The Synth Thread...

[Shadoweclipse13]

This should technically go in the Good Things thread, but it's more relevant to synthesis I picked up a pair of KRK Classic 8 monitors for under $200 each Should be here late this week or early next week and I'm super stoked!

[Unicorn Warrior]

This should technically go in the Good Things thread, but it's more relevant to synthesis I picked up a pair of KRK Classic 8 monitors for u Der $200 each Should be here late this week or early next week and I'm super stoked!

Nice, those are really good speakers. I have some of the smaller ones and I absolutely love them.

[Shadoweclipse13]

This should technically go in the Good Things thread, but it's more relevant to synthesis I picked up a pair of KRK Classic 8 monitors for u Der $200 each Should be here late this week or early next week and I'm super stoked!

Nice, those are really good speakers. I have some of the smaller ones and I absolutely love them.

Glad to hear it! They arrived yesterday and I'm gonna try to hook them up and test them this weekend!

[Shadoweclipse13]

One of my the 2 speakers arrived with a dent on the back right corner, but no damage to shipping or inner product box, so must've been one that got past factory quality control. Not a huge deal, but I definitely want one that's perfect.

But, I did plug them in to make sure that both electrically worked, and Holy fuck! These things sound great. A friend came over last night, so instead of hooking them up to my synths and mixer, I just used them with the RCA sound outputs from our TV. Mandalorian never sounded so good!!

[Zork]

I took a few pics of my different synth setups.

So here's what I use in the live rig:



The Moog is sometimes played with the Elka midi pedal. Also with midi it also controls the E-Mu Vintage Keys I use mainly for Mellotron sounds. The Moog gets reverb and delay from the Lexicon MX200, the E-Mu goes into the TC G-Sharp for reverb.

In the practice room I also have kind of a "studio" rig for recordings and fun:



I've got a Raagini Electronic Tampura (as used by Kula Shaker), a Roland Rhythm Ace, a Casio SK-1, a Philipps Philicorda organ, a chopped up Microkorg, a Novation Peak, a Yamaha SK-10 string machine and an Arturia Minibrute 2 all hooked up to this little rack:



The upper patchbay is in between the synths and the rackmixer, the lower patchbay provides individual in and outputs of all these pedals here:



This way I can connect any synth to any pedal and any channel of the mixer or individual input of the interface. Of course the pedalboard can also be used with guitars. It's still work in process as some connections are dodgy but it sure is a ton of fun.

Last is my little setup at home:



This is a Roland MP 600. It falls in the "so bad it's good" cathegory and while it doesn't sound like a piano or even an electric piano at all, I like it quite a bit. I sometimes bring the Peak or the Minibrute home to play around a bit.

[Shadoweclipse13]

The upper patchbay is in between the synths and the rackmixer, the lower patchbay provides individual in and outputs of all these pedals here:



This way I can connect any synth to any pedal and any channel of the mixer or individual input of the interface. Of course the pedalboard can also be used with guitars. It's still work in process as some connections are dodgy but it sure is a ton of fun.

Sweet setup overall, but holy crap The patch bay and pedal setup is SO SO cool. I'm almost tempted to do something similar.

[Zork]

Sweet setup overall, but holy crap The patch bay and pedal setup is SO SO cool. I'm almost tempted to do something similar.

Yeah, just do it!
So I wanted to get my pedals off the shelf and have them as easy and fast accessable as possible. I had planned to build 3 or 4 small boards with different themes but then I stumbled upon a video about a project like this. I thought how hard can it be? Turns out it's totally bonkers. With 20 plus pedals it adds up to about 80 meters of cables minimum and then you didn't even try to power it all up... but once you lost your mind about a gazzilion times about wrong or faulty connections it's really cool...

[redchapterjubilee]

After 20 years of using Reason on a host of different laptops I am wanting to finally step away from the computer for sequencing drum samples and sending out MIDI sequences to hardware gear. I know MPC's are the king of that sort of thing but my rhythmic needs are pretty limited. In fact, I don't sequence an awful lot either. I wind up playing a lot of my keyboards with me ol fingers rather than sequencing. BUT I do sequence a lot too but mostly simple, Berlin School/Kosmiche type lines. What I'd love to have is a version of iPolysix or iMS-20 for iOS that instead of using their synth engines you could load drum samples in and run two MIDI sequences out to two outboard synths. Since that doesn't really exist, I've been looking A LOT at the Elektron Model:Samples, as it does do exactly that. Minimal drum sequencing from samples and it can send out MIDI sequences. Does any of youse of any experience using that thing or the Elektron Digi boxes in this capacity?

[mackerelmint]

Pi zero = DX7.

Pi3 = TX816.

