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Gilgameshback
May 18, 2010

Continuing my extremely important and fascinating series of string reviews, two sets of strings that I tried on my Rodriguez "Senorita" 7/8 scale classical guitar:

La Bella Fractional strings (7/8)



Overall: 0/5
Sounded and felt awful. Wound third string; also sounded and felt awful. These do seem to be engineered to keep normal tension on short-scale instruments, but are terrible in every other way. They also wore astoundingly quickly. I've enjoyed other La Bella strings, but these were just rotten.

Aquila Perla



Overall: 5/5
Now these are really cool - opaque ivory colored trebles in "bionylon," which is supposed to mimic the sonic characteristics of gut. They do so, pretty successfully; the sound is rich and very mellow. The bass strings are also top notch, plenty of power and sustain. I don't know how durable they are.

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Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Novation Impulse 49 keyboard midi controller (also available in 25 and 61 key varieties)



Price Paid: $299

Specs:

49 semi-weighted keys
9 sliders
8 knobs
8 percussion pads
Length (mm) 846 (Inches) 33.3
Width (mm) 332 (Inches) 13
Height (mm) 100 (Inches) 3.93
Weight (kg) 5 (lb) 11.02
includes Novation's Automap software and I think a hobbled version of Ableton Live 8
USB 2.0 out
MIDI in and out
inputs for sustain and expression pedals

Overall: 4/5

Good things:

- It's very rugged and durable.

- automatically maps to Ableton Live even without using Automap making setup practically nonexistent (..if you are an Ableton user. You'll need to use Automap for most other DAW's unless you want to map everything manually)

- Very nice key action and feel for a controller in this price range.

- Percussive pads are good quality, comparable to MPC pads

Annoying things:

- The boasted "clip launch" feature on the pads is very limited and practically useless for larger sets

- There is no way to change the key assignments of the pads

- There are some minor glitches that you have to keep on top of because they can result in things like tracks being armed for recording when you don't intend them to

- Automap can be tricky to get working correctly (but again its not wholly necessary)

- It is a bit larger and heavier than many other 49 key controllers in this price range.

Earwicker fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jul 16, 2014

Gilgameshback
May 18, 2010

D'Addario Pro-Arte Carbon Strings



Overall: 5/5

These are excellent strings, a slight improvement on the standard Pro-Artes (EJ47). The treble is brighter and cleaner than the EJ47s. The bass is tremendous. Nice feel under the left hand, though nothing special. Relatively cheap, though not as cheap as the EJ47s. These would work well to brighten a dark or muddy sounding guitar.

Yamaha CG172SF



Price Paid / Price New: $330/$330
Year Manufactured: recent

Specs:

- Nylon string flamenco
- Spruce top
- Cypress Body
- Rosewood fingerboard
- Nato neck
- Satin finish
- Golpeadores (tap plates) pre-installed

Sound: 5/5
Superb. The cypress body is extremely light, much lighter than a rosewood classical, so you get incredible resonance and a bright, full, authoritative tone; but very little sustain. I play mostly classical music on mine but it's a real-deal Flamenco guitar and will deliver the raspy, percussive Flamenco sound. Very nice for austere renaissance pieces as well.

Instrument Quality: 5/5
No finish flaws, tuners work perfectly, etc. No frills. This is quite a beautiful guitar, though understated. Black binding on the very pale cypress body is striking. The finish is a matte satin, which feels great on the neck. I would be a little worried about traveling or gigging with this guitar since it's so lightly finished and so thin and lightweight.

Playability: 5/5
Nice low Flamenco action; the neck is especially comfortable and a little thinner than traditional classical necks.

Overall Value: 5/5
For $330 this is a very good buy.


Manuel Rodriguez Caballero 8s "Senorita" 7/8 scale classical guitar



Price Paid / Price New: $175/$220
Year Manufactured: recent

Specs:

- Nylon string
- Solid Spruce top
- Luxurious plywood body (with a mahogany veneer)
- Rosewood fingerboard
- bone nut and saddle
- 7/8 size

Sound: 3/5
This is a nice sounding guitar, though quiet and not all that balanced between bass and treble. For a small-scale instrument not bad at all; it has a distinctively Spanish classical sound, though again on a rather intimate scale.

