>you can buy tiny handheld gaming consoles for cheap
>you can buy tiny laptops
>but if you want tiny music production gear your options are either a smartphone w/ koala sampler, a hipster toy synth that costs as much as a car and is so limited it's only barely usable at all, or nothing
Why the FUCK is dedicated music gear so goddamn big and bulky? is it really that hard to make a tiny sampler that isn't a piece of shit?

>>105523620 (OP)
Wait until uncle Uli clones it. He'll make it smaller and cheaper

>>105523620 (OP)
it cost less than a macbook air u fuckin poorfag.

>>105523620 (OP)
Yeah I don't get it either. China doesn't even seem to be able to help there either.
If you could knock out £40 volca clones you'd make a lot of money.

>>105523640
>Wait until uncle Uli clones it.
It's been 15 fucking years. Technically 17 since the OP-1 was available for a little bit in 2009. It's not happening.

I got one on sale for less than an american fender. you're retarded op. stick to fruity loops.

>>105523653
It's two thousand fucking dollars. You can buy a MacBook Pro for two thousand fucking dollars. Even at the current pay-what-you-want thing they're doing now, $1.3k is still way too much for what is basically 9 overly basic synth engines, 2 very limited sampler engines, 9 esoteric borderline unusable effects, 4 tracks (and no more), 6 shitty tape emulators, 8 unusable "sequencers" that you can't really control with any real fidelity, and a maximum of 8 separate projects each with a maximum of 6 minutes of runtime.

Two thousand fucking dollars for that.

>>105523756
why did you waste your money like that

>>105523762
Then go buy a microkorg you fuckin poorfag and stop shitting up this board with gay threads.

music is full of tech retards. so naturally this results in a lot of useless overpriced garbage technology

>>105523829
Anon that's worse.

>>105523914
Dunno, cool toys.

>digitakt
>deluge
>mpc one
>
>bulky

>>105523620 (OP)
you can make music with just a laptop and a DAW, physical gear that isn't a midi controller or a toy casio keyboard is luxury BS and you're NGMI

>>105524346
>you can make music with just a laptop and a DAW
yeah if you only make soulless SoundCloud type-beats

>>105524372
you're just proving how uncreative you really are
there's no correlation between skill and how much you spent on gear

It doesn't matter which equipment you use. It's how you use it. Like you can see Madlib using the SP-303. It's not about some hipster bullshit it's about the device being portable, simple and allowing him to make something wherever he's struck by creative impulses. That's what you should be thinking about when you choose what gear you use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMkGcEGW4U4

>>105524372
If your beats are soulless soundcloud type beats inspired by hours of watching "lofi beats to study to" on youtube that speaks on the kind of producer you are, not the tools you used to create them.

Another gear related rant. Have you ever seen those YouTube videos where some nerd gets their hand on a classic piece of equipment, like let's say a SP1200, then makes a beat like it's fucking 1993? I know I know, SP crunch, we've all heard about it. But I'm not impressed that you can make 100 generic sounding boom bap beats with jazz samples. I could just type in Pete Rock and hear it done better. It's not the machine that makes it boring. It's the producer. Why can't they be creative and sample a Cambodian rock cassette tape they found off YouTube or something? I bet it would sound wild going through the SP.

you dont need digital gear to make music you can just bang sticks together and scream

>>105524383
>there's no correlation between skill and how much you spent on gear
I mean that's just a straight-up lie. the more you build on your talents, the more resources you'll find yourself needing. you can and likely will outgrow the MacBook + MPK Mini combo. that just seems like the end all be all now because you don't know very much at the moment

>>105524395
you've got it backwards. if you make basic shit, basic equipment is enough. if you aim higher, you need more.

>>105523620 (OP)
You can easily buy this degenerate piece of crap

>>105524475
But think of it like this, if you aim higher is that the end all be all of artistic expression? I'd rather listen to The Shaggs than Ed Sheeran. That's not to say The Shaggs are better or more talented than that ginger hack. It's just that I can find something I value more as a human being with a soul in their music. Some clueless little girls with no musical training singing about their limited life experiences touches me much more than a man's attempt to make music that appeals to as many people as possible. I don't sit around listening to The Shaggs all day obviously, what sane human being would? But in music I am searching for artists who have developed their own style. Many people can develop the talent of playing an instrument or understanding musical theory. Few can harness it to make their own unique artistic statement.

>>105524503
Ed Sheeran uses a MacBook. The Shaggs did not. I rest my case.

>>105524498
Good fucking lord anon

Korg Volca series? (Picrel is a Volca Sample, 7.5" x 4.5")
Not really designed as portable devices, but you can just run them off of a DC battery pack, and they're small

>>105523620 (OP)
> is it really that hard to make a tiny sampler that isn't a piece of shit?
a lot of this trash is poorly designed or designed for retards that will pay a large amount of money for trash.

>>105523640
>Wait until uncle Uli clones it.
speaking of trash. no thanks. their quality control is bad and i'm sick of seeing people posting shit online about their "brand new" behringer synths having massive problems. and if it's not that faggot, it's yet another moog product made in asia shitting the bed. the race to the bottom is real.

>>105524346
>you can make music with just a laptop and a DAW
Sure, but I hate endless menu diving, I love just picking up my electribe and having everything in front of me right away

>>105523620 (OP)
Bro, just build yourself a LMN-3

https://github.com/FundamentalFrequency/LMN-3-Build-Guide

>2000 dollar meme machine
>no undo functionality

Simple to explain.
There isn’t a large market to sell to. If they charged less, they would end up losing money.
Basic business really.

>strudel.cc

>>105523620 (OP)
It's easy to scam audiofags

>>105528195
just buy the $2,300 OP-XY if you want undo, chud. you can afford that pocket change, right?

>>105528259
Bullshit they could 100% sell that thing for maybe $199 and it would sell like hotcakes. They're only doing this to further the exclusivity gimmick

>>105525011
>volca sample
>doesn't actually capture samples

>>105529496
> $2,300
not even worth $230.
>you can afford that pocket change, right?
i can, but i prefer to buy gear built for straight men with a functioning penis.

