteric, some are not. That was my point! (Or that was my INTENDED point, maybe I missed the mark).
Hah, nah I guess it was me subconsciously categorizing piano players as "proper musicians" and synth and guitar players as... not ^^

..which of course is complete nonsense and either comes from insecurity for not being a good piano player or from the idea that theres somehow a "proper" way to do music - which exists especially in European culture.
My point was not to delegitimize either camp, but point out some folks (using guitar players as one example) have one instrument/sound (BB King, Chet Atkins, etc), and some have many (Adrian Belew, The Edge, Dave Gilmore, etc.). Maybe not the best examples, but trying to represent the two schools of though here.


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sublunar
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18 May 2018

selig wrote:
17 May 2018
amcjen wrote:
Just curious if you’ve tried a Kemper yet? It’s the first one that has actually fooled me—everything else fell short. (And by “fooled” I mean it sounds so good it has inspired me to play more often.)
Kempers are great if you approach guitar from a synth player perspective, e.g. you need more than one sound on a regular basis.

OTOH, if you approach guitar from a piano player’s perspective, then there is one tone, period. All others are sacrilege, and no sample can ever come close to how the “real deal” feels, now or in any foreseeable future. [emoji6]

Horses for courses, as always.

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You managed to explain it in far less words and perfectly concise. Well done. So I'll apologize in advance for the following wall of text.

I'd like to explain my position a little more just because I'm quite unorthodox in just about everything I do and often my take on things tend to get confused or lumped into the common misconceptions because people don't usually understand where I'm coming from, so they revert to popular opinion for some context into my perspective. But I quite often go in the opposite direction of popular opinion because I do independent research and I generally disregard what's popular unless my own personal research/taste agrees.

I don't base my sound on this or that artist. I'm very picky and I know exactly what I want. Putting it in words is near impossible but my ears know when they hear it. Now there are certain albums that to my mind stand out from a mixing standpoint, there's certain albums that stand out to me from a guitar tone standpoint. And those same artists with the same mixing engineers produce an audibly different tone from one album to the next. I've no loyalty to any one band/guitarists tone.

I want my tone to make my ears feel a certain way. My amp is not a very popular one and is discontinued. People online tend to bash it for not sounding like the other more popular models that the company produced.

The masses want clones. They want JCM 800 tone. They want Marshall tone because they want to sound like so and so. If you put out something new and different that doesn't sound like what people are used to, they go nuts. Hive mind forum echo chamber ensues.

I simply want what pleases my ears. Nothing more nothing less. If a digital plastic box made in China pleases my ears, then I'm sold.

In this regard, I've procured the type of guitar that I thought would help me achieve this. I've installed specific pickups to this end. My amp was chosen and I was 90% there. Then I replaced the speakers and now my tone pleases me 100%. It's not based on anyone else's sound, it's based on what my ears want. I'm not a purist for this or that type of amp technology. In fact, my amp is not even a tube amp (!). I do have a tube amp that I love the sound of, but it's not quite as good to my ears.

My only loyalty is to my ears.

I don't need different amp sounds because my volume knob and my amps channel section effectively alters the sound. When I want the full on face melting distortion, my volume knob is 100% and it's fucking glorious. When I want a more dialed back Jimi Hendrix type of tone, I dial back the volume knob to about 75% and switch to the crunch channel and voila! Fucking nails the sound I want. From modern sounding, pure distortion with pleasing harmonic overtones to the more classic sounding warm retro vibe ala Jimi Hendrix, my rig achieves the change through nothing but the volume knob on my guitar. Granted, the other parts of my signal chain get credit for this as well.

My point is that people tend to get too hung up on the gear itself. Wanting to sound like this or that amp/guitar combo because this or that artist used it. When most of the time I'd be willing to bet that the artist in question would have used a totally different setup if it had been available at the time. It just so happens that's what was used. But people idolize it. Zealous fanaticism hive mind ensues.