Instrument Quality: 3.5/5
This was surprising - I have played some truly lovely Manuel Rodriguez guitars, but this particular one arrived in fine shape. Quite beautifully and cleanly finished throughout. The composite back and sides are a serious negative, as is the spacing on the nut, which puts the high E string too close to the edge of the neck. Everything else is of fairly good quality.

Playability: 4/5
Action is too high, though not unreasonable; on the other hand, the short scale makes stretches easier. The 7/8 size makes it sort of a parlor guitar, so it's not too small for a normal adult. Really fun to play, though not refined.

Overall Value: 3/5
Probably priced quite a bit too high at $220.
Bonus: Scottish guitarist Rob McKillop playing this model with gut strings: http://robmackillop.net/the-romantic-guitar/

Rob McKillop posted:

The Romantic Guitar
I’m not a fan of modern carbon-fibre classical guitars, which shout loudly but not sweetly. I am a fan of small-scale guitars, strung in gut, with a beautiful intimate sound. I call this the Romantic Guitar, but find it suitable for a wide range of music, from 16th-century lute and vihuela repertoire, through to Brazilian and some contemporary music. Here are a few videos and sound files you might enjoy.

The guitars are both of 600mm string length (modern concert guitars are usually 650mm or 660mm), strung with Aquila Gut and Silk strings, and played without nails on the right hand, just the flesh of the fingers. It’s a quiet and intimate world, an antidote to the deadening cacophony of 21st-century life…
:rolleyes: OK Rob.

Gilgameshback
May 18, 2010

More in my pathbreaking, universally acclaimed series of classical guitar strings reviews:

Savarez New Cristal Corum 500CR



4/5

These strings sound and feel great, required almost no playing in, and were an incredible pain to put on. The treble strings don't seem to be unusually thin or slick or anything, but they needed five loops (instead of the usual three) to hold on to the tie block without popping out when tuned. Basses were fine. A clear, loud, sweet set of strings, without any metallic or shrill tones.

Augustine Gold (Imperial/Red basses, medium tension)



4/5

These sounded like poo poo and felt rubbery and sticky for the first two days, then either I got used to them or they stretched/played in and now they sound fantastic and feel fine. Very loud, a deep, growling bass and a clear, cutting treble.

stillvisions
Oct 15, 2014

I really should have come up with something better before spending five bucks on this.
Casio PX-5S
Price paid/price new: About $1000
Years manufactured: Current

Specs:
Stage piano with weighted full-size 88-key keyboard, two pedal inputs
6 faders, 4 knobs (assignable)
Pitch bend and mod wheels
USB and old-school MIDI connectors
340 preset sounds, built in effects
256 note polyphony
built in recording/sequencing including output to USB stick
25(!) pounds, optionally runs on 8 AA batteries. Really.
Headphone and stereo 1/4" outs, no onboard speakers.

Sound: 4/5

This keyboard has a lot of sounds, but it's not considered to have a great piano sound. If you really need the super-dedicated piano sound onboard, there's better sounding pianos out there, and also it doesn't support half-pedaling.

Instrument quality: 3.5/5

This one is a bit hard to rate, because this keyboard is sold on being lightweight, so it's understandable that you're not going to get solid metal and wood here. It's 25 pounds, which makes it incredibly light for the class of keyboard it sits in, but that comes at the price of plastic construction. That being said, it's pretty solid for what it's made of, but I wouldn't want to drop it down the stairs.

Playability: 4.5/5:

Sounds are highly configurable and easy to modify on the fly with the controller faders/knobs set to whatever you like. Lots of keyboard layer/split options available if you want them. It's intended to let you have your own presets so you can switch everything with one button press, useful for gigs where you need different sounds. The onboard sounds cover the gamut of what a standard keyboard would play.