>>105523620 (OP)
Trans coded hardware.

>>105529977
no that's modular synth rigs and hardware trackers.

>yamaha psr from 2018
>cheapest sustain pedal
>musescore3
i don't need anything more. more is bloat

>>105523620 (OP)
It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that nobody is doing it. I have a giant roland a30 midi monster hooked to a macbook and logic pro. Finding a decent midi keyboard that’s small and pairs with logic pro is impossible. Your pic is literally the only one.

Learn a REAL instrument, kid.

>>105530159
e2m1 i sawed the demons

>>105523620 (OP)
Apple ios stuff literally IS music gear. I have an Android and wow wowowoweee the lag is bad lmao.

>>105523620 (OP)
Build your own

>>105530341
>anon inadvertently reveals he's clearly poor because he's using an android from 2014 at most and is unaware that the latency issue was solved in 2015

>>105529727
>i prefer to buy gear built for straight men with a functioning penis.
so no gear at all then?

>>105524346
Softwarechads just can't stop winning

>>105523620 (OP)
m8 would be great, but it's a pain-in-the-ass to order one since the order window is only open for an hour or so two or three times a year.
>>105524312
Yes, you retard.
>>105532297
Absolutely based.

>>105526107
>electribe
EMX/ESX were perfect except for the issue with the main encoder dial getting fucked up and jumping values. The original ones were cool too, but I just couldn't vibe with the E2 series.

>>105533203
I have a PMA-5 as well but it kinda sucks compared to the QY-100.

>>105533277
>PMA-5
Awesome. I never knew they made something like that. Love the palm pilot vibes.

>>105533319
It's also IIRC, the only battery-powered Sound Canvas.

>>105523620 (OP)
You don't need more

Just buy an old electribe for like $100 you fucking dipshit.

Or here's something:
>used Volca FM: $100
>used Volca Drum: $100
>shitty 4 channel mixer: $50
But here's the fun part
>2nd shitty 4 channel mixer: $50
>patch cables: $10
>shitty bitcrusher pedal: $50
>shitty distortion/delay/whatever pedal: $25
>combine the above 4 into a no-input-mixing feedback/noise station
You can now make advanced bleeps with sick digital noise effects all on hardware for less than $400, and it takes up about as much space as a large laptop.
Don't buy new designer shit. Use your fucking brain. Get resourceful. There's tons of small cheap shit out there.

>>105533203
Digitakt is absolutely tiny, as is Deluge. Realistically how much smaller are you expecting these things to get? After a certain point it would just become unusable.

>>105523620 (OP)
>is it really that hard to make a tiny sampler that isn't a piece of shit?
You want enough space for the buttons and the knobs.
> costs as much as a car and is so limited it's only barely usable at all, or nothing
What is supply and demand?

>>105524372
I used to to think this stupid shit too until I realised aphex made some of his best material was when he was exclusivity using trackers and other audio software.

>>105524445
GURRIDYULA!

>>105534521
did you just unironically compare yourself to aphex twin as if he's not an extremely exceptional case? isn't he like a legendarily virtuosic prodigy? not a particularly realistic standard you should hold yourself to. "if aphex twin can do it, so can i" is terribly flawed logic.
it's good to surround yourself with creatively enriching objects. you don't have to, but it's good to.

(also aphex twin has always been a massively obsessive gearfag btw but that's irrelevant)

Buy an instrument and play it, or use software on a Windows PC (personal computer).

>>105524372
skill issue
https://youtu.be/-r5gcu_0f8Q
https://youtu.be/D6OR3zKUq7s

>>105524372
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSGqQiHUaHU

>>105534694
https://youtu.be/ZFmNVN_g9HQ

>>105534698
Instruments are also nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc3Y2wokrns

>>105524312
why do all of these cost >$1000?

>>105534651
>>105534694
>>105534698
>>105534725
>"bro look what you can do with just some tracker software and nothing else"
>posts the most plebeian shit ever
this did not help your case

>>105534920
Powerful + niche = expensive.

>>105534998
Real composers hire a real orchestra.

>>105534920
smaller demographic means lower projected sales volume, which means higher msrp per unit. same reason an mri machine costs so much more to buy than an suv even though they both cost around the same to make: the fact that fewer people are going to buy it is the reason the people who make it have to charge more for it.

>>105535048
*gantz graf's all over your face*

>>105534920
Music gear is niche, so it's expensive. If you can only possibly sell 5% of what other industries sell, your price has to be 20x higher.

>>105535030
>Powerful
No cut down DAWs in a box is powerful. You're just paying for UX design, essentially.

>>105535057
Medical gear is high liability, which means expensive manufacturing. If your MRI starts failing, hospitals are going to rape you, and so you can't afford to make junk.

Remember it’s no longer about music it’s about sales to tech losers who could never be real musicians, because they lack artistic ability of any kind

All this shit is garbage your “music” is annoying and sucks ass

>>105534998
i'm sure you make much better music on your toy sampler

>>105535089
>No cut down DAWs in a box is powerful.
"Powerful" is a relative term. Is a Digitakt "powerful" compared to a Mac Pro? No, of course not. But to make a machine this specific in use case that has enough compute to handle the things it does, it's going to have to be pretty expensive.
The Volcas are inexpensive despite their niche appeal because they much more limited. They barely do anything at all. An MPC One is a fairly powerful machine considering what it is and what it does. It's going to be expensive.

>>105535102
True, it's all about selling the "dream". It's also why a lot of these "learn music!" apps and subscription services fail, and they don't understand it. The fake plastic piano market is bigger than ever, but nobody is actually using them, they're desk ornaments.

The dream is quite effective. The zoomer watches some guy with 20 years of experience playing real instruments just pushing a few buttons on a grid in a flashy video and they think to themselves, I could do that!

