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Zalman Stern

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About Zalman Stern

  • Birthday 01/19/2022

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  1. Really not sure what to think here... https://www.moogmusic.com/news/introducing-animoog-galaxy -Z-
  2. Do you mean Teenage Engineering? At first glance, I assumed they provided design services on the product as that is one thing the company does.
  3. As a couple folks have mentioned, if the QSC isn't working for you, it's hard to recommend an alternative in a mixer that has recording capability as the QSC is considered a high quality version of that product area. I have not used the QSC but personally like the SoundCraft Ui24. It is likely a bit big for your needs, but the smaller versions supposedly have different analog electronics and may not be as good. Even there, for anything important, I record to both USB drive and USB out into a DAW on a computer. Annoyingly, there is a 32GB limit for the drive on direct recording. Making a small partition on a larger USB stick works fine. The USB sticks get really hot, which seems undesirable but there's not much to do about it. I don't think the Behringer/Midas options in the lower end have built-in recording, but you can also record over USB into a DAW with them. Zoom has the LiveTrak line, as well as the aforementioned digital recorders, all of which will get the job done nicely. (The only issue with Zoom recorders is making sure they have reliable power for the entire session. USB jacks are not 100% reliable in practice, doubly so for the micro versions on the H6, etc. The F8/F8n offer a Hirose connector which is reliable. Using batteries as backup is an option, but requires keeping track of charge level and you don't want to leave AAs in an H6 when you're not using it because it will drain them.) So after all of that, there's the question of whether you're going to mix multitrack or just want a stereo mixdown from the board. If the mixdown is all you want, a lot of digital mixers are overkill and their complexity of use will likely just annoy you. Doing mixdown in a DAW produces better results, but can eat up a bunch of time. The most reliable way to get a no effort, half way decent recording is to mic the room. You can do that with pretty much any of these setups if you have a couple extra tracks on the mixer or recorder. The Zoom recorders with their stereo mics work well for this, but have to be placed accordingly. Placement may or may not be easy if also running instruments and such into the recorder. -Z-
  4. For reasonably priced, incredibly good, ribbons, I'd look at Samar https://www.samaraudiodesign.com/ . Definitely pick their AL95s over Cascade Fatheads. The Fatheads are not bad, but also not all that remarkable as ribbons go. The Samar VL37A and VL373A are really wonderful. At some point I'll probably have to pony up for an MF65. The new Samar condensers are also great mics, a quite good value, and come in a variety of useful form factors. Of the mics mentioned, the Coles 4050 is probably the most interesting. I don't know the mic and looking at the specs, it seems it is going to sound a bit different than a 4038, e.g. more high frequency response, in addition to being an integrated stereo mic. The mounting and stereo orientation design on the 4050 looks solid, but that's the sort of thing you can only judge by using the product. I would expect this to be a fair bit more expensive than the other options. I agree with dB that if you want boost, buying the active version of the mic is a better bet, but it is a question of budget vs. convenience and a small amount of quality. An outboard mic booster can be used with many mics. The built-in kind is more convenient and maybe a bit better matched to the mic. As one goes up in price, there are a lot of options. Ribbon mics are a bit more tractable to make from the ground up than other types and there are a lot of folks doing exactly that. (This property also makes them fairly repairable over the long term.) AEA and Royer are excellent. Shure's Roswellite ribbons, KSM313 and KSM353, are bombproof and versatile. Stager, Extinct Audio, and a number of other boutique folks are making interesting mics. There are two reasons to be looking at ribbon mics. One is the figure-8 pattern. The nulls are really dead which can be a very powerful way to eliminate unwanted sources if the front and back lobes are capturing something you want. The flipside of this is that if the room sound coming in the back is bad, the figure-8 will not be the right pattern. The other aspect of ribbons is the high frequency handling, which is not strongly rolled off like with some dynamics, but also typically not incredibly high fidelity like most modern condenser mics. I find a stereo ribbon, or pair of ribbons, one of the more reliable ways to mic drum kits, either overhead or modeerate distance in front. It's not infinitely mixable like close mics on everything, but it often sounds just right with minimal work. -Z-