The faders and knobs give it a bit of a leg up on your standard starter digital pianos if you also want to use it as a controller for other sound modules or a DAW.

The keyboard action feels pretty good to me as well. I gave it the half-point off for one reason; the keyboard action on this is pretty loud, probably a product of the lightweight materials and hollow inside. In most situations this isn't a problem but I've noticed if you want to sing and play at the same time you might end up with clunking sounds in your vocal track unless you've got a really directional mic.

I haven't really used the onboard recording or sequencing, or played much with modifying sounds, so I can't comment much on how easy or useful that is.

Overall value: 4

This piano occupies a bit of a niche, and it's great in that space. It's lightweight which makes it as portable as you can get from a full-sized keyboard, it's got the action of a home piano, the faders knobs and wheels of a keyboard controller, and enough onboard sounds that you can take it to a gig without feeling the need to haul along a sound module or laptop. It doesn't have the sound quality of a Nord or such, but it also doesn't have the price of it either.

If you're looking for a digital replacement to a standard piano this is probably not the choice you're looking for - there's cheaper ones that are meant for that, and there's no onboard speakers so you'll need those for this model as well. Also the PX-5S is, to be blunt, one ugly keyboard, but I'm guessing that's for onstage branding to make it visible, and the portability means you can tuck it under one arm and hide it in the closet when you want to clean up, or if you're embarrassed that you actually own a Casio keyboard for non-kitsch sounds. If you're looking for a stage piano with the weighted 88 and a bank of top-notch sounds, you're gonna be paying double or more for it.

Personally, I wanted some MIDI controller functionality with a weighted keyboard, but since I work on a desktop, I still wanted to be able to take it elsewhere and still get sounds with it. I gave it a four out of five because it fills a somewhat specific need, but fills that need quite well.

Gilgameshback
May 18, 2010

I have been fortunate enough to play two excellent classical guitars over the past year. They are quite different, but both very good. Both cost about $2000 without any discounts. Both guitars would suit a serious student or performer who doesn't want a custom guitar and who prefers very traditional features - neither one has carbon fiber, arm rests, or tone ports. Nor do they have any electronic components.

Francisco Navarro Garcia Concert



Price New: $2000
Year Manufactured: 2014

Specs:

- Spruce top
- Rosewood body
- Ebony fingerboard
- Luthier made in Mexico

Sound: 5/5
Intense, very loud, but also quite beautiful when played quietly. Completely unforgiving, as each string rings out distinctly and clearly. Towards the harsh, cold, and metallic end of the classical guitar spectrum (though, again, capable of great sweetness and delicacy). Exquisite balance between bass and treble voices - whatever the player needs to stand out stands out. Very typical spruce sound: bright and a little nasal, though strings affect this much more than the wood.

Instrument Quality: 5/5
Almost all classical guitars look plain and understated. This is no exception, though up close you can see that the luthier has really gone on a tour de force of subtle ornamentation. Everything is absolutely beautifully finished and decorated right up to the boundaries of CG good taste. The rosewood back and sides especially deserve mention: the grain was clearly selected for beauty, and in fact both the outside and inside show a really gorgeous, natural pattern. Tuners are very good though I have no idea what the brand they are (plastic keys, though). Frets are shiny and perfect. Nut and bridge are bone.

The tie-block has twelve holes rather than the usual six, which allows you to get a slightly sharper break angle at the saddle and also means that you don’t have to knot the strings.

No cosmetic flaws. A rather shiny finish, not French polish.

Playability: 5/5
The ebony fingerboard is superb - very slick without feeling unstable. The body is slightly thicker (from top to back) than usual for classical guitars, which I think is a Mexican thing. This doesn’t really change playability, and probably gives a little more volume and bass response. Otherwise the dimensions and playing experience are typical of classical guitars. Extremely responsive, with great range in volume and nuance.

