Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[JES]

Any latency issues with the IPad as the mixer of the set up?
I’m still a caveman with analog mixers, crappy ones to boot. With some “features/bugs/broken” issues I need to work around.
Fun times in the lab!!

Too early to say it’s not a problem. What I can tell you is the iPad is the MIDI host, so the MIDI goes in, goes out to the synths, and then back in as audio. That’s sort of twice through. It feels zippy enough to me. I wiggle my fingers and I hear the vibrato or filter effects right away. But I don’t think I’d try a synced hardware looper on an aux send or anything. But I also couldn’t do that on my Bluebox.

impressive

high praise, thank you.

 

[Spectrum]

The new setup works way better with the iPad at the centre of it. I think I just got lucky and accidentally waiting for AUM to be able to do everything I needed. I've got the Cosmos on a send, a plate reverb AUv3, and the rest is hardware. Everything seems to be able to talk to everything. Now I have to figure out how I want to fine tune my Linnstrument for the sensitivities of the Perfourmer and Implexus. And of course get composing a little more.

I don't understand anything you said, but that sounded really cool.

 

[steubig]

the joys of the interwebs

 

[scott sinner]

Some textural stuff for ya. Bass drone at the beginning is a combo of the Empress Zoia and Boss SY-200. The Sy-200 is the basic synth sound, but the Zoia is adding some low pass filtering and subtle evolving. The Zoia also is what is doing the low thuds that come in. That is a momentary aux switch set to engage a Fuzz into a reverb on a parallel path with some heavy limiting. I wanted it to sound like a distant something crashing into something else without a bass-like transient attack. So that whole attack is just stepping on the pedal while holding a note.

Less textural from an effects point, but just technique, another song showing how much I love artificial harmonics. !! Love 'em.

Also, for those of you just that enjoy tech in general, the video was made with the AI art code Midjourney. The images were done in the early generations of that code which is why they are so messed up (which is what we wanted).

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

After spending much (maybe too much) of the day with my old Korg metronome and scrapping my brain to make my "full range" rig more better (read non stop ideas spinning), my brain needed a rest and this popped up on my YT feed.
Havent watched/listened yet, any of you already in on this one?

 

[Spectrum]

Funny you mention that. After my last couple of gigs in a brewery some of the regulars were asking me what I know about the Minifreek/Microfreak. Apparently seeing and hearing my synths up close got them interested. Too bad I only know about the Brute line.

 

[Starthief]

I owned a Microfreak for a while. It was pretty neat (especially for the price I got it at the time) but I eventually ditched it for a Strega which is more my jam.

- The oscillators are not bad, but I noticed the Noise Engineering ones don't sound as good as they do in their Eurorack modules or plugins. Which made me wonder how the Mutable Instruments ones compare to Plaits.
- The SEM-style filter was a good choice for a monosynth/paraphonic synth. When playing chords or clusters, the resonance seems like it has the right character to emphasize some harmonics over others and sweeping it just sounds rewarding.
- The keyboard and mini-sequencer/arp and hold mode were all nice features.
- It felt a bit of a shame that you can't control the VCA entirely with pressure -- you can assign pressure to Sustain but that still leaves the attack stage going to full volume first, then decaying to the level you wanted. Also the pressure seemed like it needed at least some slew limiting because it could be pretty twitchy at times.
- The interface is a mixed bag. Some good ideas, but some things that felt a little off or tedious to work with. On their analog synths, I feel like everything is super responsive, control ranges are just right, and everything feels good -- I loved my Microbrute and the Minibrute 2S is even better. (* at least the synth part. For the sequencer I'd honestly kind of like to chop it off and get a second 0-Ctrl.)

To me they took a step backwards by giving Minifreak boring minikeys instead of the cool controller -- it's less of a freak. But it seems like they enhanced the digital side of the synth engine a lot, as well as doing 4 voices with analog filters. Not particularly what I'm looking for, but I'm curious whether they'll eventually sell the VST plugin version separately.

 

[monsterthompson]

Do we have a pool going for the first person here to pop for the Eventide H90 will be?

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26973812[/URL], member: 131803"]Do we have a pool going for the first person here to pop for the Eventide H90 will be?

I got probably @JES as my 1st pick.
2nd pick you @monsterthompson cuz well….reasons

Wildcards:
@steubig @Scott sinner

 

[monsterthompson]

I got probably @JES as my 1st pick.
2nd pick you @monsterthompson cuz well….reasons

Wildcards:
@steubig @Bob_Ross

I’d almost bet on me too. I was particularly impressed when I saw it had 4 inputs that could be run like two stereo paths with separate effects.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I’d almost bet on me too. I was particularly impressed when I saw it had 4 inputs that could be run like two stereo paths with separate effects.

Edited my initial wild cards
Scott sinner replaces Mr Ross

 

[scott sinner]

Edited my initial wild cards
Scott sinner replaces Mr Ross

Not a bad guess at all. I long loved and used an H9. I love the sound of Eventide stuff. But my head space is so much more in such very customized effects per song, like I'm trying to do mangling I used to do in the DAW or Eurorack with the Zoia and SY200. Still, if I had space, I could make good use of a Zoia, sy200, and h90, but I think I'm settled on the size of board I have now.

