Elektron-Users

seriously, just between the MD and the Virus C, you have so much sonic firepower available. Maybe instead of worrying about what gear you have, you should be worried about what you're doing with the gear.

thats what I'm talking about

I used to own a Virus C (Indigo 2, to be precise) before selling it to fund my Monomachine, and what I miss most about it was its external sound processing capabilities. Man...when I fed a simple MD loop through the Indigo and started to play with its grimier effects, it was instant satisfaction.

Have you ever tinkered with your Virus C in this way? If not, I highly, highly, highly (did I say highly?) suggest it. In fact, I eventually want to get a Virus C desktop to regain this ability (in addition to the Virus being a badass synth in its own right!).

Hope this helps.

You might also try playing around with the MD's own effects...filters, subtly use of the SRR, etc.

cchocjr

oh God - the first time I ran my MD through my Virus MS20 filter patch was a day to remember. A day for the ages. A good day.

MS20 - resonant high pass into resonant low pass... 2 filters is what makes the virus kick so much ass - try it. You will not be disappointed.

Hi,
just focussing on what you already said, i think you need 2 things:

1. analog, vintage analog: the soul of original techno, some old roland something-or-other. Trust me it'll make you sound 'like techno'.

2. Then, you just need to work on your 'warm and grainy-ifying', use those effects. But maybe yer effects are too high end, u need cheap analog f/x even guitar pedals. Your tube idea is good... or buy a junked old casette 4-track, sample to that and back, it will be warm and grainy! i guarantee! i've done it . Try just make a track the way you used to, THEN sample one of the synth lines thru some weird lo-fi f/x, THEN put the phrase into a sampler, chop it up, make it more 'minimal'... i bet it will sound right then.

i think you need 2 things:

1. analog, vintage analog: the soul of original techno, some old roland something-or-other. Trust me it'll make you sound 'like techno'.


sorry, but I just think that is ridiculous. No offense - but come on, does everyone need some x0x thing in their rig? Are there not other ways to make techno? The dude has a Virus C for the love of.... sorry.

Oke, since there's been so many reactions (and a big thumbs up for those!). Let me try to sum my story up in 1 reply:

First of al milkmansnd, respect! Telling someone to try and understand more of his current gear or even sell some is great advise (i mean this). So many people have studio's full of gear they understand for 5% each. I am thinking of maybe selling some gear indeed (but not the high-end stuff hehe).

Things that might go are the Sh-32 and the Electribe ER1 (thought i won't get much money for them and they both have their own charm).

ggoodwin: On the spot. My sampling skills have been lacking since day 1 and have probably been to lazy to do something about this. Strange since techno is a genre where sampling seems an important issue (noted and will work on it, i promise! :-D )

Mesak: FS1R is great but to hard to handle indeed. I ditched that idea.

nop: SPEKTRALIS is nice but won't really bring anything new in my setup. lso too expensive....

spanky & jbuonacc: A G2 Engine is kind of nice but i allready owned one and sold it. Why would you think? Well: Even though a modular is very nice, this thing just misses a good GUI and isn't special enough for me to own it as hardware. I allready owned reaktor 4 and upgraded that to v5 and have all the Modular power i need. It was nice to use the G2 as a hardware filterbank but the thing has it's problems there (sensivity of inputs is not nice to work with for starters). I Couldn't justify the money for it so i decided to sell it. I bought my first machinedrum qith the money i got back for it so all turned out well i guess! Also reaktor does what the G2 does and more. While the G2 is a nice product it isn't really that powerfull. Something that takes 40% of the total DSP in the G2 takes 10% in Reaktor (and that was on my previous pc).

ggoodwin: I realize i have a lot of firepower allready. I guess i should better learn how to get the result i want instead of buying some other piece of kit.

cchocjr & milkmansnd: Didn't realize the Virus Filter was that powerfull. Will have to try the things you both mentioned about filtering soon (read: tonight after work)

Some more about sampling: I sometimes have the feeling the sampler in my Rs7000 is underpowered. There have been more complaints about it lacking in crisp high for starters. While other things in de Rs7000 are very cool (like the lo-fi/bit-reducer stuff) this really concerns me. Would any of you suggest buying a second sampler for beat/loop munging or should i just stick with the one in the Rs7000? A second hand sampler doesn't use much space but does add heaps of possibilities. Or would you suggest just taking the superb sampling options from reaktor and just use those (my initial plan). Been looking at a yamaha Su700 too but it's not really that different from the Rs7000's sampling engine.

I guess i should push reaktor more from synthesis to samplemangling.......

De DSI Evolver interests me in more ways by the way. The combination of 2 analog and 2 digital oscs is just very smart and combines the best of both world. Then 2 LP and 2 HP filters and 4 LFO's and a sequencer just makes this thing unstopable......... If i would buy that it wouldn't be for filling the hole i am talking about here.....

I got a rs7k too... I was going to use that for sampleing but the fucker is just way to big to take with me on the road. I mean the thing is awesome and deep don't get me wrong, but if I am going to spend that much time on learning it I would like it to be small and compact.

I hope to use the MD UW as a low fi sampler, and use my laptop for the rest...

BTW I also got the MnM it kicks ass!!

Don?t get me wrong guys, don?t wanna start a battle, I am saving my money for a MnM, but my favourite liddle sample-fucker is the Electribe ESX. It has got a warm sound, good filters, enough ram for longer vocal-samples and loops and for live-using it?s the hell of a machine(for ex. mute and solo possibilities, arpegiator) and it?s not as big as a RS 7xxx.And there is really no comparison to the small electribes, for example when it comes to name ya patterns and songs.I love it.

Peasn,
toxictobi.com

Hi Acidfever,

I think the best thing you could possibly do right now is take everything except for your MD and put it all in storage, then just lock yourself in the basement with the Drum for 3 months, and see what you have when you come out!

Then midi the virus to the MD and repeat!

Go do!