home hobby noisemaker
>>1. provide me with a before and after shot of your studio (or temporary SW setup). Hardware, then no hardware.
i don't have any photos handy...too revealing anyway.
>>2. List your hardware and software.
HW, at height, what i would call ghetto fabulous:
Mac pro, logic, 2 x motu midi, apogee duet in
2 bus compressor: rnc "nice"
console: ramsa 820b (24x8 chan w/3 band api style eq)
fx: dm-100 delay, ce300 chorus, lexicon mx200 x 2
Drums: tr 909, jomox 999, drum station
va: vsynth, jp8080, virus ti
vco: fr 777, fr revolution, fr xs, moog voyager rack
DCO: bass station rack, mks-7, mks-50, dsi per
keys: a6 andromeda
romplers: korg M1/M3, yam SY77, EMU proteus 2500, roland d550, mdc1, vs1
groovebox: emu xl7 command station, electribe mx
today: NONE.
after dallying w/reaper briefly on a pc laptop, picked up mbp and as of today:
OS 10.7
Ableton Live (x86)
NI Komplete w/Goldbaby / driven drum / zero-g sample packs
VA: Diva, ImpOscar 2, PPG Wave v3, D16 *, AudioRealism *, Dcam, fabfilter twin
Rompler: Korg Legacy, Omnisphere
channel setup: VCC -> eq -> TB Reel
Compressor: IK Vintage Racks, Sonnox, Glue, Horizon, Rocket, Dada Sausage
EQ: Equick & Equality, Sonnox, IK Vintage Racks
fx: Eventide *, fab filter *, D16*
>> Briefly summarize why switched,
i switched because the hw setup wasn't working for me anymore. I loved the sound. My wife was unhappy with the space the studio took and that was the real killer.
To be honest, burying myself alone in a room wasn't practical. It's a hobby, and it took me away from my family. My kids loved interacting with the synths, but how often was i making music? At first every week, then every month, then every couple of months..then i think one year, i turned it on a grand total of three times.
Meanwhile i had this pc laptop , and i slapped on reaper and a bunch of free vsts. A new world opened up to me. i installed the old plugs from the mac pro and hey...it was ok. I didn't like the sound but it was close enough to explore...and i could save and revisit things.
on the mac pro setup, if i fumbled a key or got carried away w/knob spinning, w/no multi-track a/d conversion, that fumble was permanent. i used to take pictures of patches, but the reality was i was never going to go back and do over a part.
a few years went buy and now my kids are older. i ditched the hw because the space could be better utilized by things that actually would get used on a daily / weekly basis. like tinkertoys.
>> what you tried to replace with what
i also realized that i wasn't building a replacement sound...i was building a different sound. someone can go skiing in the desert, or get hot in the mountains. But the reality is, if you want to go skiing just go to a mountain--and if you want to get hot go to the desert (or swamps).
at first, I was trying to recreate the 909/777/a6 sound itb. Those are my fire boxen...everything else i could do without. And, I realized, i was trying to go skiing in the desert.
Once i changed my mindset that i wasn't replacing, i was doing something totally different...my composition freed up. i spent less time worrying about how analog something sounded, or how disappointed i was that none of the plugins sounded like my 909/777/voyager/a6 combo.
>>what works
I also have tried, tried tried TRIED to give up on drums. a drum line is a crutch--say a bar is boring. 808 kick + 606 hats and yay! that bar is now exciting.
plus, i have conditioned myself to think that all electronic music is DANCE music, and must have 115 - 133 bpm, 4/4 etc etc.
but the realitiy is...all i did when i slap down what i call the 'rock' 4-4 was something lazy. so recently I have spent a lot of time critically listening to classical music. I am thinking that electronic music has yet to reach its zenith. and not that i will be a part of that wave, but at least i can try. I think this has helped me itb.
and part of that try is that the masters, had the virtue of having the instruments naturally arrange themselves. that when the violins attack dies down, the pianist naturally plays their notes a little louder. and all these interactions between composer, conductor, and player, that i never tried before becaue my otb setup was very noisy.
so itb, i have really tried to focus on space, and arrange based on attack and release. the clarity one can get itb is unmatched for the $ spent, and just recently--the last 6 months even--plugins have really started to sound good. Not good for what they are...but good on their own.
>>what doesn't etc.
if space has been my focus...my take...itb still doesn't do well with 3d sounds. i have given up on that, getting that MASSIVELY wide sound. 'wide enough' will have to do for now.
the other thing is that itb really has a problem with density. i felt like with the ramsa, i could pan, eq, and the analog sounds all just melded together w/only small amount of attention to arrangement. i spent a lot of time on the patches.
itb, for some reason, sounds thicken up a track a lot quicker. so arrangement and composition is really a focus, especially since patch creation takes a lot longer. and i have to constantly delete and trim, since what sounded good in the moment, with my ear trained to hear the new part, will sound like ass a few days later, when my ear has forgotten what was going on and its just mush.
i am no great musician, just a dude who has fun. I am always in awe at the creativity and musicality of fellow gs.
so thats my 'guy in basement' story, hope it helps. Please feel free to trim the word count / edit / paraphrase etc.!