Overall Value: 5/5
For about $2000 you get the guitar and a good hard case shipped. This is expensive, but it combines excellent sound and superb workmanship. If you’re a serious classical guitarist looking to get an instrument that will carry you through as far as your skills can take you this would work.


Cordoba Loriente Clarita, Cedar



Price New/Paid: $2000/$1600
Year Manufactured: ?

Specs:

- Cedar top
- Indian rosewood body
- Ebony fingerboard
- Truss rod
- (hand?) Made in Spain

Sound: 5/5
This is a nice contrast to the Navarro. Where the Navarro is brash and cutting the Cordoba is suave, smooth, and mellow. Some of this comes from the cedar top, I’m sure, and some of it comes from the bracing and construction. The Cordoba is remarkably forgiving. Obviously the guitar can’t do much for bad technique, but its extreme mellowness might be able to mask a flew little slips here and there. Beautiful, warm sound; quite loud, too.

Instrument Quality: 4/5
Surprisingly the Cordoba isn’t quite as well finished as the Navarro - I would think a big name like Cordoba would turn out flawless instruments, especially compared to Navarro’s small atelier, but this one has a few rough edges. Nothing that affects sound or playability, though. The inside of the guitar has a ton of cedar dust and some rough tool marks. The slots in the headstock look a little rough. The Indian rosewood back and sides are pleasant and sound superb but are not particularly beautiful or interestingly grained. The binding and purfling is all perfect but very, very low key. Tuners are great (Gotohs), neck is straight, frets are well done. Over the winter this guitar had significant fret sprout, which revealed some pretty sharp fret ends.

Playability: 4/5
The Cordoba includes a truss rod, which makes it noticeably heavier and changes the balance towards the neck (this might bother some purists). My impression is that this also lets them make the neck slightly thinner. Not quite as responsive as the Navarro.

Overall Value: 5/5
I got this guitar 20% off from Guitar Center by calling them with a coupon. It comes with a very good Humicase hard case with built in humidifier. I think this was quite a good deal. It may not have the aura and cachet of a luthier-made instrument, but it sounds and plays spectacularly well so who cares.

Between these two I much prefer the Navarro. The Cordoba/Loriente is, for me, not as fun to play, nor as responsive. Then again it's quite a bit cheaper and much easier to find, and is not really a meaningfully inferior instrument.

Gilgameshback fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jul 12, 2015

Gilgameshback
May 18, 2010

Gretsch Jim Dandy parlor



Price New: $169
Year Manufactured: 2015

Specs:

- "wood" top
- Parlor size, twelve frets to body
- Agathis body
- Rosewood fingerboard (nicely radiused)
- Nato neck
- Luxurious paintjob reproduces the look of an elegant sunburst when seen from far away or in poor lighting.

Sound: 3/5
Objectively this guitar sounds like you would expect: a little choked, not super loud, kind of tinny. It's not a luxurious sound and doesn't stand up to bell-like modern super acoustics. But subjectively it's a fabulous sound - a little dirty and gritty, perfect for fingerstyle blues. The small body cuts down on the bass, so you don't get the unpleasant booming of most cheap acoustics. Surprisingly nice articulation and separation. Again, this is perfect for fingerstyle and I wouldn't really recommend it for any other technique.

Instrument Quality: 4/5
Everything is sound and in the right place; everything is also cheap. The paintjob especially is kind of endearingly low-rent. The back and sides are flat black, and the sunburst on the front looks like the sun only got about halfway through bursting before it gave up. Neck is smooth, frets are well finished, tuning machines are fine. The fretboard inlays look like plastic, and the nut and saddle are plastic too. Despite all this it's an attractive little guitar.

Playability: 5/5
Pretty great. Small but not tiny, good action out of the box (though I mainly play classical so I may favor a higher than usual action). On an intangible level it's a lot of fun. It would be great for a beginner and a superb travel guitar.

Overall Value: 5/5
Again, great. Cheap but plays well and sounds interesting. Worth a look.

