The Whatever Thread .. For Gear!!

[friendship]

I'm thinking about getting a Minitaur to supplement my Minibrute. I just learned about the 2.2 firmware additions and it pretty much addresses all the shortcomings I thought it had. Anyone use one?

[UglyCasanova]

One of those minor but satisfying acquisitions, got a cheap hardshell case that snugly fits Søvenløs for when it takes a trip out of the house.

Like a glove!

[friendship]

can you voltage-starve an analog ring modulator?

[qersty]

yes but i dont get why you would wanna do it. dont think there are many exciting artifacts to be had

[friendship]

for the artifacts mostly

gronk spronk

[lordgalvar]

Depends on what you are staving or what kind of ring mod setup. The preamp/post amp is probably about like starving a boost. The carrier oscillator may or may not oscillate or change the frequency range. If it is a diode ring...might mess with impedances and level enough to make it not really want to do anything. If it is something like an all-in-one chip (ad633, mc1496) it might not work without enough voltage. MC1496 looks like a Gilbert cell, so it kind of bounces between the two signals and might have some potential. I think that mostly starving them will just lower headroom on the amplifier sections but probably not enough to notice unless you are hitting hard before (which would probably do the same thing without starving it).

If the carrier is a weird setup, might get some neat oscillation changes. Probably easier to just run an oscillating fuzz or something in as the carrier.

NE567 probably has the most potential...could mess with the PLL or phase detector parts or something...that thing already has a ton of character though.

Probably best to isolate the parts you'd want to starve and so the other parts function correctly (like maybe starving a carrier oscillator).

Digital is a whole different ballpark...go for that for sure. Digital stuff always has some potential.

[mcatano]

I plugged in my CT5 w/ the nightly firmware this evening for the first time in a long while, and I totally forgot how much I love the triple-stutter setting on that thing.
Makes a genuinely lovely glitch delay/tremolo thing.

[goosekevin]

cant stop thinking about the HX Stomp. I hate menu diving but i like the sounds and capabilities and the interface seems a bit better than others.

[Tall Walls]

cant stop thinking about the HX Stomp. I hate menu diving but i like the sounds and capabilities and the interface seems a bit better than others.

I just picked up an HX Stomp XL a few days ago and so far I'm happy with it. I've been playing through headphones for the past two years (so as not to disturb Zoom meetings); prior to the Stomp I was using a Simplifier DLX for this purpose. I still like the Simplifier, and you can't beat it for immediacy thanks to all those knobs, but the base tone of it has this crisp snappiness I can't dial out. It's not a bad sound, but it's not the sound I want all the time. The features of the HX Stomp seemed just right--stereo ins and outs, stereo FX loop, potential for use as a USB interface, etc. Plus the available effects include a few weirder things that appealed to me--the Shuffling Looper, Glitch Delay, the new Tesselator delay--and they just released a new firmware with more updates promised. I was able to get the XL for the same price as the standard, so that made the choice pretty easy. Still the most expensive piece of gear I've ever bought, though.

You can't know until you try it yourself, but I'm getting along with the user interface pretty well. There are menus to be sure, but for whatever reason it doesn't feel like menu diving to me. In any case it doesn't seem any more or less tedious than wrangling power supplies and patch cables for a physical pedal setup. Probably less tedious, since with the HX Stomp if I decide I want my reverb at the beginning of the chain I just have to hit a button and turn a knob.

So far the only negative aspect I've come across is Line 6's strange expression pedal implementation, which uses TS cables instead of TRS cables like all of my expression pedals. But it seems to be accepting input from my EHX 8-Step okay (with the Depth dialed down so it's only putting out 3v), so I'm satisfied for the moment.

[Dandolin]

def impressed by the HX ecosystem evolution
still thinking of going Helix LT for my "pit band" thang
you know, for the Variaxess
kinda wish they'd managed to squeeze that into the Stomp, but i know why they didn't



but really, it's the possibility to get a little weird on the side that makes it seem worth it
[i do like the idea that i can dial in some skronk tuning on the Variax and then run it through some glitchiness without having to patch anything else up - then patch some lfos into the expression in and drive it all the way out to Weird Valley hmm, might even work in the shows for "mood setting" ]

[Dandolin]

so, i've re-thought my idea to spend north of $1k on the pit band thing, since the audience seems quite happy to hear what comes out of the auld collection of junk i already have, but i still keep seeing kewl gear, like this thing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zag9Cu1Z6A8&t=232s

here's the embed of the whole vid - jump to 3:52 if you care to see what i'm on about (or watch the whole thing, it's pretty cool, whatever you may think of Benn)


[not that the other stuff in the vid isn't kewl too, i just thought - wow- this thing is a cheat code when i watched the "fretless" saxophone segment; i really hope it catches on, but i doubt it]

[Chankgeez]

The only thing is, I don't think "fretless" saxophone is a new idea. There've been slide saxophones before. Maybe not implemented exactly like that (and they never caught on).

It's like this video which I just watched where Hans Zimmer just basically says he appropriates anything he can find:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0

[Dandolin]

yeah, i think you're right about the slide saxes, but the play style available on that strip will def prove different and perhaps more friendly for the Donna Lee stylin's exhibited in the demo to me it's almost like the difference between playing slide and playing fretless (Sarod, oud, what have you) maybe that's a strtch - but you have the ability to play both in the sliding paradigm and the "fretting"/keyed paradigm by going straight to the note with multi-finger dexterity is what i'm sayin'

i was actually skeptical at first, but the demo turned my head. i don't think it'd ever replace standard saxes or other brass/reed instruments per se, but for dumb-asses like me it'd be hella fun to skronk away on....

that Zimmer demo is interesting. as much as i tend to lump him in with the John Williamses, i've seen and heard more than one example of his willingness to go down a different path.

also duduk is the microtonal kang
love the Pedro Eustache segment

"PVC is your friend"
sub-contrabass duduk ftw

also also, i'ma go look for a Howard Shore or Carter Burwell interview...might be interestin'

[Dandolin]

new post just because that other one's a mess

they have a website: http://www.glissonic.com
and are taking pre-orders

i found it interesting that they reference the tárogató
[let's just be clear, this thing is fully based on the tárogató - the reference to saxophones is just me lazily adopting terminology from Benn - a recipe for disaster if ever there was one ]
also - def take any implied claims of novelty as mine-received-from-Benn, not theirs


i liked this statement: "The glissonic system can be used on all kind of wind instruments: flute, whistle, clarinet, saxophone, tarogato, oboe etc. or even the cornett."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa8PwHm6nvk




https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxYRszHZxKDd ... mKuPdsrpSx

[Blackened Soul]

It’s a cool idea and seems more playable than the old slide saxes, I’ll show this to my drummer, he also plays sax. But I know he’s going to comment about playing a normal soprano sax in tune is hard enough

Some of the other things in there fall into that pile of “experimental” music items that while cool would only be good for incidental sounds on recordings.. those of us that have been playing odd crap for years know deep down that for it to actually be interesting you have to be able to get past the sounds like experimental music stage because it’s so over done and stale and it always seems like sonic quicksand for a lot of artists to get past….