>>105535089
>If your MRI starts failing
lmao. mri machines are in CONSTANT failure and are a huge maintenance sink. liability doesn't inflate expense as much as you'd think. it really is just sales volume. you're going to have to charge more for a thing you know you're only going to sell maybe 7 of annually.

>>105535104
i do but i'm not going to show you because you'll just say it sucks no matter what you hear. also you don't deserve it because you have no taste.

>>105535152
sounds like someone isn't confident in their work

>>105535158
no i'm quite confident in my material. i'm just also quite confident in your predictability.

>>105535168
oh don't worry, i know absolutely nothing about music, so i won't judge it. but you did judge what i posted, so you must have something better.

>>105535174
> but you did judge what i posted, so you must have something better.
correct.

>>105534612
I like his studio albums, but I lost a lot of respect for him after I saw him live in 2009. it was the shittiest concert I have ever been to. my friends were disappointed too. it was a complete and utter nonsense, and mind you, I am used to going to experimental noise concerts. it was just so fucking bad.

>>105535184
>filtered by the piano-swinging harness
many such cases

>>105535184
I've always wanted to see him live but I keep hearing stories like this from people who saw him and didn't have a good experience and it puts me off. A lot of the performances I see on YouTube aren't much better. :/

>>105523620 (OP)
because you can make music in software on any of those devices without needing a dedicated (read: limited) device that also just uses software internally anyway
you're asking for something like those FPGA consoles only with an even smaller potential user-base and less of a reason to exist in the first place

>>105535030
music is one of the most popular hobbies i feel like these things are niche because of their price, they rolled the high prices they had 50 years ago when digital devices were actually very expensive to produce

>>105524442
Why does this surprise you.
Gear becomes iconic for having good presets that defined a certain genre. Like, the whole point is using it for what it's iconic for. Otherwise why wouldn't you just use a completely clean soft mixer.

>>105535184
Idk why this is surprising
because noise and/or idm isn't fit for "concerts"
he could just stand up there and press play for that.
a live performance would be him tinkering for an hour to get a drum loop going.
imagine paying real-life money to see aphex (i cant), he's liable to make it shit on purpose for the irony.

>>105537393
Well it's a sampler. You can sample literally anything with it. The producers of the era sampled those types of records not just because it fit with the kind of music they were trying to make but also because they were accessible. Now you don't even need records. The history of recorded music is at your fingertips. That means even if you're using iconic gear you don't need to make beats exactly like your production idols would have in the 90s.

>>105537454
Back in the old days he said in an interview that he enjoyed making live music that was impossible to dance to. Just to mess with people.

>>105537287
Music is one of the most popular hobbies, yes, but hardware synths, samplers and sequencers remain niche anyway because everything they do can be done by an object most people already own, and that object can do lots of other things as well. As a result, hardware appeals to very few people despite the popularity of electronic music as a hobby. Most people just use their laptops and don't see a point in hardware anyway.

>>105536262
You can, but it's nice to have access to a dedicated (read: limited) machine in addition to that because of its ease of use, utility, reliability and efficiency. Something you can just pick up and immediately start fucking with as if it were a children's toy.

>>105537775
>hardware appeals to very few people
You're just pulling this out of your ass. Fact is all the classic hardware is getting more expensive by the day now, and new hardware is proliferating like at no point in history indicating a larger market than ever before.

Software lost. Hardware won. You're poor and don't want to commit anything to this hobby, so you cope by saying "h-hardware's poopie" instead. You're brown.

>>105537775
They just haven't got to the point where recreating the sound they are looking for is impossible, yet trivial with piece of x gear. Only poor people complain about gear. It's literally one of the cheapest hobbies in existence. You can have the same mixer, mics, input, controller as a professional for a fraction of the cost of having the same gear as a professional in almost any other hobby I can think of.

>>105537851
>They just haven't got to the point where recreating the sound they are looking for is impossible, yet trivial with piece of x gear.
This point literally does not exist.

>>105537867
It absolutely exists you just don't make real music, at least not aimed at consumption.

>>105524372
>yeah if you only make soulless SoundCloud type-beats
Get a load of this nigga. You really think you can only make good music with expensive hardware, you've never made anything in your life.

>>105537867
>This point literally does not exist.
Pic related, it does.

>>105537835
>You're just pulling this out of your ass.
Anon, it's not 1991 anymore. Laptops can do anything now. Dedicated gear becomes less and less necessary by the day. Most people just buy a MIDI controller or two and call it a day. The reason hardware keeps getting more expensive is specifically because the pool of people interested in it is shrinking. There's a driver behind the price increase, and it's not (just) pure greed. Competition still exists, these companies still have an incentive to make the cheapest and most capable things they can, and the fact that they all bottom out at like $1k means they can't go any lower.

FL Studio kiddies won and Elektron is going extinct. Hardware is for Red Means Recording tier hobbyist YouTubers at this point. It's purely a novelty.

>>105537936
Whatever you say, preset monkey.

>>105537896
>noo real musicians all have houses full of plastic crap!
Yes, because they're rich.

>>105537835
Also I'm not so sure that the existence of so many modern options indicates a huge market. I think they're just selling to a small pool of enthusiastic consumerists who buy everything. Nobody ever has just a Digitakt on its own. You always see hardware users surrounded by a sea of gadgets. They're hoarders. I think it's that.

>>105537911
obviously you can make good music with computers retard, but that doesn't mean you won't ever need more than just that. computers are uninspiring as fuck.

>>105537936
You can clone and emulate virtually any sound at all with extreme accuracy and precision on a computer.
>but muh analog sound quality
Snake oil bullshit.

>>105537995
And yet... there are more companies putting out more gear than ever before, which indicates that despite computers being powerful and portable, enough people want a device with an inherent interface and capabilities that a computer might not have.

