What gets your vote as “Gear of the Year 2014”?
@spacetravelmadeeasy did you buy one? I can’t decide whether I actually need it… but it looks so fun… BTW I’ve noticed somewhere else in this forum that you are from Edinburgh, I’m from Perth!
@ghostly606 I have watched a tons of videos from weird japanese dudes… does that volca sound that beefy like it did in those promo videos? btw we should get a scotland op meetup haha
The stock samples do sound pretty beefy even before the isolator gets to work. Not tried adding my own sounds yet.
I’d say the DSI pro2 myself, it’s pretty expensive and I’ve never even really liked DSI synths before but I was just playing one at my local music store for about an hour(they finally had some good stuff on display to use) and man it was just awesome!
The (digital) oscillators sound fat but can also sound clear and digital and really are flexible , the two filters both sound great and can be routed in cool ways, the 4 voice “poly” mode is really good too- so cool a mono synth can do that, the 4 delays are crazy and have their own filters,the overdrive sounds realistic and crunchy, the look of it is so cool and it had the best feeling pots I’ve ever felt on a synth. I just wish it was a bit cheaper and then I would think about getting one.
Hi @fred81,
Yay another fellow Scot on here.
I’ve only had about 4 hours tops with the Volca Sample so far and already I’ve got my head around it and have been transferring samples from my libraries via iphone into the volca and making tunes on it.
@spacetravelmadeeasy yeah I see it as a bit unusual drum machine. love the sound of it. have you had a chance to sync it via midi?
The stock samples do sound pretty beefy even before the isolator gets to work. Not tried adding my own sounds yet.
they do… surprising for such a low quality samples
Nope haven’t had a chance to sync it with midi yet but I’ll be doing that tomorrow.
To speak on the RYTM, I will nominate as gear of the year. It has its faults. Missing the ability to record re-trigs into the sequencer is kind of a killer for me for making tracks ON the RYTM. Also you have to be VERY creative to make full tracks on it. This is the OP-1 forum, needless to say lots of us find limitations inspiring, these are not helping the RYTM product. That being said, it is in my opinion totally unrivalled the best sounding drum machine hardware or software out there. The way it combines its synth engines with samples, the effects are nice, the whole thing just sounds rich and creamy. It’s great, with overbridge you’ll never need another thing for drums again. I just make cool kits with crazy performance parameters and play the RYTM into my OP-1. You can record the re-trigs in audio form to the OP-1 tracks which I find fun. Anyways that’s my impression. I was hoping to be able to make tracks on this thing, but am really satisfied that I will never be wanting for drums while I have the RYTM. And it’s all about the drums right!?
@spacetravel
haven’t really been paying too much attention to new gear this year.
Nope haven't had a chance to sync it with midi yet but I'll be doing that tomorrow.The wife had me trawling round the sales today so tomorrow the day is mine ;)
Going to hook it up with the OP-1 and Beatstep (the white trilogy!) and will probably shoot a video if I end up getting something decent enough for a jam.
The great thing about it is that it is what you make of it - i.e it's not restricted by a crap set of sounds like the Akai Rhythm Wolf. Tonight I just transferred a load of drums from my Deadmau5 library onto it and it sounds decent on headphones - still havent tried through monitors yet though.
One of the cool features of the VS is that you can have "Motion Seq" per part(sample) and you can turn this on/off per part(sample) so you can get some pretty complex stuff happening. The "Motion Seq" is kind of like Elektron's "Parameter Locks" where you can record the live tweaking of all the clear knobs on the hardware.
yeah, the wolf is the biggest disappointment of the year. I was hoping that op-1 will inspire me in the rhytm creating process but that didn’t happen. looking forward to see your jam! and yeah I’m going to check the electribe sampler too.
@Virtual_Flannel don't take my word for it about the electribe - i've only seen a handful of demos with it and just thought it sounded flakey like a groovebox from yesteryear with cheesey sounds in there.
Ya I agree! This is why the sampler version interests me. Some of those cheesy sounds might be nice if used sparingly with other samples. And if there is a new Monotribe, or Analog Electribe of sorts that would be very nice.
In my opinion, the volca sample is a very strong contender. I can see it being very nice as a sketchpad, and for making experimental doodles. Hell, it can act as a fully featured drum machine if you want!
I haven’t been very impressed with the electribes so far. I’m in the minority, i think, in saying that i didn’t really like the previous versions, either. I think the sounds are a bit less than unique - bread and butter. Add to that the slightly unimpressive sequencing capabilities, and it’s off my list. I think the op1, elektron boxes and a few others do the same, but better (yeah, i do realize the price difference). But this is just me.
Honorable mention: I’ve never been even close to buying or reaaally wanting that one, but if the Waldorf Streichfett is 2014, that’s something that really struck me as something new, even though it’s retro. I think it’s cool.
MiniBrute SE, minus it’s false wood sides. Btw, I’m looking for a pair if anyone knows a site where they craft them, ( I don’t have time and space to make my own)
For me it’s between the Patchblocks and Mogees. Both are wonderful little bastards, though the Patchblocks win at versatility hands-down.