pkennethk's forum posts 2051

Speaking of submissions, sure would be nice if someone could go and verify the ones I've submitted on Mary Spender and Dave Gregory cough cough cough hint hint cough

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the drive/incentive for others to verify submissions? Nobody gets any extra points for verifying or being verified, correct?

"happy synth happy life" doesn't rhyme but its true

Ha! If only life really was that simple...

Congrats! May the 1000 IQ more come to you!

Thanks! I try not to think of the 10,500 additional submissions + social media linking + studio pics I'd need to even come within spitting distance of your current 66k+ score, kkolar... my hat is off to you and your absolute supremacy.

... and if I ever did climb that mountain, I'd arrive to find that you'd gone and added another 66k points while I was toiling away. (ᕗ ͠° ਊ ͠° )ᕗ（;＾∀;＾)

man I get so hot and bothered for polysynths....

Ha! you and me both.

I'm going to take a cold shower and pick up some flowers for the 80s polysynths I've already married... more oscillators, more problems...

the 61 is more unique sounding than the poly6. it has the dw6000/8000 filter, proprietary korg, whereas the poly6 has the juicy SSM fitler of the 70s, precursor to the Curtis filter. The 61 is thinner and squelchier but cleaner and I really like it. i sought out a 61m after falling in love with the DW sound. The 61 has a very generic 70s monosynth tone in a basic 1 vco per voice poly. Its really best for unison lines and bass. I would NEVER pay what a poly6 goes for. Its very limited and has a like it or lump it sound

That info really helps Jim, thank you. I'd lean Poly61 for the DCOs alone... a friend with a Poly6 was always complaining about tuning. What's a fair price for a 61m these days? Is $800-$900 for a clean, recently-serviced unit a good target?

its about as bright as my jx8p was but the fitler sounds squelchier at high res.... it does similar things to my prophet and poly61 but in a totally different voice. Its also hella punchy.

I just watched video (via Equipboard, an SOS feature on retrogear UK Junglist/Traditionalist Pete Cannon) where he nails the opening chords to 808 State's Pacific 202 on a Poly61... a tone that's been eluding me forever... I wish Korg had made a rack version of the PolySix or Poly61, I don't need anymore damn keybeds here... but damn, that sound...

No monitor for me, i just got a cheap RCA to USB adaptor and view things from a subwindow on my macbook pro. Works like a charm in terms of image quality. I really haven't played with it much since purchased... a friend needed to borrow the adapter, haven't reclaimed yet... I need to figure out a mouse solution too.

Those Prophet 2000s seem awesome, all those VCFs, wow.... I have a Roland S-550 sitting behind me that, despite looking brand new, I picked up for almost nothing a few years ago. The top end Roland S-series units cost as much as a new car back when they came out, so I couldn't pass up the chance to explore an 80s sampler with video output and mouse input (it's wild)... but these units aren't the same type of characterful analog marvels that the Prophet 2000s must be. They are among the most hi-fi sounding of the samplers that are still technically 12-bit... a lot less grungy/muffly than my S950, but still offers it's own processing character... as evidenced on first few Prodigy albums, before they broke stateside.

The prices Prophet 2000/2002s go for now... much more than I'm willing to invest in a sampler. I'm glad you got in early. The $150-$300 that the FZs go for now is pretty much my limit for something that still gonna be kind of a chore to loop into the creative process. Also... I love Dave Smith, but 80s Sequential gear is not known for it's reliability. I hope yours isn't costing you too much in repairs.

Once I add an FZ, and maybe an Akai S1000 or Emu/Ensoniq rack unit... I think I'll be done with my vintage A/D/A processing collection.

Thanks y'all! Love this place!

... and thank you Michael for the t-shirt, that's so cool and appreciated! I've had T's and other swag mailed to customers/testers for companies I've worked for, and it's awesome to finally (unintentionally/organically) be on the receiving end for once. :)

I know there are hundreds of users with scores far higher, but damn it, I'm celebrating myself anyway. ٩( ᐛ )و

:party_siren:

I don't think RDJ would favor a sampler for "80%" of his early tracks if it was filterless. Some have said the saturation/distortion characteristics of that DCF are unique/noteworthy... but, obviously, yet to verify for myself.

okay, I know a number of nonfamous people who use the FZ1 keyboard... even when new people were drawn to them by the price performance ratio. They enver sell them. For the bucks you can't get anything better. Its way easier to use than a mirage for example and has way more memory etc. It doesn't have an analog filter but it actually has a little additive synth in it. Its a giant value and rather unique. Will it replace your skronky 8, 12 or 13 bit device? not a chance, it sounds way too good. It has artifacts but the kind you get from a high end Akai. But for just samplie playback with looping and envelope gen? Perfect for that.

Roland didn't come out with a comaprable machine for years. Its a real contender. For me the lack of filter is a bummer, but I wouldn't let that stop me from buying one. Hmmm....

I would say in 80s 16 bit samplers that the prophet2000 and FZ1 are the most underrated right now and its a good time to buy at these low low prices.

Thanks for the rundown Jim! The built-in synth is what has me most intrigued.

Also, I thought filter was a DCF, an analog circuit with digital control, not a pure DSP solution like later samplers. I'd still consider this "analog" but I could be mistaken?

Would you consider the Roland S-50/S-550 (released 86/87) to be the FZ's contemporary? Those were also top-spec machines with the ability to feed built-in waveforms through the voice architecture to make for a mostly-digital subtractive synth... i'm sure they sounded different, cost WAY more at the time, were harder to navigate w/out the crazy fairlight-esq external monitor/mouse, etc.... but curious how you'd compare the two.