>>105537996
>preset monkey.
Now you're coping because indeed there is no computer equivalent to what I posted. Many things are like this too. My SidStation has an input for an external osciallator. IE you can use it as a processor. Now there are Sid emulators out there, but none offer this capability. Most don't even offer you wave sequencing, something the SID's sound is heavily informed by.

I could go on and on.

>>105538029
>I'm not so sure that the existence of so many modern options indicates a huge market.
Of course not, your thesis apropos nothing is that 'gear is obsolete' or something. But there it is, the huge profitable ever larger gear market.

>>105538048
You COULD in THEORY but nobody has cloned that and it's doubtful they ever will. And if they take the likely years to do it, it'll be like a lot of plugins now where you have to SUBSCRIBE lol.

>>105538075
>there are more companies putting out more gear than ever before
That doesn't sound true at all and even if it is, again, it seems like that's just the tiny but incestuous customer base buying everything. I'm not convinced samplers and hardware synths are anywhere near as popular as they were in the 80s through early 2000s - when they were an actual necessity most musicians working in electronic music needed - than they are now, especially now that they're basically an accessory and not much more.
>your thesis apropos nothing is that 'gear is obsolete' or something
That's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm just saying its target demographic is shrinking rapidly. Gear is not obsolete (yet), it's just not as important as it was and has passed its peak. Hence rising prices.

One problem with using a computer has been expressed by many many musicians. Let's say you make a tune on your DAW you subscribe to with the plugins you also subscribe to and in ten years you want to revisit it. How could you? Chances are you can't, the software will have moved on, plugins might not even be available any more. I'm not the world's biggest NIN fan but he maintains an entire collection of what you would now call retro computers and peripherals just so he can open old projects and munge around with 'em. I know Aphex Twin and Squarepusher and Ceephax also do the same. Some shit just plain won't work on modern computers. So you're back to buying hardware but instead of synths you're busy hunting down old computers, old software, dodgy Russian cracks, etc.

>>105538075
>And yet... there are more companies putting out more gear than ever before
if people want to spend too much on something that doesn't need to exist, why stop them?
LP sales are also on the rise, you think that's for any reason other than novelty?

>>105538128
>That doesn't sound true
You're not very good at this and you're clearly not familiar with the state of hardware at this point. It's OK. You work for what, Ableton? We have an actual Ableton shill here on /g/ for some reason.

>>105538139
oh no, not keeping an old computer vs. keeping an old other kind of computer
i'm not sure what argument you're trying to make here
at least with software there is the possibility of running it on newer/different hardware. if your toy sampler dies and you wanted to keep using it, you think you'll have a better chance of finding another one of the same device vs. another computer?

>>105538156
BOO! Did I scare you?

>>105525011
Volca Sample is pretty cool. Your not going to be making any full albums on it but you can make some cool beats and sequences to use on bigger setups. The Volcas in general are a lot of fun when you sync them up to each other. Just having two of them connected can lead to full on jam sessions.

>>105538139
Ask a PC wizard to get you Windows XP or 98 or DOS installed on modern hardware and the right software. It's all still online.

>>105538075
>people are buying gear so it must be worth something!
Fools and their money.

There are plenty of more impressive sounding FM synths than that. Yamaha definitely have some nice presets, but you could get those sounds out of a dozen different software solutions, you'd just need to make them yourself because there aren't a lot of people who really want to emulate the sound of a failed synth.

>>105538139
What's stopping you from just keeping your old rig? There have been lots of synths that have wound up killing themselves over the years. Sure, if you have more money than sense, you get 5 copies of that old crappy monosynth so you don't have to worry about missing the preset. And a lot of plugins are DRM garbage, but that's a problem solved by piracy.

>>105538156
you sound so mad that you spend a thousand dollars on something that could've been a $5 iPhone app lmao

>>105538139
>DAW you subscribe to with the plugins you also subscribe to
don't do that, then? you make it sound like that's your only option

Like all threads on this tinker board it eventually devolves into freetards seething over non-neets being able to afford shit. If you're satisfied with purely software, then you haven't reached the point of making anything that needs more. Any professional will have at minimum a real-life mixing stack. Just reality.

Just like every actual professional or serious endeavour haver in existence doesn't use the half-baked freetard version of solidworks, or photoshop, or premier, etc etc. The compressor you downloaded off rutracker is simply not going to compare to the real one it's attempting to emulate and the difference is apparent to anyone who uses it.

I concede.

>>105538253
The professionals are using DAWs btw

>>105538143
>you think that's for any reason other than novelty?
It's because vinyl is the only way to get some music physically these days. It makes sense from a record company's point of view - offer streaming and 'downloads' into your protected format, tape and vinyl. CDs made the same revenue as vinyl last year, on 3x the volume. So people will pay extra for vinyl already.

>>105538170
>not keeping an old computer vs. keeping an old other kind of computer
Difference is a synthesizer isn't subject to the issues a normal computer is. You might need TWO old computers, a Mac and a PC, or even more to deal with different issues that crop up. Multiple OS's and virtualization won't do in these cases for the most part. Etc.

>your toy sampler
I have an MPC2000XL, I don't use a toy sampler. My EX5R can also function as a sampler but I think it's a bit fiddly. I mainly use that function to load waveforms for use as AWM oscillators so I can use any wave I like as the basis for a full ROMpler-style voice. That's slick and easy.

I also have a Volca Sample, it was cheap and it's great. The whole lineup is great. As long as I don't abuse them they should last a long ass time, and if one breaks I can get another because there's scads of 'em out there. I also have the Volca Modular which is great fun and easy to use as a processor for any other line level signal.

>>105538212
Yeah. Lord help you if you used a GUS, those are like a thousand bucks now lol.

>>105538221
>Fools and their money.
The argument wasn't that people who make music are dumb. It was that hardware has 'little appeal' which is being retreated from. Moving the goalposts.

>There are plenty of more impressive sounding FM synths than that.
Than the FS1R? No, it's legendary already and just constantly goes up in price. It's like a Fizmo or an Andromeda. Sure you can make some VST that looks better on paper but it won't be better to play.

