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i have one recomandation for anyone considering getting hardware: learn your daw inside out first and make sure its recomended with hardware! i bought some hardware synths while i was working in Reason, which forced me to try other daws - this was also part of the point, to somehow push me out of Reason beacuse I wasnt entirely happy with it. But I couldnt find any daw on PC which i liked (tried ableton, reaper, cubase, even fruity and traktion), and i was sitting there with three awesome hardware synths which i only could play on with my midikeyboard. The sounds i made was fucking awesome but i couldnt record it or sequence it beacuse of my lacking skills in these daws i tried (patience also played a big role). then out of frustration i wanted to skip computers entirely and i bought two korg grooveboxes which i planned to use as sequencers and drummachines/samplers. while this was extremely fun and inspiring to play with and to groove around with (almost like djeing only more fun beacuse of tempo-sync through MIDI), it limited me to playing singlevoice on my synths beacuse the sequencer-channels in electribes are singlevoice only. Not a big problems as all my melodies back in the days where mono, and i had like 5 synth channels on one electribe while the other had 4. I used all 4 parts on the clavia and two parts on the virus and this worked really great. A new problem occured though: editing was terrible, I only finished one or two tracks this way and while it has the rawest phattest sound ive ever accomplished it does just sound unpolished and messy/muddy, and i couldnt do shit about it. I realized this was hopeless and ended up selling ALL my hardware (one giant Echo soundcard, JP8080, Clavia Nord Rack 3, Waldorf MicroQ, Virus Rack XL and two Korg Electribes, pluss some midiboxes and some other shit including tons of cables. This was a really valuable lesson for me when it came to materialism, i had a dream that i could make tracks with hardware only without needing to render one single track before finished product. This was imposible for me considering effiency, my lack of patience, backing up project etc etc and my knowledge with midi and other DAWs than Reason. U wont believe the disapointment when I realized this would not happend, I was not going to have my dream of turning knobs realtime fullfilled. I must say though, i didnt loose a single dollar on it beacuse everything i got i sold again for the same or more money beacuse i bought most second hand on ebay in USA and Germany, while I resold them in Norway (everythings expencive here). I also learned this valuable lesson and i managed satisfying my previosly state of materialism and also managed to grew out of it (luckely; its not only my synths ive sold, believe me this place was packed and is empty now and it feels good). Now im back in Reason and urge for hardware is gonne. I feel like Nirvana, but Im still not happy with Reason so Im saving for a iMac to start using Logic. Ive recently bought Mac Mini just to try logic and it seems promising compared to everything else ive tried. Im also starting to move away from normal synthesis so the need for hardware synths is almost gone. Loops and samples is my new fetish, so if i ever gonne get some hardware again it will be some sort of sampler/groovebox/drummachine which i can be able to use live, but it has to be intuitive and integrated well with software. My only two advices, learn your DAW firstand buy second hand.
Last edited by djpalm on Mar-03-2009 at 23:19
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SOFTWARE vs. HARDWARE (Strength's & Weakness - Your opinion is welcome!)
You'll learn by trying out gear at friends or the shop. You'll quickly figure out what could and could not be valuable to your production environment.
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