Southern Heel
Jul 2, 2004

Dean Z bass


I’ve been a big fan of explorer shapes since I was a kid and it is my dream one day to own an explorer that I enjoy playing – unfortunately to date every explorer shape I’ve put my hands on feels like I’m fighting with a boat anchor: heavy with a waist causing the guitar to slide towards my picking hand and generally oversized to dig in to my chest and the inside of my arm. Did the Dean Z bass buck that trend, with it’s fiendish good looks and ergonomic lauding?

In a word, no.



The main issue with the bass, and explorers in general is the way that it forces your body position, see a comparison of my p-bass and the z-bass below:


Despite a very similar neck angle, the Dean gets in the way of my forearm. There is no way to angle the neck higher in order to bring the neck closer to me, so I must stretch my arm out and hold it up in mid air in order to reach the lower frets. My wrist position isn’t particulary good in those photos, but is somewhat of a moot point. If the guitar strap is placed infront of the guitar’s wing, then it somewhat avoids the hilarious neck-dive – but if not then it’s pretty well evident.

Sound wise, the EMG humbuckers provide a very even tone – there is little noise and because of their huge dynamic range they don’t have a signature sound. It is super transparent. Looking at the waveform for a recording I made, they are much more consistent in volume even with equal compression between the Squier above and the Dean: https://clyp.it/p0y212ub

Comparing roundwounds on active pickups to flats on a p-bass isn’t really all that fair if we are going to talk about presence and response, but the Dean does definitely have something you can turn on and know what to hear, whereas something like the p-bass can very alot more depending on where your fingers are, how hard you’re plucking, whether you’re on an open string or a fretted note, etc.

It does look freaking bad-rear end though, and I cannot help but think that is entirely the reason for the existence of this instrument: unfortunately unlike the Ibanez SR-series it is not particularly comfortable, sounds pretty average and doesn’t have any defining features to put it above the glut of mid-priced bass guitars out there.

R.D. Mangles
Jan 10, 2004


anyone got a recommendation for a relatively inexpensive standalone drum machine and amp/speaker?

philkop
Oct 19, 2008

Chomp chomp chomp...We have the legendary Magic Beans
Goon Made Wallets
.
I got this $50 surface mount pickup to cover a blemish on my guitar. I ended up really digging it. I've never reviewed anything but really felt the need to give this guy a nod so I had my video buddy help me out.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONrCYgme4S8
(copied review from vid)

Victory Lowrider Goldfoil Surface Mount Pickup Review:


Got this cheap pickup to surface mount to my guitar while I wait for my other two pickups to come in. I wanted to showcase some of my favorite sounds from it.

Recorded with a Shure SM57 and my Fender Superchamp X2's (Ragin Cajun) direct out. I use a ditto looper in some parts. I used the amps reverb, drive and delay in some parts but have a few 100% dry examples too.

I love that the pickup is a decent bit microphonic meaning it will pick up sounds beyond that of just the string vibrations a normal magnetic pickup would. You can yell into it and hear yourself. You end up with a lot of extra string and finger noise kind of like a miced acoustic guitar.

I've been trying a very long time to find a way to add this sound to my guitar. I've experimented with both passive and active piezo systems on my solid body electrics to try to get that acoustic quality in my sounds but nothing quite worked as well as this pickup did.

Its a sound with a lot of life to it that is best suited for clean to mid overdrive sounds. That microphonic resonance gives a nice edge and presence to the more driven sounds. Despite how lively and receptive this pickup it, it is relatively quiet for single coil, probably due to the shielded metal casing.

I was about to coax some of the less natural and less usable feedback and squealing sounds that are associated with microphonic pickups, but only at the highest of gains settings I'd never use this pickup for anyways. I'll have a bridge humbucker coming soon for that.

I bought this as a cheap pickup to cover a screw up in the paint job of my guitar build and had no idea I'd end up enjoying the pickup so much.

This thing would be a sweet mod to any two pickup guitar or a great base for an easy surface mount build. Just get a plank of wood with strings and slap this on!