>>105538252
I enjoy using trackers. But I won't pay for music software.

>>105538293
no they arent
thet just record fart sounds om vocaroo and send the link to a studio

>>105538253
using software doesn't mean you have to use only a keyboard/mouse, you know
ever heard of MIDI?

>>105538323
Moog Grandmother mentioned!!!!

>>105538253
I love physical hardware. I don't enjoy entering notes on a piano roll, I don't like changing knobs with a mouse, but I don't see the point in paying 600 bucks for a synth that does less than one I can run for free on my PC. Hardware is great for the controls, laughable for features.

>>105523620 (OP)
Korg Gadget and an iPad is your answer. You can make full on albums with just this setup.

>>105538341
i don't know what that is, the picture is just from looking for something that has MIDI peripherals in it

>>105538293
Yes, for chaining and recording midi. In conjunction with hardware. Not for shitty VST emulation they downloaded from catbox. And they're using ableton, logic, protools, not bitwig or some shitware ported to freetard OS.

noise / edm tinkerers are the bane of music production discussion.

>>105538323
I'm talking about VSTs you fucking illiterate nigger, my posts explicity says an emulated compressor. Do you not understand the difference between a DAW and an instrument or effect rack?

>>105538466
do you? unless said equipment does it's work in the analog domain, it's still software, just running on another computer

>>105525011
It's based. And it has internal space for six AA batteries, no need for an external battery pack or power supply but you can use one if you wish of course.

Let me guess, you "need" more?

>>105525011
I fucking love the Volcas. My very very first hardware setup way back in college was just a Volca Beats, a Volca Bass, a couple old pedals I found in storage, and an MS-20 Mini that I got a super lucky deal on, and that was genuinely my most productive, spontaneous, and enjoyable period of making music I've ever had.
Now after years of accumulating more gear I've transitioned to doing most my electronic stuff all in my DAW just for the sake of convenience (I move a lot) but I still use my Volca Sample for laying down rough ideas for beats as well as my Volca Drum and Volca FM for glitchy electronic stuff. I think the whole line is amazing for budget music production; the only one I've really been disappointed with is the mixer, which is bafflingly bad.

>>105539355
>kinda shit MIDI spec
>64MB
>in every single way, worse than an MPC500 which you can still get for $200 or less
>MPC500 can take up to 32GB CF cards and has up to 128MB sample memory

Seqtrak is good if you program it from the companion app. Very nice synth engines and there's per-voice effects in addition to master effects. Admittedly, having just seven note keys is a joke, but you can easily use it with a portable USB keyboard.

>>105539865
Any more than 64MB is bloat for menu-diving data hoarders.

>>105537775
consider how common it is to learn to play physical instruments people could just set the notes on a computer or tablet but theyd rather spend 2000 hours badly playing guitar because its fun and clicking in a daw with a mouse is not
these expensive devices could be as common but they arent because each device only does one little thing and costs $1000 so you need a bunch of them to make music while you can get a piano/guitar etc for less than $500
when physical electronic music becomes cheap and are advertised as instruments theyll sell millions of them every year instead of only being able to sell 3000 units to sound engineers and 2000 to rich hobbists

>>105540863
>because its fun and clicking in a daw with a mouse is not
Anon do you know what a MIDI controller is

>>105540711
god I miss OP-Z

>>105540863
>when physical electronic music becomes cheap and are advertised as instruments theyll sell millions of them every year
They won't. We've had fully digital instruments for decades, look at stuff like the EWI. People aren't interested.

>>105540858
>menu-diving
That's the other issue - the MPC500 has so many more features and options and a fuller MIDI spec so you have to menu dive a bit to get at them all.

That teenager chinkaneering toy is garbage tier by comparison. And the MPC will also be easier to use.

>>105541228
Bloat, all of it. Everything you described just gets in the way.

>>105541263
You don't have to use any of it and you can just sample right into the pads and use it like a toy sampler like the KO-II.

It's cheaper and does a better job. What do you work for Teenage Engineering lol? Or did you buy one of their gadgets yourself and get scammed?

Should have bought pic related.

>>105541349
>You don't have to use any of it
Beside the point; it's in the way regardless of whether or not I utilize it. Its presence complicates the entire system. The KO II's simplicity is the reason it's so good.

>>105540711
>Seqtrak is good
No. It's not. They had a real opportunity to throw in the functions from the RM1X and RS7000, into the sequencer. But they failed. I see they already dropped the price by $300 too.

Pic related is probably the best value in sequencers going today if you're for a new one.

>>105540905
thats a different interface to the same thing

>>105523620 (OP)
start a business around the unmet market need you have just identified.

>>105541531
You can't click in ten places at once with aftertouch and velocity and one or more pedal inputs.

>>105541531
Correct. Ultimately leading to the same result. All the tactile feedback of a synthesizer and none of the boring clicking you despise so. It's a musical instrument.

>>105541536
Wanna be business partners anon? :)

>>105523620 (OP)
Buy an ipad, problem solved.

>>105543575
no buttons, no knobs, no keys, no sliders, no dials, no cranks, no switches, no levers, no sale. give me tactile feedback or give me death.

>>105543575
iPad doesn't have an FM radio receiver or broadcast function. OP-1 win evertim

>>105543887
this is like arguing against console emulators because they don't have a controller

>>105532297
Based. I don't understand why they are still so cheap. This thing can do more than an OP-1 (excepting sampling) and it costs 1/10th as much. It's just as capable as the QY-700 actually. With the cash you save you can buy multiple samplers and synths. You could buy this thing and every single Volca, and still come out ahead of buying an OP-1.

>>105544230
I can't ever download Rebirth RB-338 onto any other iPad than the one I have. For one, it's not supported by the new OS's. I use an old iPad Air 2. And secondly, the Propellorhead (I guess Steinberg who is actually Yamaha now) people got sued by Roland so they can't offer it any more for look and feel purposes. While it's true that there are enhanced Rebirth-alikes now, the custom patches and mods you might like will never appear again. Only solution is retro computing or hoping your ancient iPad never ever dies.

