IDM Mailing Archive

I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap, but usable for recording/playing. The only things I've got to play with right now is a Casio SK-1 (don't laugh) and a PC with a sound card. I have a lot of ideas for cool (at least to me) tracks, but I need a little more to work with. So hey, what's your recommendation for: 1. Synths. 2. Recording Decks. 3. Drum effects. Some ideas I've liked (though not necessarily original) Record the highway noise by my house late at night. I've often tranced out on the subtle phase shifts and phantom tones it gets late at night. And I don't even take drugs. Build up some tracks from Weather Report samples. I'm suprised their first three records haven't come up here as seminal space music... Did you know if you sample an acoustic guitar through a cheap mike, lay down a lot of echo and reverb, and then cut and paste chunks at random, it sounds just like seefeel? Hmmm..... I play the 'cello. No one's done THAT yet. I've also had a lot of fun sampling and looping from a cheezoid Radio Shack electronic drum kit. The biggest problem I have with it is that it's so flimsy that it falls over if you actually drum on it.

SK-1: Hmm...I'm not laughing. Tech137 (Dan) has made some REALLY cool stuff with just this! Some watery-sounding ambient stuff...real neat! Though, the SK-5 has a sequencer, I hear. GEAR RECOMMENDATIONS: Well for analog, the analogue-heaven email list would be most appropriate to ask suggestions (analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) CELLO: Not sure of any electronic artists using this, but I believe it's used in one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song "Disarm" (*duck*) ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC: How about ELECTRONIC MUSIC, since there is some stuff ('idm') that I wouldn't really dance to...? Or how about just MUSIC ? :) NEW RELEASES: Is there a NEW 'IDM' RELEASES list anywhere?? IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape? i.e., a compilation of netters' original musical material? Specifically 'IDM'? I'd be interested...and you can hear Dan's SK-1 sound like AFX! :) -djkc

djkc <djkc@blkbox.com> writes:

quoted 4 lines IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven

> IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven > tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape? i.e., a compilation of > netters' original musical material? Specifically 'IDM'? > I'd be interested...and you can hear Dan's SK-1 sound like AFX! :)

sounds like a great idea. (hiding fear of having to actually decide what track to put onto a tape). i'd do the organization but my tape decks really suck (i like them that way, most people's music probably would not :). anybody????? - DanN /~~~\ |~~~~\ |~~||~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | o | | o || ||__ __| | DanN = moddan@vlad.bowker.com | \ / /~~~\ | / | | | | | t23@cyberspace.com | / \ | O || \ | | | | | Transmission 23 - FTZ - edrone | | O | \___/ | O || | | | |____________________________________| \___/ C O L L|____/E|__|C |__|T I V E \*\ \*\

On Sat, 21 May 1994, Dan Nicholson wrote:

quoted 4 lines IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven

> > IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven > > tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape? i.e., a compilation of > > netters' original musical material? Specifically 'IDM'? > > I'd be interested...and you can hear Dan's SK-1 sound like AFX! :)

Yeah, I mentioned this to brian and a few others a couple of months back. My original idea was for perhaps a CD pressing, but that is looking unlikely. I am still working on the idea however, and if you would be interested in contributing an original piece of music for an IDM compilation, mail me at fluid@freezer.cns.udel.edu. If theres enough interest, we'll see what we can put together. _______ (__,-, \ / /\ \ f l u i d <finger me for PGP key> /,_) \ \ flu'id (floo'-) (/ \\ brit@chopin.udel.edu :65 FD F9 9F F2 23 F8 CF: \) fluid@freezer.cns.udel.edu :80 9C 11 AA 9F 92 0D 27:

quoted 2 lines IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven

> IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven > tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape?

What are these tapes, are they any good, and are they still available? It's a pity these things don't get cross posted more widely..... I can hardly cope with the lists I'm on at the moment..... Cosmic

quoted 11 lines IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven

> > > > IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven > > tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape? > > What are these tapes, are they any good, and are they still available? > It's a pity these things don't get cross posted more widely..... I > can hardly cope with the lists I'm on at the moment..... > > Cosmic >

Analogue Heaven, and the Techno Tape too I believe, are on the AH mailing list: analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (analog gear (&music?) discussion) And the NETherworld tape is a compilation by Jason Leder (Method 1), lederjaso@urvax.urich.edu. Submission are of electronic, rave genres (ambient, trance, hardcore/breakbeat, techno, tribal, gabber, house of all types i believe, etc etc). Deadline is June 1. -djkc

Roy Badami <roy@harlequin.co.uk> writes:

quoted 6 lines IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven

> > IDEA: Has anyone considered doing something similar to the Analogue-Heaven > > tape, or Techno Tape, or NETherworld tape? > > What are these tapes, are they any good, and are they still available? > It's a pity these things don't get cross posted more widely..... I > can hardly cope with the lists I'm on at the moment.....