  5. There's a 3.5mm line out jack for monitoring on the bottom of the H6. The monitor mix can be configured via the Monitor Mix UI off the Input&Output menu in the menu UI on the device. You'll need a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable to go into the aux in on the S1. 3.5mm to 6.5mm TRS or even XLR might be ok as well but my guess is the aux in handle the stereo signal with no issues where the others might or might not. Other option is to drop a DI between the keyboard and the H6, running the through to the speakers. If you need a mixer, I'd use the one in the H6. -Z-
  6. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s patches. -Z-
  7. I gather that for all the reputation associated with the music and image, Buffett lived a relatively healthy lifestyle. At least by musician standards... Surely drinking to excess on a regular basis is a really bad idea but so is being a total stress monkey and Buffett's message definitely discouraged the latter. His being savvy at business definitely made it easier to live a relaxed lifestyle, but plenty of successful people are unable to make that tradeoff. Back in the late 90s or early 2000s a writer for a Bay Area local paper wrote about the controversy of Buffett playing the Shoreline Amphitheater. He was a huge draw every year and the fans were rather horrible. An exercise in public drunkenness. Leaving a lot of trash and a huge traffic jam at the start and end of the concert. The article was very complimentary to Jimmy himself but suggested the anthem for the fans shouldn't be Margaritaville but rather the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk Too F---." -Z-
  8. Between the Osmose and a Seaboard, I find it hard to imagine a person who doesn’t have a strong preference on which instrument they’d rather play after 15 minutes with each… They’re just entirely different. No point discussing the Eagan Matrix built-in to the Osmose if one is going to use it as a controller anyway. The main reason the Eagan Matrix is significant is because using the added expression productively requires mapping that expression to changes in sound in a complex fashion. This is not a well developed feature in most synth engines. It is also guaranteed to require more effort in patch design and implementation. Yeah it’s more complex, but it sort of has to be if one wants the extra degrees of expression to do something that is novel and musically interesting. -Z-
  9. Flow 8 is not listed in their supported mixers and I'm pretty sure it is not supported. Mixing Station works with mixers that are controlled over a network. Flow 8 only has USB and Bluetooth. Possible he'll add B:uetooth/USB/MIDI at some point... Per the Behringer Xair issue with the iPad app, Behringer recently updated it, and the Midas version, and it was working when I checked in early August. However that it took more than six months to do so is a huge red flag. (Annoying as the MR18 is a fairly good product.) Mixing Station is nice to have around, but in this case it's probably the reason Behringer didn't feel a ton of urgency on the fix. Choosing a mixer that has a web UI is one way to avoid the app compatibility/longevity issue. (E.g. SoundCraft. One can use the web UI or Mixing Station.) As to the original question, I'd say the only advantage to a digital mixer here is if one wants remote control and to save different configurations, etc. Digital really should be cheaper, though perhaps not at the lower levels of quality. A fair number of audio interfaces have mixing support, but may or may not have the controls one wants on the device or a good app designed for live mixing. (And those that do are up a bit in price. E.g. a MOTO Ultralite Mk5 is $650.) ART has the USBMix6, which is similar to the Soundcraft Notepad concept and very economical. Per headphone output, consider that running a line out to a headphone amp may be what you want anyway as most on device headphone outputs aren't that great. I've gone from wanting audio interfaces/mixers/etc. to have all the inputs/outputs I'd ever need to accepting that DI boxes and headphone amps are a thing for a reason. (Quality, flexibility, useful for other applications etc.) -Z-
  10. Mostly that both are not particularly stellar booze with worldwide reputations established via marketing. Sure, part of that marketing is JD being the thing one passes around on stage. If one wants to enjoy a drink, there are better choices. -Z-
  11. Jack Daniels is to American whiskey as Fosters is to Australian beer... -Z-
  12. It seems the original motivation for the project was cultural preservation, driven by the Marche Synth Museum. Trying to justify the work in terms of commercial potential or comparing it to contemporary technology likely misses the point. My guess is they did it for the historical record and it worked out well enough that result seems cool enough to offer to others. Plus doing so helps to fund the effort. It’s not meant to be a hit product in the current synth market. -Z-
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