I actually use my iPad occasionally for Waldorf Nave. Which is equivalent to their modern $2000+ synths. It is fully featured, you can load your own wave tables and everything. But it will go away some day too.

Computer music is gay like that. At some point it's just easier to buy hardware.

>>105544276
no i personally wouldn't recommend an ipad if you care about being able to access your projects in 10, 20 years time. but my comment was just about physical controls

>>105537851
I used to play horns and I have three trumpets and a baritone and together they are worth more than my huge pile of electronic music stuff. Got hit in the face really hard and had to stop with the horns, never sold them though.

>>105544293
I would only recommend using open source software ideally for Unix, if you want true longevity. At this point there are quite a few trackers and other options. I have been using paulstretch for over a decade. But it'll never go stale - it's a Perl 5 program.

PD is OK. Csound is not yet totally perfected on 64-bit systems! Which is surprising. There are options. PD has preserved forward compatibility for decades, it's finished software at this point. I use it over Max. I even ported PD to OpenBSD which was pretty easy.

>>105543494
Half the shit out there these days runs on ESP32 or a Pi or something. The real art is marketing and keeping the BOM as low as possible.

There are quite a few one man operations out there now, several have expanded. Ulli started out as a one man operation in his garage you know. Not terribly long ago either - he identified a need and market and went for it. I love that man, so much that it's the most a man can love another man without being gay.

>>105544315
even proprietary windows/linux software should be easy to run in the future in some way fairly easily. the main thing is to avoid subscription anything. and even if you currently pay for something, being /able/ to pirate it is also important for future availability
stuff like ipad software is not a good choice currently because it's on a system where software can become unavailable outside of your control (outside of a jailbreak) and it's on a platform that can't currently be emulated on another platform. like imagine software you use is only available on an ipad 1, what happens when those become hard to find?
meanwhile if you need something made for like, dos or amiga, you can emulate those quite easily on any modern system, you don't need to find an original amiga or 386 box to use that software

>>105544230
iPad + controller is a much clunkier combo than just a simple tiny self-contained synth/sampler.

>>105544679
Can the op-1 or te sequel one do real polyrhythms?

eg let's have 4 against 5. meaning we want to have 1 2 3 4 as the main beat, but another track is 1 2 3 4 5 where 1 lines up always with the 1234 track.

>>105545104
The OP-1 basically just stores everything as printed audio so it's essentially just a digital tape recorder with some extra stuff attached. The sequencers don't actually comprise part of the project, they're basically just a template you can use to make and store the audio recordings. So yes, but you don't store the project as MIDI notes that control engines. You just get four lanes of rendered audio.

As for OP-XY, also yes. You get 8 system tracks (also 8 auxiliary tracks) and each one can have its own tempo and time signature.

>>105545147
Thanks. I have a Polyend Play. Contrary to what you might think, "poly" isn't polyrythmic. It's just not, it has some pattern fills that sound like they are, but nope.

>>105531287
i have gear made for straight men with a functioning penis. i am not interested in feminine and limited toys for "men" wearing chastity cages.

>>105530341
an "app" isn't music gear, iramashit inadagutta.

>>105545147
>The OP-1 basically just stores everything as printed audio
extreme and unadulterated homosexuality. an e-mu sp1200 from the 80s seems to be more capable than this fucker.

>>105545341
Aw man, I was really interested in the Polyend Play actually. I use polyrhythms all the time, that's kind of a dealbreaker.

>>105545520
>an e-mu sp1200 from the 80s seems to be more capable than this fucker.
Are you being intentionally hyperbolic here? I genuinely can't tell if you're aware of how false that statement is. If you'd just said the OP-1 was a piece of shit that'd be fine but what you actually ended up saying is just factually incorrect.

>>105545520
> e-mu sp1200
thats like twice the price of an op1 tho. not a fair comparison.

>>105545520
you think about erect penises, chastity cages and feminized men often, anon?

>>105545520
"Gear" is inherently tranny-coded. This whole thread is LGBTQ as hell. Stop fucking around and use a laptop.

>>105545617
>what you actually ended up saying is just factually incorrect.
>sp1200: save song to disk -> saves song data, can be edited
>slop1: yeah nah everything is printed. go fuck yourself.
i'll take an sp1200 made for men, thanks.

>>105545723
Wrong anon.

Anyway,
>12-bit resolution
>26.04 kHz sampling rate
>10 seconds sampling time (total) (lmao)
>literally no internal storage space
>no synthesis
>$5k used
vs
>32-bit resolution
>44.01 kHz variable sample rate
>8 separate projects maximum, 4 tracks each
>5GB internal storage
>13 synth engines
>6 separate sequencers
>8 fx
>fully stereo signal chain
>$2k brand new
Objectively a terrible value compared to OP-1 field. The ONLY benefit the SP1200 has over the field is retroactively editable project files. That's it. If you don't like the OP-1 that's cool but saying an SP1200 is more powerful is just objectively false.

>>105545851
> wrong anon
anon is right. also sp1200 has been on more records than slop1 despite the limitations. machines for men with functioning penises win again.

>>105546934
>also sp1200 has been on more records than slop1 despite the limitations
If that were true it wouldn't be surprising; it's 40 fucking years old, of course it's going to have a richer history.
But it's highly debatable at that. According to Equipboard (a crowdsourced archive tracking which musicians use what gear), the SP1200 has been logged by 111 artists, and the original OP-1 is sitting at 242. The list of musicians who have used OP-1 is very very long. It's been used by everyone and their mother, and for good reason.
OP-1 field has significantly fewer sightings, but that's understandable as it was only released in 2022.

