zeronyne

I actually went through this exercise last year when I decided I was going to get one analog flagship just for fun. I ended up deciding on the Polybrute (even over the Moog One), but then I went down the MPC rabbit hole and I forgot all about it.

For a variety of reasons stemming from my recent downsizing of my house (empty-nesting), I moved my studio to a rented location (it's in a retail building above a big hair salon...it always smells great). Due to that, and the fact that I have no where to have a permanent setup at home, I've spent the last 6 months or so creating a portable rig that I can also fly with. I decided to eschew a laptop and I went with an M2Pro Mac Mini and two portable monitors (they look like tablets). But I still needed a controller, MIDI interface, and an audio interface. But then I realized, my HX Stomp has both 5 pin MIDI in/out and stereo ins and outs. So now it's the computer, the Stomp, and a tiny controller keyboard...still trying a few out. So here is my informal survey question: It seems like serving as an audio interface is a relatively common side feature of a lot of devices. In your rig, how many items could serve as an audio interface in a pinch? Including a couple of old Pods and a few throwaway mixers, I think I have a dozen.

This is fantastic. If you want to see how much this is already used, look into Kpop...not the industry, but the community. YouTube has countless videos of fans taking one group's song and reconfiguring it to sound like a different group. For those of you not steeped in the genre, it will not make any sense, but even these non-musician teens can work the AI to generate subtle but identifiable differences among vocal timbres.

https://youtu.be/FSqX4bt9to4?si=iB5XUgD_BWmTvjvP I don't know why no publication or site will just do the work and create an apples to apples comparison as unbiased as possible, but that has always been my lament about music gear marketing. You may find this useful since Apple's taxonomy for their M chips is intentionally vague..."Max" and "Pro" should not be values in the same measuring system.

Nice work! And I wouldn't be so quick to relegate this conversion to the "it will never have resale value" bin. I've seen Microfreaks and Minilogues with amputated keyboards sell very quickly on Reverb.

Clicky clicky It's not feature-packed, but the features it does have are top notch.

I have a medium size Eurorack rig, but I’m looking for a little more precision in tuning. Anyone using a voltage/pitch quantizer? Do you recommend yours?

Just wanted to conclude my epic, but I can't find my original post. Quick recap: 3 years ago, Lync reappeared at NAMM, I reached out to the guy reviving it, and we had long conversations. I gave a deposit, and 18 months later, he refunded the money. Then a few weeks after that, he offered me one with a custom color and at almost half the price. I placed a second deposit. So, at that point it had been almost three years or so since the very original order, and he let me know that he is giving up the company altogether, and that I should file a PayPal dispute to get my money back. Of course, it was 3 days after the 6 month limit that Paypal has for disputes, but I filed it anyway, and they responded that they would investigate and adjudicate within 30 days. It had been almost 60 days, and finally my money was refunded due to no response from Lync. So I ended up spending no money (but a lot of time), and I ended up with a Lync sticker and code for a VST synth. This was more than just bad customer service for me because the Lync holds such a special place in my identity as a keyboard player...not that I'm some keytar wiz...it was just a differentiator for me in the 90s when I was desperately trying to find my identity. Part of the one I owned is still being used by another Lync player who had a faulty keybed. So I guess I need to keep trying to endure using the Ax Edge. It's an amazing synth, but despite the form factor, it feels, after about 15 minutes, that I'm just carrying a weighted controller on one shoulder. Any boutique manufacturer making modern-looking keytars?

Just a simple solid body electric. Think P Bass.

You don't need a lookalike. I do deepfakes with AI for work. Just send me a script.

I see what you are saying. I wouldn't worry about the actual timbre you are starting with. Start with just a basic hollow body jazz guitar sound...even the Gen MIDI one is fine to start. Then you start auditioning modelers. I use Guitar Rig and a few other software modelers along with a Katana, HX Stomp and other hardware, but really, any Jazz Chorus emulator should do the trick to get 85% of the way there. And then you have to play with delays and LFO-pitch in either pedal emulations in your modeler or discrete plug ins. Since you do not play guitar, let me warn you about one thing. You will not get the sound you are looking for plugging the output of your synth straight into a guitar amp of modeler's guitar input unless you are really careful with your levels. There are many workarounds, but if you stay in software, you don't have those particular challenges.