My approach has been to buy the most high quality individual components I can get my hands on. They may be viewed as one-trick ponies in and of themselves, but their high audio quality actually makes them incredibly versatile, more so than one would think. This goes against well established rules of guitar tone that internet forums will convince you are unbreakable.

A Kemper is surely incredibly versatile and fun. If I wanted huge variety of very specific popular tones, then I could buy a Kemper or I could buy a huge variety of popular amps. But I can achieve all the variety of sounds that my ears want through the rig that I have intentionally assembled for the singular purpose of pleasing my ears. It took a little trial and error but I have achieved what I set out to do.

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normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 May 2018

selig wrote:
18 May 2018
normen wrote:
Hah, nah I guess it was me subconsciously categorizing piano players as "proper musicians" and synth and guitar players as... not ^^

..which of course is complete nonsense and either comes from insecurity for not being a good piano player or from the idea that theres somehow a "proper" way to do music - which exists especially in European culture.
My point was not to delegitimize either camp, but point out some folks (using guitar players as one example) have one instrument/sound (BB King, Chet Atkins, etc), and some have many (Adrian Belew, The Edge, Dave Gilmore, etc.). Maybe not the best examples, but trying to represent the two schools of though here.
Yep, I now see it in your first post already - I was actually just openly reflecting on what happened there :)

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

18 May 2018

Sublunar....you mentioned people getting hung up on gear, and you’re 100% correct.

People act as if SPECIFIC gear really matters. I have a list of samplers and synths in my signature because that lets people know I’m pretty much a die-hard “samplist”...except unlike most I don’t shop for crates of records, I create sounds (and this is important) **in whatever way sounds best (to me)** and most of the time I like making sounds on hardware and sampling them into other hardware, and then sampling that sampler into another sampler, until it sounds RIGHT to me.

The real truth is that the GEAR literally doesn’t matter. Your songwriting, arrangement, recording, mixing/mastering, and workflow will inform your sound far more than any gear will. I’ve seen players take a crappy Chinese strat copy into an old Crate amplifier and play so well that it’s brought tears to my eyes....and I didn’t think at all about “tone”. I’ve got a lot of instruments, rack gear, and a console because I used to own and operate a commercial studio....otherwise I’d most likely be completely ITB with Reason. As it stands currently, I’m looking more and more to the new devices in Reason 10, and things like Players, which I’ve ignored, for inspiration and sample material. Grain and Europa have been a huge boon, and I’ve already created dozens of sounds in my samplers with them as the source sounds. The players (Scales and Chords comes to mind) are just now being explored....driving an EMI to send note data to synths that I thought I’d explored the depths of.

So, I guess I’m saying that while I would never get rid of my hardware setup, much of that is down to workflow and comfort level. I still program everything from scratch (even in Reason I always “reset device) and I still create fresh new sounds every day....people that have never used a hardware synth may find it limiting.

One last point: mapping something that sends every single control via MIDI can be very inspiring. I often control Reason’s synths from the Bass Station II, after having mapped its controls onto whichever synth I want real-time control over. THAT may be worth the $300 that a BSII costs, and call the monophonic analog synth a bonus.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

19 May 2018

So Gear does matter, then...?
jimmyklane wrote:
18 May 2018
Sublunar....you mentioned people getting hung up on gear, and you’re 100% correct.

People act as if SPECIFIC gear really matters. I have a list of samplers and...
The real truth is that the GEAR literally doesn’t matter.

So, I guess I’m saying that while I would never get rid of my hardware setup,...

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

19 May 2018

O1B wrote:
19 May 2018
So Gear does matter, then...?
jimmyklane wrote:
18 May 2018
Sublunar....you mentioned people getting hung up on gear, and you’re 100% correct.

People act as if SPECIFIC gear really matters. I have a list of samplers and...
The real truth is that the GEAR literally doesn’t matter.