I'm also noticing the SP1200 seems genre-locked to hiphop. The OP-1 has a wildly varying range of users it appears. It's been used by everyone from Kanye West to Azealia Banks to Grimes to Trent Reznor to Animal Collective to Tame Impala to Arca to Skrillex to Sabrina Carpenter. Pop, avant garde, industrial, hiphop, psych rock, etc. It's all there. This suggests the OP-1 provides more general utility and versatility.

>>105547109
Sufjan Stevens, Damon Albarn, Brian Eno (tbf this feels like cheating because Brian Eno uses everything under the sun), Hans Zimmer (???), Thom Yorke, MGMT, The Flaming Lips, James Blake, Flume, Childish Gambino, Nicolas Jaar, Bon Iver, Chvrches, Beck, Swedish House Mafia, Reggie Watts...

I'm having a hard time finding an artistic through-line here.

brainlet here who is interested in music production
what are these machines for anyway?
i see people here claiming that they can be replaced entirely by software and other say they can't.

>>105547628
The thing in the OP is a literal toy, so ignore it. Other machines are essentially cut down versions of a DAW with far inferior features, but a nice visual factor and slightly more understandable UI (but much less usable in the long run). Anyone who says they can't be emulated with software is a luddite retard who is probably still running his guitar into a tube amp, it's just a question of if someone has bothered writing an accurate emulator yet.

>>105523620 (OP)

I started a collection of desktop drum machines since samplers and sequencers and it's too stupid to manage like it's the the synths are cheap but the cable configuration is too much for what what the boxes can actually can do. I should have just held on and waited to get a digitakt 1 and digitone 1 second hand. It would be cheaper and easier to manage (about 1200 leaf bucks compare to my current set up of miscellaneous boxes and keys and cables which cost like 2000) or I could have bit the bullet and got an akai force on credit.

Also isn't the korg electribe a decent sampler right now for about 300 used?

>>105549413

Er, the korg electribe 2.

>>105547720
This dumbass thinks a DAW is an instrument. You will still use a DAW regardless of the hardware you're using. You would still use a DAW with entirely real instruments and mics. It's how you will track and chain at minimum.

You should at minimum have a midi controller and midi keyboard.

The VSTs are the instrument. Not the DAW. And you're a tinker hobbyist making shitty psytrance in moms basement if you believe they compare to hardware.

>>105549469
Most of these little desk toys are hooked together, all the gear queers love going "dawless".

At minimum you need nothing at all, aside from software. You can enter notes with a piano roll, and change parameters with your mouse.

>B-But VSTs aren't as good as hardware!
Oh, you're a literal retard.

>>105549565
No one is going dawless except for live shows. Not that having a real multi-track and mixer would be any different. I've literally never heard that in my life. You live in an internet bubble.

Everything else you've said is laughable, I can only imagine that you're a clueless troll at this point. Go back to making cnile threads.

>>105545693
When that guy became popular computers had 64 KB of memory.
But I agree nowadays all sounds should be replicable by software. And if they can't it's a skill issue.

>>105549469
If they don't compare just get a used instrument, look at the waveforms and write your own software to generate them in software. The difference between two analog synths of the same model will me higher than the difference between the real thing and the software clone.

>>105549633
>When that guy became popular computers had 64 KB of memory.
Counterpoint: SOPHIE.

>>105524529
>>105524498
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgHXqA1irwA

>>105523620 (OP)
poorfag seethe

it's a toy, thoughbeit a fun one. still remaking any good ideas from it in ableton at the end of the day

>>105551268
I still can't believe that faggotty ass company spent 8 years developing the OP-Z, 7 years actually selling and maintaining it and then abruptly killed it off in favor of a machine that costs ~4.6 times as much and is bigger and bulkier and missing a couple features. And now the only way to buy one is to get a used one from Reverb or eBay or Craigslist or something and just hope to God it hasn't started double triggering or bending and you haven't wasted your money. They could've just released an OP-Z Field or something which is what everybody wanted anyway but instead they pull some bullshit like that. Fuck this gay earth.

Dirtywave M8
>Great Synth Engines
>Great Sample interface
>Amazing effects/Modulation
>Maximum Autismo Interface
>Export Stems for Daw Mixing
>Export Midi for layering in daw
>Can make your own with a Teensy board if you are broke or not patient

GOAT of all portable music devices. Great for sound design, and fully equipped to make full songs in a variety of genres.

>>105551400
agreed, but it was also inevitable. op-z was basically a (terribly built, annoyingly quirky) prototype that didn't really fit into the rest of their lineup, op-xy on the other hand is a perfect sales pitch to richfag gear hoarders who just want another pretty beep boop box that will look good next to all their other overpriced shit they never use. btw I got this one used and immediately had to get the pitch bend pad replaced, lol

>>105551505
m8 is based

>>105545693
When it's expensive, yes.

>>105545520
>an "app" isn't music gear
But an ipad is, and apps are music SOFTWARE. You need music SOFTWARE - if you are interested in DIGITAL music.

If you want ANALOG music, you can avoid SOFTWARE.

>>105552222
you look at >>105524498 and >>105525011 and tell me they aren't turbotranny dogshit

>>105552447
>>105545693
I'm a tranny and I use ableton and tidalcycles/supercollider while every straight white male I know is 'getting really into modular lately', checkmate chud

>>105552447
Yeah, I like Akai stuff, at least the look of it.

>>105552499
It's hard to stop being a criminal.

>>105523620 (OP)
see pic rel

the mini and plus are pretty expensive, but the og tracker is really capable and is easy to find for around $200-300
I got mine new for $350 right after the plus released.

There's also the Dirtywave M8 which has been mentioned in the topic. That's the one I would have gotten, but I already had synths covered by the Digitone and Syntakt.

>>105531166
latency is introduced with bluetooth audio out. Pro audio on mobile devices will never be viable without the 3.5mm out

>>105552783
I like these too, but Polyend doesn't make polyrhythmic gear.

>>105553085
so buy phones with headphone jacks? or use a dongle? non issue.

