#21

I’ve been moving onto experimenting “DAW as an instrument” tape techniques inspired stuff and realized how much can be done just by splicing, looping and mixing audio together. Anything can be a soundsource and with modern daws you can have never before possible power of audio manipulation in your fingertips for free or very little money. It’s amazing. I also have “sound desing sessions” where I just focus on getting good sounds out of my instruments, be it plugins or modular synth or just contact mic and some beercans. It helps to have depth with the gear, I find myself guilty of getting new stuff to get that excitement and inspiration new gear brings. It can be hard to break the comfortable norm with the old and familiar gear if I focus too much on making full pieces of music, but just experimenting and focusing on getting any good sounds out to save on my library of “my sound” frees my mind. I don’t need an another oscillator, I just need to patch in a new way and find one new sweetspot. And few months down the line it could become the backbone of a full track.

6 Likes
#22

Yuppppp I just spent a few months retooling my storage systems and in the meantime I just mangled what I had in my Splice library. Ableton’s warp algos are one of the instruments I know best at this point!

#23

I have to echo much of what has been said here. I use a combination of hardware, a computer, and iOS devices. I finance my music making gear entirely through sales of the vinyl collection I accrued in my late teens and early 20s or from selling other pieces of music equipment so getting the best value from my setup is important.

Hardware:

Secondhand is amazing but a little knowledge also goes a very long way. For example: I get a lot of mileage out of running signals through guitar pedals. I discovered that many of the classic Boss pedals that go for £100-150 were also released as Amdek units which can be found for circa £30. There are countless forgotten gems in guitar pedal world and it’s worth bearing in mind that most of them will have been bought by guitarists whose needs are not the same as synth users. Something that a guitarist hates could be a totally different beast when connected to something that does have strings.

I had a Moogerfooger MF101 that was giving me beautiful Moog tones but at a cost of £300 or so. I discovered that I could modify a Werkstatt which I could get for around £100 to offer more or less the same functionality and now I have that (and the other £200 went on other gear).

Sometimes the right thing to do is to spend the money, though - getting the best value isn’t always buying the cheapest thing. I got a Vermona Retroverb Lancet that cost me more than my MS-20 Mini but it earns that money because it enhances everything I put through it. I too worship at the altar of cheap Yamaha PSS keyboards and my £10 PSS450 sounds like a few hundred £ at least when put through that spring reverb and filter…

Software:

I got most of my software with either my audio interface or with MIDI controllers (Focusrite and Novation respectively). I use Ableton Live Lite because, thanks to drum racks, I don’t need more than 8 channels for what I do. Obviously that doesn’t work for everyone. Also I got loads of really impressive plugins - from the likes of Softube and Puremagnetik, for example - free with those hardware devices. In addition, many amazing things are out there for free, from Micah’s Puremagnetik Ableton packs and plugins to Tom Erbe’s selection of free VSTs.

iOS:

Finally, there’s not really any such thing as an outdated iOS device where music is concerned. Even an ancient iPhone can be connected to a cheap iRig device and turned into an array of effects boxes, for example. Plus, it’s an obvious thing to say, but buy an iOS app once and you’ve got as many units as you have iOS devices.

7 Likes
#24

This made me think of all the people on the synthesizers Reddit who buy broken Junos and try to fix them without even knowing if anything in the circuits works anymore.Or indeed, without any electrical knowledge (which is extremely dangerous with mains-powered kit).

The best one was one that had actually been in a house fire

1 Like
#25

What’s the vst called? You can’t just mention something like that without more info :wink:

1 Like
#26

You don’t need to spend any money at all to make music, do you? If you have a computer or phone, there is no shortage of free software. SunVox alone is a whole world in itself. You don’t need anything other than SunVox.

If you don’t have a computer or phone, you can sing and hambone. Totally free!

10 Likes
#27

Probably this one.

For keeping it cheap, it’s hard to beat software. Buying a top-shelf, almost infinitely powerful VST like one of the u-he synths is cheaper than a Behringer box. I think that Reaktor (especially when it’s on sale for like $99) is one of the best values in music.

12 Likes
#28

As mentioned by others here, I’ve experienced that DIY route has a lot of hidden expences. Builds which might need odd components that are difficult to source and suddenly cost a lot more then planned. I’ve experienced that building an lfo or a simple mixer can be more expensive then waiting for a good deal on a second hand doepfer unit. I seldom see basic DIY modules for sale, I think sadly simple DIY builds go for the price of their components (or less). I guess when I build confidence to make digital modules or complex VCOs etc. they might “pay themselves off”.

2 Likes
#29

It’s the same as @hermbot mentioned. I haven’t gotten so much into Oscine Tract but I highly recommend Fauna by the same developer. Very strange synth architecture that took me hours to figure out but totally unique imo.

4 Likes
#30

Excellent call - I got Reaktor largely for incredible the user library!

Also if you buy a copy Computer Music magazine you get some incredible free stuff with that - effects and instruments. There’s a free version of Aalto which only differs from the main release in that it’s mono. Such a truly mind-blowing synth.

3 Likes
#31

This is pretty much my setup exactly, along with a smaller eurorack system. Ubuntu laptop, lots of free software, PD, a zoom recorder that’s also an audio interface, audacity, and my modular.