So, I guess I’m saying that while I would never get rid of my hardware setup,...
No. Not at all.
A: you took pieces out and quoted me without context
B: my gear only matters to ME
C: as I stated before, if I wasn’t invested I’d probably be 100% ITB with Reason. I’ve heard results just as good and better than what I’m doing without anybody touching a famous vintage drum machine or $5000 analog polysynth.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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jayhosking
Posts: 613
Joined: 28 Nov 2016
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19 May 2018

This week, I picked up the Yamaha Reface CS, a simple and sturdy one-oscillator VA synth, based on another thread on the forum. I love its design, and love tinkering with the thing. While I know what all its parameters do, there's a different sort of "knowing" that comes from toying with the faders for hours on end. I feel like I've learned more intuitive information about synthesis this week than any other since I started making synth music, information that applies from Subtractor all the way to eXpanse or the Arturia V Collection. So I think there's something beneficial about experimenting in both hardware and software realms.

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O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

21 May 2018

So... you gear matters... but only to you then.... .

So... Your gear matters...
Don’t be afraid to say it.
jimmyklane wrote:
19 May 2018
O1B wrote:
19 May 2018
So Gear does matter, then...?

No. Not at all.
A: you took pieces out and quoted me without context
B: my gear only matters to ME
C: as I stated before, if I wasn’t invested I’d probably be 100% ITB with Reason. I’ve heard results just as good and better than what I’m doing without anybody touching a famous vintage drum machine or $5000 analog polysynth.

User avatar
O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

21 May 2018

I love that you love it! And, You’re welcome!,
And, I’m getting one too!!!
jayhosking wrote:
19 May 2018
This week, I picked up the Yamaha Reface CS, a simple and sturdy one-oscillator VA synth, based on another thread on the forum. I love its design, and love tinkering with the thing. While I know what all its parameters do, there's a different sort of "knowing" that comes from toying with the faders for hours on end. I feel like I've learned more intuitive information about synthesis this week than any other since I started making synth music, information that applies from Subtractor all the way to eXpanse or the Arturia V Collection. So I think there's something beneficial about experimenting in both hardware and software realms.

avasopht
Competition Winner
Posts: 3932
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

21 May 2018

For live:

Latency - seems to be a lot less of it in hardware without any threat of dropouts.

Different interfaces - I've used keyboard workstations when playing in churches for years and occasionally have played from Reason. In that setting I need to make lots of adjustments while playing, as in, while I am in the middle of playing I might also be turning down the bass, raising the string, changing the electric piano for a trumpet, or programming a new patch entirely. This is a lot easier using the keyboard interface.

For composition:

I tend to prefer software, but I do find the patches on keyboard workstations a lot more playable, and I prefer browsing sounds in hardware - probably because of the simplicity.

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

21 May 2018

O1B wrote:
21 May 2018
So... you gear matters... but only to you then.... .

So... Your gear matters...
Don’t be afraid to say it.
jimmyklane wrote:
19 May 2018


No. Not at all.
A: you took pieces out and quoted me without context
B: my gear only matters to ME
C: as I stated before, if I wasn’t invested I’d probably be 100% ITB with Reason. I’ve heard results just as good and better than what I’m doing without anybody touching a famous vintage drum machine or $5000 analog polysynth.
Dude....

OF COURSE my gear matters to me! I’ve spent years and years making my setup. However, if my house burned down today I could still crush it on a laptop with Reason. That’s my point. Hardware is a luxury. A wonderful and inspiring luxury.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

User avatar
O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

21 May 2018

Dude, I AGREE with EVERYTHING you just SAID. We're on the same page.

Of course, you could crush it with reason and a laptop - except the
LAPTOP would've burned up too!!

Image
That's the Scenario, Yo!
jimmyklane wrote:
21 May 2018
O1B wrote:
21 May 2018
So... you gear matters... but only to you then.... .

So... Your gear matters...
Don’t be afraid to say it.
Dude....

OF COURSE my gear matters to me! I’ve spent years and years making my setup. However, if my house burned down today I could still crush it on a laptop with Reason. That’s my point. Hardware is a luxury. A wonderful and inspiring luxury.

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