To find out about the analogue heaven tapes, send email to Forrest Cook at cook@stout.atd.ucar.edu The first tape has been out for some time and the second one will be out very soon. These tapes are groovy if i do say so myself and filled with ambient, breaks, idm, trance, and totally undescribable but brilliant weird tracks. and some of my crap no-equipment productions too =) - DanN /~~~\ |~~~~\ |~~||~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | o | | o || ||__ __| | DanN = moddan@vlad.bowker.com | \ / /~~~\ | / | | | | | t23@cyberspace.com | / \ | O || \ | | | | | Transmission 23 - FTZ - edrone | | O | \___/ | O || | | | |____________________________________| \___/ C O L L|____/E|__|C |__|T I V E \*\ \*\

*** If you're not interested in _making IDM_ skip past this message *** Kent Williams <williams@cs.uiowa.edu> writes:

quoted 6 lines I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap,

> I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap, > but usable for recording/playing. > > The only things I've got to play with right now is a Casio SK-1 (don't laugh) > and a PC with a sound card. I have a lot of ideas for cool (at least to me) > tracks, but I need a little more to work with.

Which soundcard do you have? For years my only pieces of equipment were soundcards in my PC. They're still my most-used pieces :)

quoted 3 lines So hey, what's your recommendation for:

> So hey, what's your recommendation for: > > 1. Synths.

Sh-101s are cheap and quite fun. for me it's a downside because there's no MIDI, so unfortunately i have to sample it alot and sequence the samples, but for live-recordings it's great. you should be able to get one for around $120-150 lots of people will laugh, but many of the _older_ cheezy consumer keyboards, like the yamaha PSS-480 FM keyboard, are great for sounds.. this particular model even has a pretty realtime resonance control.. lately we've been using alot of sounds from old casio consumer keyboards too, as well as a Casio CZ-101, which you can get for around $100. don't pay more than like $50 for a consumer keyboard though. you're going to need/want a sampler with some decent memory.. the cheapest way to go about this is to get another soundcard in your PC. there are two inexpensive choices at the moment that are worth considering, the Turtle Beach Maui, and the Gravis UltraSound. Here's a bit about both: TB Maui - this is a card designed to be added to a system which already has a soundcard with sampling abilities. It's a wavetable/sample playback module with 2 SIMM memory slots that can hold up to 8mb of RAM. It's also got a full General-MIDI sound set in ROM for games and things like that (the sound quality is good enough on these to use some for regular music, like the string sounds), and has a standard MPU-401 compatible interface so almost any piece of software can use it, although the patch maker runs under windows, so you'll probably want to use a windows midi sequencer. samples are transferred from the hard drive to it via Sysex. The card is going for about $160 mail-order, but a friend of mine says turtle beach is selling them direct for **$99** with 256k of RAM, which can be upgraded to 8mb for about $300, or 4mb for about $150. I'm about to pick up two myself (you can have up to 4 of these cards in the same machine). This is without a doubt the best price-performance deal for sample playback out there - you can have four 8mb cards for $1600 which gives you 32mb of sampling RAM, up to 128 polyphonic voices (at 16bit, 32khz, or 96 voices at 16b, 44khz), and the sound quality is superb. Gravis UltraSound - this is an all-in-one card with built in 8-bit, 44khz sampling, 16-bit, 44khz playback and up to 1mb of RAM (256k standard). The sample playback portion does 14 voices at 16b, 44khz on up to 32 voices at 22khz (i believe). i personally can't tell the difference :) it comes with about 7mb of patches, and there is _tons_ of support for this card on the internet, including a large ftp site. the sampler can be upgraded to 16-bit, 48khz with the addition of a daughtercard for about $100. The card itself is selling for $110-150 usually, although I would say don't pay more than $130 because it's quite easy to find somewhere that sells it for that. The major downside to this card is the small amount of memory it can hold, but it's otherwise very powerful. This card is used by alot of budget techno makers nowadays, including myself :)

quoted 1 line 2. Recording Decks.

> 2. Recording Decks.