 

[theunknowndude]

I owned a Microfreak for a while. It was pretty neat (especially for the price I got it at the time) but I eventually ditched it for a Strega which is more my jam.

- The oscillators are not bad, but I noticed the Noise Engineering ones don't sound as good as they do in their Eurorack modules or plugins. Which made me wonder how the Mutable Instruments ones compare to Plaits.
- The SEM-style filter was a good choice for a monosynth/paraphonic synth. When playing chords or clusters, the resonance seems like it has the right character to emphasize some harmonics over others and sweeping it just sounds rewarding.
- The keyboard and mini-sequencer/arp and hold mode were all nice features.
- It felt a bit of a shame that you can't control the VCA entirely with pressure -- you can assign pressure to Sustain but that still leaves the attack stage going to full volume first, then decaying to the level you wanted. Also the pressure seemed like it needed at least some slew limiting because it could be pretty twitchy at times.
- The interface is a mixed bag. Some good ideas, but some things that felt a little off or tedious to work with. On their analog synths, I feel like everything is super responsive, control ranges are just right, and everything feels good -- I loved my Microbrute and the Minibrute 2S is even better. (* at least the synth part. For the sequencer I'd honestly kind of like to chop it off and get a second 0-Ctrl.)

To me they took a step backwards by giving Minifreak boring minikeys instead of the cool controller -- it's less of a freak. But it seems like they enhanced the digital side of the synth engine a lot, as well as doing 4 voices with analog filters. Not particularly what I'm looking for, but I'm curious whether they'll eventually sell the VST plugin version separately.

to be fair not sure what the difference is between their extensive arturia VST library is though? They have so much.
I got the recent pigments update and there is far too much to explore!

 

[JES]

In my complex oscillator deep dive, I also spent some time in the Arturia library. What a lot of stuff.

I am actually on the fence about the H90. I have had almost no dissatisfaction with my H9s, and do not find then hard to program. I also know them very very well and have learned a ton of the algorithms.

But also because I just got the Fractal FM9, I'm curious if I can actually use it instead of my whole pedalboard. So, um, maybe but perhaps not first?

 

[JES]

Just listened to a demo. Impressive alternative to MPE approaches.

Soma TERRA
I might need this in my life.

 

[steubig]

After spending much (maybe too much) of the day with my old Korg metronome and scrapping my brain to make my "full range" rig more better (read non stop ideas spinning), my brain needed a rest and this popped up on my YT feed.
Havent watched/listened yet, any of you already in on this one?

i saw about half the vid. seemed interesting. i’d be more interested if it were a module.

you have the microfreak?

the mini seems like mostly a step up from that, excluding the touch capabilities on the micro.

I got probably @JES as my 1st pick.
2nd pick you @monsterthompson cuz well….reasons

Wildcards:
@steubig @Scott sinner

yeah, probably not. was talking about it with a friend yesterday, sounds interesting, but the menu thing is probably too much for me.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26974885[/URL], member: 17475"]i saw about half the vid. seemed interesting. i’d be more interested if it were a module.

you have the microfreak?

the mini seems like mostly a step up from that, excluding the touch capabilities on the micro.



yeah, probably not. was talking about it with a friend yesterday, sounds interesting, but the menu thing is probably too much for me.

Sold the MicroFreak, never made one sound out of It that was used live or on my recordings after over a year.
I blame the user more than the instrument in this case. I really didn’t like the interface, even if all over the place people seemed to love it.

Out it went, guess I haven’t found the right synth/sound/module/sampler/thing-ama-jig yet.

 

[steubig]

Sold the MicroFreak, never made one sound out of It that was used live or on my recordings after over a year.
I blame the user more than the instrument in this case. I really didn’t like the interface, even if all over the place people seemed to love it.

Out it went, guess I haven’t found the right synth/sound/module/sampler/thing-ama-jig yet.

of you didn’t like the micro’s sound/interface, you’d probably have the same problem with the mini.

not to sound like a skipping cd, but a hydrasynth explorer is the same cost and has a lot more under the hood. i find its interface to be pretty friendly.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26974999[/URL], member: 17475"]of you didn’t like the micro’s sound/interface, you’d probably have the same problem with the mini.

not to sound like a skipping cd, but a hydrasynth explorer is the same cost and has a lot more under the hood. i find its interface to be pretty friendly.

Hydra is definitely on the radar since it’s been out.
The last one that came out is probably the one that would “fit” me the most.
Unless it has some missing features the bigger flagship models have??
Yet for some intangible reason the desktop seems more “me” since it has more physical buttons n stuff

 

[JES]

The explorer seems to have fewer knobs but otherwise seems like it can make all the sounds the bigger ones do.
I thought it was built well and made sense, but I also know synthesis a bit.

Speaking of which, after redoing everything else, I got the guitar part of the setup going again finally, with my matrix mixer so I can go into the amp or into my iPad. I set up a drone going into a H9 (speak of the devil) routed that through the iPad into my Cosmos, and then messed around with it while also messing with the Implexus. End part is a snippet from a longer thing where I'm arpeggiating from the Linnstrument. Bonus, I've got the amp sitting on the piano next to the unicorn.