Hello all, I have a guitar that has sentimental value but no other real value, and I've decided to repaint it by hand. I know how to strip the poly with a heat gun, but I'm wondering actually stripping it down the to bare wood is absolutely necessary. If I get all of the poly off and just take 320 grit to the whole thing, it should have enough "teeth" to be painted over with paint pens, correct? The pens I have are ultra opaque, so I'm not worried about the original color coming through. But should I get it down to bare wood and reprime it? It SEEMS like a waste of effort, but I would defer to someone who has some experience in this regard. And I plan to reseal it with poly. Thoughts?

Richard Nixon playing the concerto he wrote. Starts at 1:20. I've also seen him play some barrelhouse-type thing.

And this is the crux of it. Every discussion I've seen about this has been from a decidedly American point of view, even in the discussions that have heavy European involvement

I think there is a corrolary to the question that also needs to be considered. Licensing comes with a risk when you are talking about BRAND licensing. Moog or any marquee brand would partially assume Behringer's reputation doing so. It's not like Disney, where people don't associate the horrible quality of some of the crap that has Mickey on it with the quality of the overall Disney experience. Licensing, and charging a premium, conflicts with the mission of both Behringer AND the "target" brand. Behringer's main mission is reduce cost to get as close to IP theft as possible without crossing the line (and admittedly, they fail on occasion, but so do many large companies), and up until recently, Moog and others banked partially on their name to charge a massive premium over time and materials. And for a brand like Arturia, there is NO advantage to licensing to Behringer.

I've been really interested in this YAMAHA EAD10 A very famous drum YouTuber uses just this device to record his drum audio, and it always sounds amazing. Search for "El Estepario Siberiano" on YouTube if you would like to hear the output.

Ah, another hitch...so definitely not user-installable?

And let me add that faceless and voiceless YouTube videos about guitar pedals are so much more aesthtically and aurally pleasing than personality-based reviews. In my opinion, of course. They are almost Zen.

The AI-based text to speech convertors are quite good. You can usually figure out it's fake rather quickly, but they are far from lifeless. This has actually given non-English speakers a new audience as language is no longer a barrier. And then there is the accessibility issue. I like text whether there is a voiceover or not in many instances because when I pause, I like to see the copy.

Arrgh, I just realized the retrofit also excludes the 73 key...those must not have sold well. Darn...my plan was to get a used 73 and upgrade.

I guess that will depend on the price of the retrofit.

I’m sure you’ve already discussed this, but I want to add another voice to the subject. I have no insider contacts anymore at Korg, but if YOU do, please buy your Korg insiders a beverage. I think there are two possible triggers for what happened with the Nautilus, but it almost doesn’t matter which: 1) Korg’s Nautilus product manager did a competitive/comparative analysis and saw that the use case for the Yamaha MoDx was nearly identical and sought a differentiator to elevate the line. 2) Korg anticipates AT being the next feature to be returned to this sweet spot of working musicians who do not need the flagship but want the sounds. Either way, I was a little taken aback (in a good way) when Jordan Rudess appeared in my Facebook feed talking about the addition of aftertouch to the Nautilus line AND as a retrofit! So whether one of the two market triggers above forced their hand or whether they just listened to customers is probably not material, but they should definitely be acknowledged for improving an existing product rather than leaving early adopters in the dust. Well done, Korg,

The Kpop industry has gone the other way to recoup some investment. In the US, you can walk into a Target and buy an album from Twice or Blackpink or BTS, and they are between $50 and $100. Sometimes, there's not even a CD (just a download code). But what the packaging is absolutely full of are photo cards and tons of other swag. And they are like blind boxes...you have to buy multiples to get everything if you are a completist. It harkens back to reading lyrics in the record liner while listening to an album for the first time.

So Josh Scott trolled the entire pedal corksniffing community a few times, and still, the other pedal influencers go about their day like he didn’t call all of them out. This happened a few times. He went an entire summer demoing pedals, and everyone thought he was going through his custom tube amp, and it was actually a Kemper everyone was hearing. He showed how ridiculous overdrive elitists were by blatantly manipulating the price of used DOD Bad Monkey pedals. That one is still going on. He showed that an original Pod, a completely digital distortion, and many “crap” pedals sound just as good as any boutique pedal in many real world applications. The hypocrisy and incestuousness of the pedal enthusiast industry is mind-boggling.