We are the music makers - producers?

Maybe breakbeats are the future for you. I think it's a more complicated production process than Techno, I tried a long time ago but wasn't happy with the results.

I watched a tutorial, figured out what samples he was using which he'd renamed but I auditioned a bunch in that Blu Mar pack and found them.

Followed a different tutorial by Ned Rush on chopping samples for breaks and that's the kinda side 'clatter' that's going on 😝 double tracked and panning wildly using PanCake plugin.

It really is painting by numbers these days. I have been known to use a tutorial for inspiration but ultimately it just makes me feel old and starts me reminiscing about the good old days when the top of the range 17" laptop couldn't run enough plugins and the compressor plug was only included in the expensive version of logic.

In short I guess it's just too easy now :)

Yeah tutorials just for inspiration, melody and placement, plus arrangement, that's where its at for me

Well, the end result sounds good to me.

Cheers man, appreciated!

I really like that, a nice old school jungle vibe going on. So, did you 'build' it from already existing bits or start from scratch (still learning....!).

I had the stabs/synth parts already, I'd been tinkering with that for quite a while, originally it had a 4/4 kick going on and it was more Techno I guess. Stabs are five different parts, two Reveal Spire synth, two using Rave Generator plugin and one a sample in Ableton's Simpler.

Copious amounts of Retro Colour RC-20 plugin and other stuff on the stabs.

The MC parts I wanted to do something with for ages too, they're off an old Outer Limits mix, quality isn't all that so had to do a fair bit of processing and as it turned out I wasn't really able to clean them up entirely but then I quite liked the dirty vibe in the end.

Rest of it, the sub and the Reese bassline I made with Reveal Spire synth again with RC-20 all over them. Ozone's low end focus plugin cleaned up the sub and I think the Reese bass I ran that through Izotope Neutron and let the listening assistant choose an EQ and Dynamics setting.

The breakbeats, I already had an absolute bonkers breakbeat that I'd made. I set the sample clip to re-pitch, set the clip quantize to 1/8 so they re-trigger on the next 8th note and then just set the loop brace in the clip and just kept copying the same clip in the session, just changing where the loop brace was to pick out what I wanted, so for instance just a snare or whatever. Then played all those clips with Push and went mad with it.

That just ended up being a separate track as an accompaniment to the main breakbeat, fucked around with, chopped up again in places and just generally used to be a background texture and panned around the stereo image to create width.

I then ran all the stems through Waves J37 tape emulation on as flat as possible setting and cranked the input into the output on linked mode. Then grouped the tape saturated stems and used Slate Digital Mixbus with a mix glue setting on each group.

Bounced those out and a final mix session with some automation on the Spire synth filters and mix mostly, plus general volume automation before bouncing the master and taking it into a master session.

Reply of the week!! Thanks for the info/insight.

No worries! Cheers

Not sure if anyone in here is interested, but getting rid of a Yamaha Reface DX, Korg Volca Sample 2 & Korg SQ-1. All in very good nick, full box/packaging, barely used. Prices for forum folks £260, £80 & £60 respectively + postage. Will pop up a proper ad later, tonight.

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Always had a soft spot for the Reface DX but no space and no real need.

I'd have had the SQ-1 if I hadn't just bought a second hand one a few weeks back! GLWS.

Yeah, I picked it up as my first hardware synth (which was swiftly followed by a Reface CS). If you're into FM, it's a great little hands-on synth (at least more hands-on that a lot of other FM synths). The 4 operators seems a bit limiting at first but with the per-operator feedback options it's arguably more flexible than a regular 6-OP synth (though it would've been great to drop in DX7 patches, which it'd need 6 for).

I loved my Re-DX too, and squeezed some great sounds out of it, only ever by accident though...

Never understood why they called the waveform modifier "feedback."

In the DX7, you could have an operator feedback into itself, as all the operators were sine waves, this feedback (an operator modulating itself) was a way to get a different waveforms. You can see the feedback enabled operators of the DX7's algorithms here:

FM is definitely a bit of black magic, especially if you've been spoiled by the simplicity of subtractive synthesis!

Edit: Didn't realise the feedback could cover multiple operators (as seen in algorithms 4 & 6). I'm glad I've never had the misfortune of trying to program a DX7. On a related note, Dexed is a great freeware VST that's excellent for playing around with FM on. Accepts DX7 sysex patch banks too

On a tangential note, the trigger for selling some unused gear was I'm looking at picking up one of the Roland Boutique JX-08s when they come out in Jan. Anyone got any experience of working with them (the Boutique series in general)? Aside from a control panel for ants, any major pros/cons? Would be great to know if you can load patches from the equivalent original synth. Got a load of JX-8P patches I'd love to be able to transfer over.

I have 6 of the boutiques, I rather like them, though they are more different from one another than you might think.