3 Likes
#32

My portable setup - usually used with an op-z

I set out to build a eurorack system for < £100 (I failed - but only by a small amount - it relies on ordering pcba boards in batches of 10, although the pcbs below were hand-soldered as they are prototypes, 3d printing a case and building a dc-dc psu which was about £7. This excludes the diy cvpal btw):

All modules have reverse polarity protection.
3340 vcos (pwm, attenuverters, etc; hard/soft sync and lin/exp fm use on-off-on switches to allow easy wiggling)
3320 hpf and lpf (attenuverter)
active lpg (vca/vcf/lpg on the switch - uses an analog switch to keep mechanical switch simple and cheap)
3310 dual asr
2164 based dual vca (based on MI Veils - can chain multiple modules together to have an arbitrary-sized vc-mixer)
headphone amp based on njm4556 (1 ohm output impedance and high current - so can drive headphones from low impedance eg apple etc to 600 ohm studio cans)

05E3F0EF-E8DA-4200-BF3D-79A800C005BF

003-modular_ajh_vco
003-modular_ajh_vco190×600 22.2 KB
004-modular_ajh_vco
004-modular_ajh_vco218×600 35.6 KB
005-modular_ajh_lpf
005-modular_ajh_lpf97×600 13.8 KB
006-modular_ajh_lpf
006-modular_ajh_lpf125×600 22.2 KB
007-modular_ajh_hpf
007-modular_ajh_hpf231×600 26.5 KB
008-modular_ajh_hpf
008-modular_ajh_hpf231×600 31.4 KB
009-modular_ajh_lpg
009-modular_ajh_lpg234×600 24.4 KB
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010-modular_ajh_lpg220×600 27.1 KB
011-modular_ajh_asr
011-modular_ajh_asr205×600 20.2 KB
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014-modular_ajh_vca1151×600 23.3 KB
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28 Likes
#33

On the other hand, when you’ve done a bit of DIY you get a good sense of what is fixable. I have picked up some bargains that way. Recently I got a pristine synth at a much reduced price because it was listed with a fault and I felt confident that it was something I would be able to fix. When I received it turned out that there was actually nothing wrong with it. The problem must have been somewhere else in the user’s setup.
Then there are cosmetic issues - I got an MPC Touch at a great price because it had no power supply and one of the knob caps was missing. Both easily remedied. It was perfect apart from those issues.
There is also a pleasure to be had in restoring something to working order. I think it helps reduce gear fetishism too, cracking something open and hacking it. Makes you realise it’s a means to an end, not a cargo cult object.
I wouldn’t spend a lot on something broken in order to fix it though, unless I was confident it was fixable…

5 Likes
#34

When it comes to buying cheap guitar pedals, Arion and Ibanez pedals from the late 80s early 90s are often a steal. Obviously the new stuff from China is insanely cheap and some of it is worthwhile. Besides endlessly looking for deals on reverb I find that the used section on Guitar Center’s website can score some deals. It’s like they have no idea how to price stuff.

4 Likes
#35

I really like u-he’s Bazille: it’s a totally modular vst synth with enough features to last a lifetime.

4 Likes
#36

I love my Arion SCH-1 !!! It’s my favourite chorus, by far. I’m so scared of it dying I’ve started working on a clone… done most of it now… (will also make a eurorack version :slight_smile: )

3 Likes
#37

u-he Zebralette is also absolutely free and totally amazing.

3 Likes
#38

Cheapness can be a trap. I’m a big fan of DIY projects in general and of hearing people make music with things that they made. The need to get a bargain runs so deep that it leads to funny decisions about what to make tough. I’ve spent a lot of hours on DIY solutions that seemed like a cool hack or “one weird trick.” I think the internal story here is often “I’m clever and capable and as a result getting a level of consumer good that would otherwise be unattainable to me.” Modding a cheap mixer with expensive preamps for example. When the work is done you’ve got something that might have better specs, but still be badly made.

Maybe this kind of thinking is less prevalent now than it was when I first started getting things, because the quality of budget-friendly gear is so much higher. But idk, it’s partly about formative myths and those die hard.

I’m glad to see this thread skewing towards software because working more in that realm is the main way I found to make better decisions about my own tools.

I guess getting quality stuff for cheap is the main topic here. If received ideas about fidelity and what kinds of sounds are high-quality are not underlying the work then there is no tension around cheapness. Personally I go cheap on stuff I don’t touch while playing (audio I/O, computation), and not-cheap on stuff I do (tactile interface).

I love thrift-store keyboards partly for the way they point at assumptions about quality but of course the more people fall in love with them the less cheap they get! Now that SK-5s are super desirable and the Portasounds are thoroughly mined, I guess baby toys are the next wave? Not dissing that approach but to put my embrace of software another way, software artifacts offer a kind of meaning less tied to this consumerist churn.

15 Likes
#39

There’s so many great ideas here already. One other idea that comes to mind is adding a pen & paper to your workflow to model ideas (musical or technical). That way you really get a sense of what gear you need to realize your musical ideas.

I’m trained as a composer and most of my music making has been notated chamber works. Whether or not sheet music adds value to what you’re doing, the idea of notating to store and develop ideas can be really powerful. Since it’s likely just for you at this stage of the process means it doesn’t have to have the same constraints of communicating to other people, as long as you understand it later on.

9 Likes
#40

Not sure if temporary counts as cheap, but Soundtoy are offering up their Effects Rack for Free until June 30th.

Doesn’t include little altar boy, but there’s a lot of processing there for the next few months.

3 Likes