I assume you mean multitracks. First, I'll have to ask "Why?" If you pick your synths and boxes wisely, you can do most everything with midi, and it's alot less hassle than laying everything onto tape. Your money might be better spent on a DAT (digital audio tape) machine for making final mixdowns and making live recordings (get a portable one - they're also nice for grabbing sounds to sample from everywhere). If you _do_ want a multitrack, there are plenty of good ones for not too much. The Tascam Porta-03 is really cheap (i sold one for i think $100) although it's very no-frills. The Tascam Porta-07 might be a better choice, or any of the comparable yamaha models. Fostex makes great cassette multitrack machines as well. Compare features and prices and decide which one you want.

quoted 1 line 3. Drum effects.

> 3. Drum effects.

Lots of people will argue about the sound quality, but ART's FXR and FXR elite are two versatile, cheap fx boxes. The FXR is non-programmable (has like 200 presets) and goes for under $200, and the FXR elite with programmable parameters and midi control is about $50 more. If you could find a cheap used Boss SE-50, that's also a great box.

quoted 5 lines Some ideas I've liked (though not necessarily original)

> Some ideas I've liked (though not necessarily original) > > Record the highway noise by my house late at night. I've often > tranced out on the subtle phase shifts and phantom tones it gets late > at night. And I don't even take drugs.

Hmmm. neat idea. i often hang a microphone out a window and record 'real' ambient sounds for sampling. there's alot of sounds out there to be used that don't come from some analog or digital synth!

quoted 1 line I play the 'cello. No one's done THAT yet.

> I play the 'cello. No one's done THAT yet.

go for it!

quoted 3 lines I've also had a lot of fun sampling and looping from a cheezoid Radio

> I've also had a lot of fun sampling and looping from a cheezoid Radio > Shack electronic drum kit. The biggest problem I have with it is that > it's so flimsy that it falls over if you actually drum on it.

:) btw, for those that have read this far, i'm working on getting a techno music makers list up and running, as well as a WWW server where each musician can have clips of their music or whatever they want. (thanks to Jamie for this idea!) At the latest, it will all be up and running by the end of June, although I hope to get it working sooner. Stay tuned! - DanN /~~~\ |~~~~\ |~~||~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | o | | o || ||__ __| | DanN = moddan@vlad.bowker.com | \ / /~~~\ | / | | | | | t23@cyberspace.com | / \ | O || \ | | | | | Transmission 23 - FTZ - edrone | | O | \___/ | O || | | | |____________________________________| \___/ C O L L|____/E|__|C |__|T I V E \*\ \*\

RE>New Thread!!! Best thing to do if you want to start making music is buy a sampler - you can get a used Ensoniq EPS for $700 or even less. They sound decent and they are easy to use. It also has a built-in sequencer which is fine for doodling. Once you get into sampling, you'll find that you can create some amazing textures with a small amount of effort. Next item to buy would be a cheap old synth. Preferably analog, of course, since this is IDM we're talking about. You can get used Sequential Circuits gear for dirt money - $300 or less in most cases. Make sure you get one that understands MIDI. Most of the old Sequential gear gives you access to all the sound creation parameters via MIDI control, which is cool for making sounds warp and evolve. Once you've got two pieces of gear, you'll need a mixing board and something to record your creations on. DAT is definitely the way to go in this era. You can send your DATs off and have records or CDs made with no problem, and it costs a lot less to mail a DAT than an open reel! Also, finding stuff on a DAT is a piece of cake. I'm not too up on what the cheap mixer market is like, unfortunately. The big news for bedroom studios seems to be the Mackie 1604 which gives you 16 channels in a very small space for under $1000. I've used it extensively though and I think it really sucks for dance music. It just has no bottom end. Anyway, that's my 10 second overview. You can probably get started making stuff that is "professional enough" for under $2000. If that sounds like a lot of money, just remember that five years ago it would have been $5000 for a lot less flexibility. /jon -------------------------------------- Date: 5/20/94 1:08 PM To: Jon Drukman From: Kent Williams I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap, but usable for recording/playing.

"Jon Drukman" <jon@opcode.com> writes:

quoted 4 lines Anyway, that's my 10 second overview. You can probably get started making st

> Anyway, that's my 10 second overview. You can probably get started making st > that is "professional enough" for under $2000. If that sounds like a lot of > money, just remember that five years ago it would have been $5000 for a lot l > flexibility.