I've got a Pi zero (no W) with nothing else it's supposed to be, so I guess I'm going to make a little DX7 out of it. Yeah, having the 8 in 1 functionality you can get out of a Pi3 would be cool, but those are a little bit picky about power supplies, so just using an extra USB charger dealy will be nice. That new Volca FM2 looks pretty neat (6 voices!), but you can't beat "make one out of crap you have lying around" for price.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Sweet setup overall, but holy crap The patch bay and pedal setup is SO SO cool. I'm almost tempted to do something similar.

Yeah, just do it!
So I wanted to get my pedals off the shelf and have them as easy and fast accessable as possible. I had planned to build 3 or 4 small boards with different themes but then I stumbled upon a video about a project like this. I thought how hard can it be? Turns out it's totally bonkers. With 20 plus pedals it adds up to about 80 meters of cables minimum and then you didn't even try to power it all up... but once you lost your mind about a gazzilion times about wrong or faulty connections it's really cool...

I'm seriously actually considering it. It wouldn't be much of a thing until we get a house and I could spend time arranging things, but it sounds like so much fun. Even for guitar! What I'm thinking is having all the pedals on a sliding keyboard tray, with the exception of my volume, expression (when I get one), recording looper, and a bypass looper. All the pedals on the tray would only have to go from the patch bay to the sliding tray (short distance). I'd have the bypass looper hooked into the patch bay as well, so I could route pedals to that, and still control them on and off with my foot. It would be really cool to have that kind of control. It would also make using pedals for synths and Eurorack easy too.

EDIT: What do you use for the patching AT the patch bay? Like small pedalboard patch cables, or did you custom make those too?

EDIT: (I keep thinking of questions I wanted to ask you about this...) Did you have any signal loss or anything like that, where you'd need a buffer?

EDIT: Do you use a re-amp box or anything like that between your synth outputs and the pedals?

[Shadoweclipse13]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good speaker monitor stand? I need to get a pair for my synth and recording setup, and with the KRK Classic 8s, they need to be sturdy. I'm tempted to just say "fuck it" and weld my own, but not entirely sold on that yet.

[wooderson]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good speaker monitor stand? I need to get a pair for my synth and recording setup, and with the KRK Classic 8s, they need to be sturdy. I'm tempted to just say "fuck it" and weld my own, but not entirely sold on that yet.

Desktop or freestanding?

I use isoAcoustics stands on my desktop, they look spindly but they do a good job of isolating the monitors from a solid surface.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good speaker monitor stand? I need to get a pair for my synth and recording setup, and with the KRK Classic 8s, they need to be sturdy. I'm tempted to just say "fuck it" and weld my own, but not entirely sold on that yet.

Desktop or freestanding?

I use isoAcoustics stands on my desktop, they look spindly but they do a good job of isolating the monitors from a solid surface.

I love the look and idea of the ones that clamp onto a desktop, but I don't have a desk for music stuff right now, so probably free-standing.

[Zork]

I'm seriously actually considering it. It wouldn't be much of a thing until we get a house and I could spend time arranging things, but it sounds like so much fun. Even for guitar! What I'm thinking is having all the pedals on a sliding keyboard tray, with the exception of my volume, expression (when I get one), recording looper, and a bypass looper. All the pedals on the tray would only have to go from the patch bay to the sliding tray (short distance). I'd have the bypass looper hooked into the patch bay as well, so I could route pedals to that, and still control them on and off with my foot. It would be really cool to have that kind of control. It would also make using pedals for synths and Eurorack easy too.

EDIT: What do you use for the patching AT the patch bay? Like small pedalboard patch cables, or did you custom make those too?

EDIT: (I keep thinking of questions I wanted to ask you about this...) Did you have any signal loss or anything like that, where you'd need a buffer?

EDIT: Do you use a re-amp box or anything like that between your synth outputs and the pedals?

Hey man, sorry for the delay.
Yep, I use simple patch cables at the patch bay in different lengths. I just got a bunch of those sets of cheap cables in different colors, so I don't get too puzzled with the signal routing. As for the signal loss: I haven't really found the time to mess around with it a lot yet, but so far it seems to be okay. Lots of the pedals have a buffer built in, I guess that helps. In the worst case I could probably just route the signal through a bypassed Boss pedal.
I use my synths with guitar pedals for years and never had any issues. I just don't turn them all the way up. But a lot of them have quite a low output anyway. The Peak and the Minibrute are the ones to be careful with, but even the Microkorg is pretty tame and the vintage ones are pretty much guitar level.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Hey man, sorry for the delay.

Work is a little busy this afternoon, so I will reply after work, but I just wanted to apologize if I came off as inpatient. I don't EVER get mad/annoyed/whatever no matter how long it takes people to respond. We all have lives. I only PMed you because my mind is racing with ideas for this and I'm excited!!