They seem to be marketed towards the Cigar Box crowd but it's earned its place on my main axe right between the two higher end Novak pickups I have on the way.

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

A coil of garden wire

Price: like $15?

Specs
2.5mm diameter
it's galvanised.

Sound 3/5
Produces a nice metallic sound if you run it through contact mics. More bassy than smaller diameter wire, as you might expect. Obviously less satisfying than the sound you would get from a big chunk of metal or something like that though.

Quality 4/5
They make fences with it so pretty good I reckon.

Playability 5/5
This is where this little friend really comes into its own. If you're making noise on a budget like I am, and don't have a loop pedal or nothing fancy like that to keep your sound going in a live setting, then this is the next best thing. It's very easy to keep it constantly moving, even one handed, so that you have a constant flow of sound, and you can use your other hand to twist knobs on pedals or jack off or whatever else you're going to do during your set.

Overall value 4/5
Ideal for the contact mic noise maker on a budget, it's easy to manipulate in a live situation and you can still get pretty good sounds out of it. Recommended.

Big Mackson
Sep 26, 2009
A pair of hands

Price: Free

Sound: 5/5 Produces a high clapping sound when you move your hands together correctly. Different hands and ways to use them might produce different sounds when putting your hands together.

Quality: 5/5 Civilization was built with hands, pretty incredible if you think about it.

Playability 5/5 As long as you have food you pretty much have 100% usable hands barring sickness or accidents.

Overall Value: 5/5 It's pretty handy to have even if you do not use it for clapping.

AndrewP
Apr 21, 2010

No quarter inch jack or USB yet though. I'll wait for the next iteration.

boop the snoot
Jun 3, 2016
I’ve had my MPC X for about a year now. At first it was primarily used in standalone mode. Standalone mode is crash happy and caused me to put it away for a while and felt like I wasted money. I loved the machine, the workflow, everything. But when I would copy notes on the piano roll, sometimes it would copy them to some outrageous time, like bar 5000, and crash the MPC (I assume because it maxed all CPU load).

Autosave interrupts your progress by showing you how far along it was in saving, and with bigger projects this can take up to 30 seconds.

Because of this bug and inefficient autosave, the enjoyable workflow was interrupted and, thus, not enjoyable anymore.

Several months later I got a new laptop. Now I run MPC2.8 on my Mac and use the MPC as the centerpiece of everything. I LOVE using it. It’s the most fun I’ve had making tunes in my whole six years since I started messing around in FL Studio.

Which leads to my verdict:

If this bug is mine and mine alone, then I believe it is absolutely worth the price tag. It is an all in one solution.

BUT!!!!!

Because of this bug, I will never recommend it to anyone. If this bug exists in the MPC Live, I wouldn’t recommend that for its price tag either. I would recommend just getting a much cheaper 16 pad controller (like the MPD232 or something similar) if you’re going to be tethered to a computer. You can get them with a bunch of knobs and gizmos just like the MPC for 20% of the price.

Will I get rid of it as a result? No. I’ve actually grown very attached to it.

Would I buy it again if I could go back a year? Also no.

PS: it is admittedly ugly as sin. I took the red side skirts off of it for a marginal improvement. This might be just my opinion though.

boop the snoot fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Apr 5, 2021

Philthy
Jan 28, 2003

Pillbug
Can't say I've run into any bugs on my Live II of owning it for two or so months now. I would assume you're on the latest firmware 2.9.1 and all that.

boop the snoot
Jun 3, 2016
update: I got in touch with Akai and they have not heard of this issue, so it is 99% for certain a problem only I have.

With that said, after some thought I think I’d still probably recommend getting the Live II unless you’ve got specific reasons for wanting the X, but do your research first to make sure. I don’t think the knobs and buttons are worth the extra money but I don’t know how not having them would slow down my workflow.

petit choux
Feb 24, 2016

Can anybody here give me a good advice on which USB/MIDI convertor box to get? I just learned that they are now a thing. I'm looking at the Kenton, the DoReMIDI and the MIDIPro RN.