bah humbug jon! it's entirely possible to make the world's most killer tracks with easily less than $500 worth of equipment. lots of musicians nowadays are spending too much money on too much gear that often enough doesn't end up getting used (or gets overused, like the tr-909 :). if kent is like some of us (quite literally) starving musicians, $2000 to him is like what $20,000 is to most people. i think this is probably the case, cuz he's using much the same type of gear that i do. even i realized after i posted my reply to his message that alot of that stuff is out of some peoples ranges (like a DAT currently is for me). of course, us starving musicians could always go out and 'get real jobs' like the rest of you, but then how would we make 500 tracks a year? :-) - DanN /~~~\ |~~~~\ |~~||~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | o | | o || ||__ __| | DanN = moddan@vlad.bowker.com | \ / /~~~\ | / | | | | | t23@cyberspace.com | / \ | O || \ | | | | | Transmission 23 - FTZ - edrone | | O | \___/ | O || | | | |____________________________________| \___/ C O L L|____/E|__|C |__|T I V E \*\ \*\

RE>>New Thread!!! i promise i won't prolong this thread past this but i wanted to clear up a few misconceptions... michael dvorkin wrote (about the EPS): <<It is not bad, but isn't it mono, and it doesn't have that much memory...>> you can expand it to 4MB which isn't a huge amount by today's standards but it's enough to hold plenty of decent sounds in memory at once. it's true that it only samples in mono, but that rarely is an issue. you can link two sounds and pan them hard left & right if you want to fake it. i know it's not the same thing, but it's an idea anyway. anyway, i can't think of any stereo samplers that are trading for $700.... <<Depends on which one.... The only 2 SCI's that are usually below $300 are the Six Track (which has a very cool filter, and nice envelope generators...) and the Pro One>> There's also the Multi-Trak which is basically the same as the Six Trak only with a better editing interface, built in chorus, and multiple outputs. <<The better choice for the analogue synth per price shall still be an Oberheim MATRIX 6R, it gives you a lot of modulation flexibility (it is a downscaled version of Xpander, which is the SYNTH)... You can always get them cheaper than $350, and they are far better than SCI SixTracks...>> That's true but they are much harder to program. Basically I think it's completely impossible without some sort of external editor program (like Opcode's very own Galaxy! end of commercial). And if you're going to go that route, you can always get Oberheim's Matrix-1000 which is basically the same as the Matrix-6 without any editing controls whatsoever (so you MUST use a computer editor). The advantage to that is it's smaller (1 rack space) and it has 800 preset (ROM) sounds, plus room for 200 user defined sounds! also, in terms of sound quality, i think the Matrixes (matrices?) have a "cleaner" sort of sound. sometimes that sequential "mud" is crucial for phat bass. (we're getting very subjective here, kids. can you tell?)

quoted 3 lines Make sure you get one that

>> Make sure you get one that >> understands MIDI. >It is pretty important, but you can always use the CV/Gate IN/Outs

if you buy a separate (read: more $$$) MIDI->CV conversion box.

quoted 5 lines Most of the old Sequential gear gives you access to all the

>> Most of the old Sequential gear gives you access to all the >> sound creation parameters via MIDI control, which is cool for making >> sounds warp >> and evolve. >Not so.... From SCI's below $300 Only Six Track does, and not to the fullest

extend. no, you can control every single parameter on the 6 Trak via MIDI. trust me. (besides, there aren't that many). /jon

RE>>New Thread!!!

quoted 1 line Not so.... From SCI's below $300 Only Six Track does, and not to the fullest

>>Not so.... From SCI's below $300 Only Six Track does, and not to the fullest

extenT. Not so indeed. The Six Track has, in someways better MIDI implementation than most modern MIDI rigs.. Every parameter has a corresponding MIDI controller so that you can actually sequence parameter changes.. Thats a pretty high level of functionality for a synth even by modern standards. Unfortunatly to do loads of weird shit, its nice to have four of them.. Also under $300 is the Seqential MAX.. It is exactly the same thing as the Six Track, but you can't program it at the keyboard. You have to have something that can send controller information to program it.. Its a snap if you use Vision or Studio Vision... (-' <free plug for Opcode> On screen you can create a bank of animated sliders which affect parameters within the MAX.. You can even record slider actions as MIDI events.. Thats probably the cheapest/coolest analogue synth you can get for 200 bucks.. (with MIDI/Resonant Filters) Drum Machines are also really fun. (especially for beginers) Try the Boss DR660.. I got one on Haight Street for $100 bucks.. It has cool integrated fx and limited functionality.. Using a drum sequencer will teach you a lot about form and arrangment.. Consider it an excellent fun learning tool. As mixers go, there is a 16ch mackie mixer (for round 800$) with 16 STEREO ins.. That's 32 channels all in all.. a decent way to begin. (I can't remember the model but it is definitly not the 1604, its a rack only mixer...mmm I can't remember..) Anyhow.. now I'm reduced to babling..