>>105523620 (OP)
>>105523659
The only explanation I can think of is that China literally just hasnt caught on yet because its somewhat of a niche market
So either theres a huge arbitrage opportunity OR, the niche is too small for it to be profitable enough for China to be cloning them en masse, and the price of music hardware is actually rationally priced given the size of the market

>>105554517
>save me nameless chinkshit company
>nameless chinkshit company
>nameless chinkshit company save me...

>>105523620 (OP)
Just install ableton to a stem deck. Simple as.

>>105556409
>just use a laptop but worse

>>105552783
Are trackers any good? It looks tedious to have to put in every note by hand individually.

>>105523620 (OP)
whats this type of design called?

>>105559570
probably bauhaus. very much dieter rams worship.

spend your money on a reel to reel machine and THEN record any of your fruity loop VST or clone synth stuff through it
voila it sounds professional

>>105559570
soi

>>105559570
iBauhaus

>>105559570
FrogDesign.

>>105547720
>cut down versions of a DAW with far inferior features
Found the Ableton shill.

>troonage engineering

>>105562674
never made a bad product

>>105523829
post your soundcloud bro

>>105559570
Children's toy

complete utter noob here
can i buy a "midi keyboard" in order to "play piano" but through my pc, like with my regular pc headphones? or is a real piano required for that. it's about having weighted keys am i wrong?

>>105564897
Yes but you will need a piano software to do it. Decent Sampler will probably be all you needm or some freebie daw

>>105523620 (OP)
They’re just expensive toys, just crack Ableton and plugins on your computer and stop making excuses, these devices will slow you down

>>105555258
It might be electronics but the designers (at least at Korg, Moog etc) do spend time to tune the sound that comes out of these devices. You'd be forgiven for believing that all oscillators sound the same as do all filters, if only for your ignorance.
That's not to say they can't just copy paste but there still needs to be a lead that has the final say in what the product should sound like.

>>105562796
>never made a bad product

>>105564897
Yes, absolutely. It works just the same as a digital piano with MIDI output. The piano or midi keyboard is just a controller.
If you want to play the piano, get a digital piano though because they have proper weighted keys. Midi controller keys are usually non-weighted or semi-weighted, meaning they feel like ass for playing the piano where the velocity of the key presses is very important.

>>105523620 (OP)
I got an email from Teenage Engineering a few days ago that said I could buy the OP-1 on a "sliding scale." I went to the site and bought it at the lowest price available, $1,300, a $700 savings. What a steal.

>>105565007
forgot about this one lol, what the fuck were they thinking

>>105565175
I've always been pretty neutral on TE but this made me fucking angry, the fact that people gave them money for it doubly so

>>105523620 (OP)
I got their EP medieval sequencer. I saw it, heard some sounds and instantly got inspired to create a medieval-themed album. I only have it, a bunch of guitars and Audacity, but I am having a blast. Although reading the forums it really does seem like teenage engineering are basically the iphone of audio creation. So many features missing/half baked.

>>105565007
not bad, just overpriced. reduced price makes it reasonable now.

>>105565175
not bad. just has extremely niche appeal. it's a desk toy for industrial design fetishists; essentially a showcase for their machining and manufacturing capabilities as well as a distillation of their design philosophy, particularly important for a company that sees itself primarily as an industrial design firm above all else. it's not really meant to be bought by everyone. it's not meant to sell in droves. this is why it isn't advertised at all. it's just a toy car.

i maintain that teenage engineering has never made a BAD product. only products that don't have much appeal.

>>105565645
>bought the medieval variant right after the champions update for the original
anon you could've just gotten the regular ko and filled it with medieval samples. you know the default samples on the medieval can't be removed right? they're baked in. 128mb and 96mb are already taken up.

>>105523620 (OP)
Why cant you learn to solder, retard? It's cheap as chips.

Wait people are still making music this old fashioned way?
I just generate my music with suno

>>105565998
Would you like an in-depth set of instructions on how to commit suicide or do you think you can get ChatGPT to break its ToS and hand that information to you?

>>105566046
Why would I do that when I am comfy listening to my ai generated radio station?

>>105565991
Yeah but I didn't know anything about samplers or any of that stuff. I just saw a cool video and wanted to get it for the aesthetics and feel it gives me to create. Looking back I agree the ko2 would have been better, but oh well it's all good.

>>105566080
Because you unironically spend your free time listening to Suno, indicating by some measure that you've already given up long ago and are restlessly anticipating your imminent physical demise with eager enthusiasm. Having allowed yourself to be fully reduced into a concentrated distillation of Silicon Valley in all its misanthropy and soullessness, you've severed all tether to your own humanity and in the process have become merely a body and not something housed within it. You've removed everything that makes you greater than the material that comprises you. You've become just another product in a line of many. In a way, you've already killed yourself, so why not just finish the process?

>>105565976
>essentially a showcase for their machining and manufacturing capabilities as well as a distillation of their design philosophy
it's a bar with four wheels attached to it what the fuck are you on about

>>105566209
>it's a bar with four wheels attached to it
well yes. everything is what it's made of. it's also more though. objects have meaning. everything carries semiotics. things are packages of emphasis. describing it as reductively as you can doesn't actually remove what you've omitted, it just communicates what you appreciate and what you don't.

>>105523640
Ulillillia?

>>105538208
>Your not going to be making any full albums on it
You seem to be lacking in imagination anon.

>>105566335
Uli Behringer. The man who makes redditors seethe.

>>105566358
the man who himself seethes and strikes youtubers
embarrassing

>>105565007
Very good case actually. Bending gimmick is fun. Tiny bit flimsy feeling but otherwise, nothing wrong with this.

>>105524498
TE might be a joke company but the po-33 is actually the best cheap sampler you can get.
>Can sample unlike the volca sample
>Can play samples chromatically unlike the volca sample
>Can slice samples
>Song mode
>Filter for each track
>Motion recording for pitch, filter, volume
>Battery lasts forever
>Can find them for about $80