Cabbages and Kings
Aug 25, 2004


Shall we be trotting home again?
OP-1 day 4 review
I am not a musician, let's make that clear. I played saxophone poorly for 9 years in school, and I like to mess around with guitars and things that go beep boop, but it's a lot more "playing with noise" than "making music", per se.

That out of the way, the OP-1 is definitely one of the weirder and cooler things in my arsenal (0coast, mother32, KP3, beatstep, tape deck, assorted turntables and mixers and keyboards, Electribe drums).

It really wants to steer you to a particular set of use paradigms, which is fine with me because two things I was looking for were "polyphonic synth" and "4-track tape recorder" and this does an approximation of both reasonably well, on top of the sampling and sequencing capabilities. The degree of energy invested in making the "tape" experience "tape like" is one of the stranger pieces of implementation I've seen. It works well, it becomes intuitive pretty fast, and some pretty hardcore limitations were explicitly implemented to make it "feel like tape", which is hilarious to me but not a problem.

The battery life seems good, the integral speaker is a joke but being able to just grab headphones and a mic and go off into the woods and record birds and poo poo and then sequence them and then overlay synth tracks on it is loving sweet and makes me wish I could quit my day job and just go gently caress with nature sounds full time like the weird spooks in Upstream Color.

They really took the "obscure interfaces" thing to new heights, too


I feel like learning this thing is going to be similar to learning VIM except there are even more cheat sheets and they're longer.

My older kid refuses to believe it's not a toy because it kinda fuckin looks like one. I told her she can pound the gently caress out of the midi keyboard but for the love of god go gentle on this one :grimace:

petit choux posted:

Can anybody here give me a good advice on which USB/MIDI convertor box to get? I just learned that they are now a thing. I'm looking at the Kenton, the DoReMIDI and the MIDIPro RN.

Haha I cam here to make my (I think) first ever post in this forum, but I can actually say something about this. I specifically want one for the OP-1; lots of people use the Kenton, people with access to UK shops often prefer the RK005 (https://www.retrokits.com/shop/rk005/)

I ended up ordering this DoReMIDI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MZY59B7 because several OP-1 users said it was fine for their use cases and $50 is easier to part with than $150. Synth engines on the OP-1 are good enough that I'd like to connect a 49 or 81 key to it; also interested in chaining to beatstep.

It's funny to me to be going to effort to chain weird poo poo into a thing designed to be an AOI solution, but, c'mon. "Wiring weird poo poo into an OP-1" is like 2/3 the posts in /r/op1users :allears:

edit: Can confirm the $50 dore works plug and play to connect an OP-1 and an axiom keyboard.

Cabbages and Kings fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Oct 9, 2021

sporklift
Aug 3, 2008

Feelin' it so hard.

Cabbages and Kings posted:

OP-1 day 4 review
I am not a musician, let's make that clear. I played saxophone poorly for 9 years in school, and I like to mess around with guitars and things that go beep boop, but it's a lot more "playing with noise" than "making music", per se.

I am in the same boat. Not at all a musician but I like making noise. I bought the Hologram Microcosm. I have just barely scratched the surface with this thing but it feels like a cheat code for drone/ambient stuff. I have plugged guitars, bass, synth into it and it is just so fun to dork around on. As of now I am just randomly twiddling knobs and making loops but hopefully I'll have time to explore the manual soon.

Here is one of the first things I used the Microcosm on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqVoB2em5VQ


My only complaint is that the Microcosm doesn't seem to have a power button so you have to unplug the thing every time you want to turn it off.

The OP-1 has always looked super cool to gently caress around with.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

I got my Firefly Les Paul yesterday and I'm very pleased. I got one with a blue maple top (I assume printed and not really a maple top) with gold hardware. The website photo shows a brighter blue than the in person model I received, but I like the darker blue too so it's all good. I don't know if it's a different shade or if it's just that I'm looking at it in my poorly lit office instead of under professional photograph lighting.

