OK, the taxman gets in touch and tells you that you have overpaid your tax over the past year or two and says they will reimburse you with £1000/$1000 of overpayments. Of course you’re never going to tell your wife or other half about this money, it’s going to get spent on some new gear.
… what do you buy?
I think I’d either buy one big thing like the Elektron Analog Four or get a collection of new little portable toys
- Korg Volca Keys
- Korg Volca Beats
- Bastl Instruments MicroGranny 2.0 + MidiSync
- then either grab a bargain OP-1 or a Elektron MachineDrum or MonoMachine from eBay
The Analog 4 is really nice, but not the most practical solution to include drums. The OP-1 is a great first option as it can do a bit of everything (synthesis, sampling, built in radio, line in recording to tape/samplers).
I suffer from such profound GAS, that £1000 is pretty much chaff in the wind…
… That said, I’m in a pretty unfortunate predicament; in that when I eventually got round to replacing my crappy PC speakers with bona fide monitors, it was revealed that the expensive custom PC I’d built is actually suffering from a thus far, incurable case of ground loop (isolaters and ground lift be damned). As such I’m pretty much forced to spend that money on a Mac of some sort (a Mac Mini I guess)
Of course that means I’d have to dig a little deeper in order to buy some kind of self flagellation device for the purposes of penance. Hashtag#FML
^never heard of that before. maybe get an external audio card. or instead of using the Motherboard ones you could install a new card with pci/pcie etc… I would thing the wiring in the outlet has grounding issues. not the computer.
Oh I’m already using an external ADAC. Everything is plugged into the same loop and I’ve tried using both balanced and unbalanced cables between the adac and speakers.
Tbh I’ve tried a whole heap of potential solutions; tried a different external adac, researched the pin 1 problem, briefly tried a ground lift (not a safe thing to do) and also ruled out most of the components in my PC. It could be the wiring in the house, or my PSU (which is high end and up to spec but could still be faulty) and then there’s the ASUS mobo that could be screwing things up. That said I’m seriously running out of heart for all this troubleshooting, which is how I came to consider just buying a Mac and being done with it.
Oh and with regards to the wiring in the house… Unfortunately I live in rented accommodation, so I can’t do anything about that, but I think I’ll see about taking my gear to a friend’s studio to see if I get the same issues there.
Wish me luck
PS Back on topic - if I didn’t have to consider a new DAW, then I’d be mighty tempted by the Rytm!
What exactly is the appeal of the Microgranny? Not trying to be rude, I’ve yet to try one in person but as I understand it from the demo videos alone, it’s just a sampler. Is the level of control it offers in adjusting the sample that notable? Any other functions I may not be aware of? I’d like to know more about this much talked about piece of gear.
Can you define “new gear”? Additional gear or first and only device? In the former case I would go with Juno-Gi or FA-08. In the latter case I would go with OP-1 or Analog Four. Each of the four is capable of producing an entire song, although each one has its own limitations.
Hi @johnl, it might also be tempting to say that the Octatrack is quite a good “all-in” machine. I have the Octa, the A4 and the MDUW. My fave is the MachineDrum by far!
With its poly ability the A4 looks pretty versatile @johnl, much more than meets the eye with 4 voices. The Octatrack can do more simply by virtue of being a sampler, and having 8 audio tracks to work with. But pretty much every Elektron can work on it’s own to make complete tracks once you know what you’re doing with it, even the Monomachine and A4. They may be more minimal or percussive in nature depending on the machine, but they can all do it.
