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Medieval

teenage.engineering

231–240 of 341 posts

Re: Medieval

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack#/media/File%3AKeith... How the hell do you replicate your sounds between performances, recordings, etc. This must be the musical equivalent of people sending eachother zip files with source code instead of using git, lol. EDIT: don't get me wrong, not dissing the approach! It looks glorious and I wish I could play with one once..!

I like to take photos and sometimes write things down! In a sense you're assembling a sound sculpture. But once you've found a great sound and lost it, sometimes you end up finding something very similar but not quite 100%! You see this a lot with live performances from any electronic musician to be honest. Still, most of the time you find something incredible and it's gone as quickly as it appeared!

> In a sense you're assembling a sound sculpture.

Or, in the case of the Medieval, a sound scripture ;)

Re: Medieval

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today there is cheaper stuff that is also good quality (but you gotta dig) I think I disagree here - You don't have to dig for cheap and quality anymore. An entry level squier from the last 15 years is sufficient quality for a beginner IMO, and one step up (classic vibe) is firmly into the "instrument for life" territory these days. You only need to upgrade for preference/feel. I have the luxury of regularly gettin…

To me the biggest change has been to amplifiers. Mid range practice amps now sound passible. Digital modelling is pretty good, and helps keep the volume down. That wasn't true before, most practice amps made guitars sound horrible. I always recommend people spend more on the amp than the guitar. I have a motley collection of cheap guitars and they all sound preety good into my Fender Twin... my Classic Vibe strat (as…

Digital Modelling is a game changer. I've got a Helix Stomp XL, and it's replaced every pedal and amp in my house for guitar & bass, _and_ it's smaller than a pedalboard.

Even the Pod Go (which I had before this) is completely usable up to a level where you can absolutely afford to replace it with a helix.

Re: Medieval

#234

Does anyone have recommendations for a more practical, entry-level device for making small songs? I’m making a survival-horror game for the Playdate and need some music that fits the vibe. The reason I’ve been eyeing hardware is because I spend all my time writing code and drawing pixel art, so it would be nice to have something away from the computer to work with.

Their other stuff is pretty good. The device this is built around is amazingly fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeafE30nIC4 - OPZ also fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCgjKgPrE0M

Re: Medieval

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old…

I think you're largely right but man there's some gold in the jams. Here's a 1 minute synth jam video posted to youtube 17 years ago, it still blows me away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Kiw4aoex4 Of course he's brilliantly talented and became Dorian Concept, to your point.

Nice find!

Re: Medieval

#236

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc. However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. At the very least, Teenage Engineering hardware is generally very well designed, high quality and built to last. At least this product has some creative sp…

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old…

> and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once.

So? Why does that matter?

I have a decent second hand Nord Piano 3 .. I certainly can't make good music on it, but I have fun playing it. Sure, with that kind of instrument I'm sure there's plenty of people making great music on it, but does that matter to me? Not really

I'm willing to bet the overwhelming majority of instruments sold are never used to make genuinely good music. People buy them to challenge themselves, to have fun, to learn new things.

Some instruments are more aimed at that kind of usage rather than actually making good music, and I think it's fair to say that Teenage Engineering stuff falls in that category.

I bought a couple of pocket operators at some point. I found it very fun and challenging to work within the constraints of those devices. I would never use any professional music making software because it's just too overwhelming. But with the Pocket Operator I feel motivated to try making some simple jams and have fun with it. It's never going to become anything serious and that's OK.

Re: Medieval

#237

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc. However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. At the very least, Teenage Engineering hardware is generally very well designed, high quality and built to last. At least this product has some creative sp…

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old…

Just like 99% of golfers buying expensive and cool clubs are middle aged white rich dudes who just play with their friends two times a month and brag.

It's no coincidence that we invented the "enthusiast" or "prosumer" categories precisely to separate certain products from professionals

Re: Medieval

#238

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc. However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. At the very least, Teenage Engineering hardware is generally very well designed, high quality and built to last. At least this product has some creative sp…

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old…

OP-1's portability, synth range and 4 track combo seems to have been pretty successful creatively from what I've seen, beyond that they've been extremely limited though. Closest I've seen them come is the OP-Z but a combo of build quality issues and just not getting the idea across very well has crippled it. There's a decent argument a lot of those people could've achieved the same with some much cheaper 4 track alternative but it probably wouldn't have drawn them in as much.

Pocket Operators are a great fidget toy but the collecting nature of them all is a bit annoying (saying that as someone who bought a bunch of them and only ever really enjoyed 3 of them: 14, 32 and 33). Useless as music outside of maybe an drum beat to improv over from what I can see though?

Have very little issue with them myself though. Even absurd projects like the Choir are kinda neat to me; toys for rich people to burn money on which may result in other people stealing the good bits and making something better and more accessible.

Think whatever this is is a big misstep after the EP-133 done a good job addressing a bunch of their past issues as a business (albeit with a lot of room to improve)

Re: Medieval

#239

Why "1320" ? Could it be because, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1320 "In France, a large group of common people band together in Normandy on Easter Sunday to begin a crusade, after a teenage shepherd says he was visited by the Holy Spirit" (my emphasis).

without knowing much about the details of how this works; is it possibly more in line with another Pocket Operator? PO-32 possibly?

Re: Medieval

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. Have you ever met a guitarist[0], or a golfer? I play guitar, and as a teenager I spent _years_ playing a cheap encore guitar plugged into a no-name 15w amp imaginable with a zoom 505 [1]. I practiced for hours upon and hours and sounded awful. Now as an adul…

It also reminds me of how a lot of the most coveted guitars, pedals, amps weren't selected by the guitarists who made iconic because they had some sort of secret sauce in them, but literally because they were the cheapest/most convenient thing available at the time. Also, I love the sound of a good crunchy 15w practise amp. I think one day those old zoom pedals and the Line 6 bean will be highly coveted!

Old Zoom pedals are currently coveted as a good, cheap way to shoegaze...
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