I've only ever played or owned cheap guitars. This feels like the nicest cheap guitar I've ever had. I've never had a real Gibson or even an Epiphone above $200, so I can't compare it to "the real thing." I'm also not a very good guitarist. With that out of the way, it felt nicer to play than any other guitar I've had I think. Closest comparison would be, unsurprisingly, an Agile LP I bought in like 2006.

Build quality wise everything seems good. It feels good in the hand. Sound quality wise I'm not going to opine too much. I played it through a Blackstar Amplug headphone amp. It sounded fine to me. It seems the rap I hear online with these guitars is that they're good except for the pickups but nothing shouted out at me that they were especially bad.

I paid $257 for the guitar, inclusive of US shipping. I paid import fees in my country of residence but those won't be relevant to most of you. Overall for under $500 I'm extremely pleased with this purchase and I'm going to play with it right now.

Cabbages and Kings
Aug 25, 2004


Shall we be trotting home again?

Wow this thread has barely moved, meanwhile TE quality control sucks, the OP-1 was deemed unfixable because of a fucky audio port and my cash was refunded, and after hemming and hawing, instead of getting another one I got a Hydrasynth 49 key that I am quite happy with and seem to be actually learning some stuff about signal paths and synthesis with.

Bile
May 13, 2003
i love the classical nylon string guitar, thank you

i want to get a tall high hat stand a la dave grohl higher than usual and a nice HH which i can pick at the sto myself. thx for any advice (:

ps. does foot size ahve any effect on high hat (or kick drum for that matter) kick foot thing, that you step on. i have a large foot

Tetramin
Apr 1, 2006

I'ma buck you up.
Picked up an MPC One this week and I am loving it.

I had an MPC2500 that I loved but I sold it like 8 years ago, and since I got my new computer I haven’t wanted to go to the effort of getting FL studio and plugins set up so it’s been a while since I’ve made anything.

The MPC One is exactly what I hoped it would be, I’ve just been cranking out some fun beats the past few days, having a blast. I never used Splice before, and honestly pulling samples from there might feel “cheap” or whatever, but it sure is a fun.

I haven’t noticed any major issues with the MPC, but I do wish the Q Links had little screens below them to display what control they are linked to.

I’ve been using it in Standalone mode sitting on the couch mostly which is awesome. At some point I’ll check out the MPC software on PC using it as a controller, I think that has some additional functionality but i haven’t felt limited yet.

Really happy with this purchase!

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narksuckersperg
Oct 19, 2022

Tetramin posted:

Picked up an MPC One this week and I am loving it.

I had an MPC2500 that I loved but I sold it like 8 years ago, and since I got my new computer I haven’t wanted to go to the effort of getting FL studio and plugins set up so it’s been a while since I’ve made anything.

The MPC One is exactly what I hoped it would be, I’ve just been cranking out some fun beats the past few days, having a blast. I never used Splice before, and honestly pulling samples from there might feel “cheap” or whatever, but it sure is a fun.

I haven’t noticed any major issues with the MPC, but I do wish the Q Links had little screens below them to display what control they are linked to.

I’ve been using it in Standalone mode sitting on the couch mostly which is awesome. At some point I’ll check out the MPC software on PC using it as a controller, I think that has some additional functionality but i haven’t felt limited yet.

Really happy with this purchase!

The Q links actually do have a menu that pops up and tells you exactly what they are linked to if you just touch them without fiddling with the knob.

You don't get any. extra functionality besides what's obviously afforded to you using a PC like use of a network drive to store everything, the possible increase in speed navigating and chopping with a mouse and keyboard, etc. The software was meant to replicate the MPC workflow so its as identical as it can be. When I first started I purchased a MIDI keyboard that came with a bunch of software including Ableton and MPC Beats. Ableton didnt click with me then and doesnt click with me today but Beats did and the transition from software to hardware was nearly seamless.

Enjoy the machine.

narksuckersperg fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Apr 15, 2023

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