The format can be challenging for some of them, I think. Probably my two favourites are the SE-02 and the D-05. For both of those I have an external controller, in the case of the SE-02 I use the Studio Electronics Ext-Box to get analogue control over the filter with a normal-sized knob and on the D-05 I got the DTronics programmer (useful less because of a fault of the boutique format and more just how the D-50 was designed).

The SH-01A is just great the way it is. As is the TB-06 and the JU-06A, although the JU only having four voices (unless you polychain two of them) is a shame.

For the two newest boutiques it’s interesting that they’ve dropped the ACB tech. I really buy into ACB, I think it sounds tremendous. But the reality is that it’s so processor intensive they had to lower the boutique sample rate to 48k (from 96k in the TR-8 and System-1) and you can hear some aliasing in the very high frequencies with high resonance. Only the tiniest amount but it’s there. And the VA boutiques generally have 4 voice polyphony max even when the original synth had 6 or more.

So I understand why they’ve changed the tech for these two new ones, I think they figure that the market doesn’t really care about ACB and a more conventional virtual analogue model is fine. Everyone seems to like how Zen Core sounds anyway so it makes sense.

In terms of pros/cons… Pros: they sound good, they’re built really well, have full size midi ports, the small size makes them super convenient for desktop use and they usually have enough features like effects and a sequencer that makes them really fun to jam on without needing a ton of other gear. Cons: mini jack outputs; usually no separate assignable outs (which is a shame for the drum machines); the keyboard accessory is pretty expensive; some of the controls on some of the units really are small. The sliders on the new JD one look like they have about 1cm of throw - not great for dialling in envelopes.

Re: patches - generally what Roland are doing is releasing cloud plugin versions of the synths alongside the boutiques and for those it does seem like you can often take OG sysex patches and make them compatible. I imagine it totally depends on the synth though and I have no idea whether it’s possible with the JX8P specifically. Might be worth asking them on social media or a support channel.

Oh wow, wasn't expecting such a detailed response! Very much appreciated!

Yeah aside from the JX-08 the other one I was looking at was the JU-06a, but the 4 voices is a dealbreaker there.

Is that DTronics programmer basically a re-issue of the PG-800? To be honest a decent part of the reasoning behind picking up the JX-08 is also having a decent amount of physical controls for VSTs. I've got an MIDI controller with 9 faders & 9 encoders but it'd be nice to have some more controls. Being able to send MIDI CC from the JX-08 as well should hopefully give a fair amount of control of virtual synths!

Had a look at the effects offered on the JX-08 and it seems to be pretty extensive, with a decent amount of configuration for each (got both the JX-8P & Juno 60/106 choruses and a variety of different reverbs, as well as some bit crushers & compressors which was much more than I was expecting!).

Lack of assignable outputs is a weird choice (or lack thereof) for a drum machine, a damn shame for sure. And the little K25m keyboard does look a bit crap for the money, but will likely pick it up anyway as I'm sure it'll lead to much more use.

Fingers crossed for sysex compatibility. I guess worst case scenario it'll be loading them into PG8X and manually recreating them on the JX-08 (will be interesting to see if the Roland cloud version of the JX-08 offers over PG8X, if anything). Not got much interest in getting roped into that, pretty happy with my TAL plugins for the Juno/Jupiter!

Thanks again for the detailed response!

Sorry for the spam

Would anyone here be able to make use of a power transformer and converter? They allow you to run North American and Japanese electronics on 240v. Ideal for things like guitar amps and synths. Free to good home, collection from E10. I might be able to post, but they're heavy. I've got two of each.

No worries!

Is that DTronics programmer basically a re-issue of the PG-800?

Not exactly but it does the same thing. The original programmers are compatible with the boutique which is quite cool, but they are quite expensive to buy nowadays. Even though the Dtronics one isn’t cheap it’s cheaper than an original programmer in good condition.

One last thing! Am I right in assuming that the JX-08 can basically be used as a DTronics (assuming you've got the DT-800)/PG-800 programmer?

I think they designed the controls on the boutique JX-08 unit in the style of the PG programmer - not sure if there are as many controls as on the original but it is designed to give you more hands on control than the original JX8P offered.

If you mean using it as a controller for the JX plugin, not sure.

Yeah I had a decent look and there's at least a missing LFO control as far as I recall, there's a switch between the envelopes and there's nothing around the aftertouch config (though can't remember if that existed on the PG-800 or just something I'm remembering from PG-8X)

Hi,
I’ve been using a Korg volca beats for a while along side my MPC for a while now and it’s been a fun first drum machine but I think it’s time to upgrade.
The things I’d like to have are: more sounds, more effects that can be used live, bigger knobs and sliders for tweaking the sounds live, more memory for storing patterns.
I do really like some of the features on the volca like ‘step jump’, ‘active step’ and I like the ‘stutter’ delay effect too. I’d like to still have these or something similar.
Any suggestions? My budget is probably £500ish
I’m asking here as I’ve been researching and there’s just too many options out there!

Roland TR-8S