We are the music makers - producers?

So some mates bought me a Behringer TD-3 for my 40th.

Very excited to get going and start spending money on all the other bits I need to start making music.

Is there any other drum machine worth looking at apart from the Behringer RD-6 or RD-8? I’d love the 8 but I might have to be realistic about budget for a while.

Volca drum, particularly if you want some crazy, less trad sounds.

Oh I love the sound of that. Thanks.

https://youtu.be/Io4cAqBeT_M

I can see how this becomes an expensive hobby very quickly.

If you can stretch to a TR-8 which has the 7x7 expansion pack already loaded, that would give you a lot of versatility and would pair well with the TD-3

Or go for the TR-8S if you want to spend more

Hmmm - cheers. That might be one for further down the line.

Cheap(ish) headphones recommendation? All mine are Bluetooth.

I've got an old Mackie onyx firewire interface working just fine with a just pre m1 2020 Mac mini. Had to use two adaptors but works flawlessly.

Audio Technica ATH-M50x or DT250 250ohm version (80 ohm version if you are only using a laptop headphone jack). Both around £120 (thanks Brexit).

Don't buy the ATH-M50 from ebay there are a lot of fakes around.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/recording/headphones/closed-back/audio-technica-ath-m50x-studio-monitor-professional-headphones

Good to know. From what I've read it was High Sierra that killed off the FW Duet but I haven't actually tried.

For affordable cans I like the Sony MDR-7506, with the pads swapped for the Beyerdynamic EDT250V ones. They aren't the most detailed (as you'd expect for the money) but the response curve on them is really nice and flat.

Re: drum machines, the Roland TR-6S is a great little box that does a lot.

Cheap(ish) headphones recommendation? All mine are Bluetooth.

I think DT990s are probably your best bang for buck at around the £100 mark. The air at the top end is a little hyped but you can work around it easily enough. DT880s are amazing but an extra £50 or so which is odd for a pair of practically identical headphones. I've never used the DT770s (which are slightly more closed back) but I imagine they're of a similar quality.

Incidentally I use a pair of 250ohm headphones with a standard ThinkPad and it drives them fine. I'm not sure I'd go up to 600ohms or anything like that but 250 seems fine to me.

Thanks all - time to get selling some bike stuff.

I’ve been going down all sorts of YouTube rabbit holes while I wait for the rest of my hardware to arrive.

This guy does some incredible stuff. I don’t understand how he keeps track of what piece of kit is controlling which sounds.

https://youtu.be/rOB7brF-hfI

Outstanding

Right off the bat I'm hoping it ends with a dislocated voice saying "Son, your teas ready".

It's great stuff but I'm looking at the mixer and there's only 5 faders up so a lot of this is routing through some machines. The Elektron kit is particularly good at this kind of thing but he has a good touch with it.

I see he's using a sub mixer too though.

That is absolutely fucking insane

I watched a fair bit and skipped through too - there's nothing too complex going on with the control, it's bass patterns off the octatrack bottom row centre (controlling bottom row left and the moog tower),with drums running off the TR8 and percussion off the other boxes top row left. Noises off the modular rig, maybe some bass.
Everything is sync'd up (obviously) and he's done some clever stuff with layering patterns in the same track so he can move between bass synths/patterns but there's usually only 3-4 things making noises at once... What makes it is the performance aspect and playing with drums/percussion to give the patterns movement.

I wondered if he's using a pan on the lefthand mixer to fade between patterns (otherwise playing at the same time), which is a nice little hack.

He's definitely balls deep in the genre which helps. Also has a lot of decent synths and decent programming. I recognise the style from my own exploits but I've not got quite that far into it.

I've been doing similar stuff on a smaller rig for many years. It does take a while to learn the individual machines and his modular rig is pretty huge so I'm guessing he doesn't see much sunlight :)

Hats off to the guy anyway, I thought it sounded pretty good.

Anything you can share?

What’s your set up?

My volca drum is supposed to arrive today so I won’t be seeing any sunlight.

I would say it's a very personal journey producing music. I've been at it since 1990 with an Atari sampler program, I suppose before that programming tones on a BBC B.

Many nights spent tweaking knobs. To me it seems such a massive subject and I've never met anyone who really simplifies it although there are some good tutorials around for Techno.

Then there's the outboard gear like reverbs, delays etc. and eq and compression the list goes on and on. I've witnessed friends spending £100k in todays money building rigs as a hobby.

Todays market is very different with so much choice of great synths. I got into Elektron early doors so I have the monomachine with keyboard and joystick, only 500 were made. The Machine Drum, Octatrack, Analog Keys. Just picked up a NDLR and I have the trinity TR909, TR808 & TB303. Slightly ratty condition but all originals. EMU SP1200 in case I need more percussion! & an XoX box that I built from the first batch. It all runs through a digital 32 track mixer.

I went through a period of selling a lot of gear and I am looking all the time for a synth I can afford that might add something. I sold a Virus Ti and a Moog Voyager just to make space but I miss a knob per function interface so something like that is probably in my future.

I'm always working with software too. Logic and Ableton. I don't see any reason to limit myself to hardware only.

Sounds like a lovely set up.

I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by how affordable stuff appears. The Korg Volcas seem a lot of fun for ~£120 for example.

I can see how it gets silly when you tell yourself that you need something that you’ve seen on a YouTube video.

For example, I’ve decided that I really want this to make some dark doom laden techno. In fact, I’ve got a list of about £1k of kit that I’ll probably end up buying. https://youtu.be/iGQFQvYsF8o

I know a guy who has gone down the Eurorack route and seems to have spent an insane amount.

Big thanks to people who chipped in with advice on gear. To airhead and freddo for selling me/ lending me stuff. Here's what we made with it.

https://youtu.be/VzMll8IrUVk

Nepalese versions are here (first 15 mins of music, then my friend waffles on for an hour)
https://fb.watch/6PFBnpISdX/

Well done, great work. Nice band to be part of. Pleased the mixer is working out for you in it's new life.

I'm waiting for the modular bubble to burst before I start buying second hand :)

Have you looked at Modal synths. They seem to be great value for money. I've had my eye on any one from their range. The Korg Volcas do seem like standard equipment these days. Every time I see a new synth I go back to the tutorials for the Analog Keys and see that it can do the same thing so I have to keep learning it before any new stuff. No space either.

All my synth stuff is stuck in a warehouse in flood-hit Cologne. I want to be angry but you’ve got to keep some perspective.