I recorded with it a few days ago and was very pelased with how it sat in the track. It has that 106 quality for sure.

Yeah, I'd like to pick up an MKS30 for that reason, it's the same tonal arc as the 3P, but also a slightly different flavor. Probably brighter w/ more desirable high-resonance characteristics if it's sounding like a 2-OSC 106.

I'm so glad to hear it's working for you thus far. Give it time; remember I was really let down by my 3P the first week I had it. A very knowledgable friend/colleague that played my 3P recently said that everything coming out of it sounded like Tame Impala. There was definitely nothing dreamy coming out of that 3P when I first got it... it took awahile to learn to stop fighting against it's inherent stengths and just go with the flow... blah blah blah, you know exactly what you're doing... I'll shut up now....

Fight it, brother!

My unsolicited 2 cents: If you're going to give into temptation, do it for a very clean example that would be easier to flip for crazy money in a few years...

what do you thin of this one, Pkenneth?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Roland-Juno-6-Vintage-Polyphonic-Analog-Synthesizer-works-but-please-read/193578164782?epid=10011034863&hash=item2d1228622e:g:a8kAAOSw82tfEMVx

she's tempting.... very mint. Seems like it needs a good cleaning and maybe power supply recapping to be safe, but so clean otherwise.

For anyone else, I'd say stay away due to the issues mentioned and the lack of verified servicing, but if disassembly to clean and/or replace all sliders and re-capping PSU are NBD for you, and you've sourced and budgeted a means to replace pretty much all the switches, buttons and sliders... go for it.

My main warning is that the mechanical componenets on my 60 didn't respond to careful & patient lube/de-ox the way nearly all my other vintage gear has... so plan for many of the "touchy" switches mentioned to be more of a lost cause than one might othewise expect... any you can revive and save w/o replacing are a bonus.

its not a juno6, but based on your glowing review of the jx3p, pkennethk, I managed to get the rack iteration (mks30) and a pg200 on the cheap lst night.

Jim I am honored and very jealous. I've been tempted to get an MKS30 for years. I know they can have voice chip issues, as they use the same service-hungry chips as the 106 AFAIK (unlike 3P, which is something different, probably duller-sounding), but we're talking one service every decade... NBD, really. How is the MKS treating you?

So I just posted the Casio FZ10m to Mark Bell's Equipboard, and noticed that unit has a hell of an exclusive club. Only 5 artists are attributed to it, but look at the lineup:

1. Aphex Twin
2. MF Doom
3. Mark Bell (LFO)
4. Paul Robb (Information Society)
5. (Someone I've never heard of before)

The keyboard version, FZ1, has a similarly tiny but illustrious list of past users.

... yet nobody here, or anywhere, wants one... other than me, maybe.

Am I crazy to want to poke around on one of these and see what the big deal was?

UPDATE 8/6: It's a 16-bit sampler with digitally-controlled analog filters and amplifiers, a built-in additive synth engine, reported to have an interesting bite and distortion characteristics, and was used extensively by Richard D. James early in his career... AND it still sells for hundreds, rather than thousands... in other words, they're... total crap! forget you read anything here... please don't bid against me!!!

UPDATE 8/13: https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016/12/13/vintage-casio-fz-1-sampler-has-that-wonky-squonk/

You're asking HAL to do something that's 'more human than human' LOL

Ha! Fair points... most people can't name every chord by ear (including me), but who here among us couldn't ID the opening to Stairway?

(from the O.C. Bible, after the Butlerian Jihad--pretty excited for Dune 2020).

Same here. Every week, I search for Dune 2020 news like it's the secret to life itself... I didn't even know who this Timmy Chalamet was until he put on a stillsuit... that said, the Butlerian Jihad is still roughly 14,000 years away, according to the Dune Encylopedia timeline... and given that machines can't yet tell you what pop song you're humming... that sounds about right...

maybe the system you tried is optimized for humming? constraining to the limited, monophonic instrument that is the human voice is probably a lot less complex than the 1-6 notes at a time that a guitar can produce. Did you try humming first?

There are a lot of "thou shalt not" commandments that people violate everyday... just sayin'...

Again, I'm no expert, but what sounds identical to a human, might not look the same to a stack of cloud services performing things like fourier analysis, etc. See fingerprint analogy, it's not the same recording/processing chain, even if it's damn close... but I'm with you in the sense that, if you totally nail the part, it's a major disappointment for a service claiming to be able to name that song to still fail.

I'm no expert, but AFAIK:

The AI for analyzing digital audio as if it were a fingerprint, filtering out noise and distortion, etc to ID a unique chunk of an existing recording is pretty advanced now... which is why Shazam works so well if you're feeding it a recording of a song that's commercially available... but research around ananlyzing the actual structure of a piece of music, it's notes, chords, rhythms, verses, choruses etc and trying to ID it against a database of exisinting scores/transcriptions/etc... lags decades behind.

If there isn't an app that can accurately transcribe what you're strumming on guitar in near real time (there isn't right? a really good one, at least?), then any service aiming to take that automatic transcription and ID it against an existing database is gonna be less-than-awesome, I'd suspect.

That said, as soon as enemies of the state start communicating with each other via guitar licks or harmonica solos, you can bet this type of app you seek will suddenly get really good :)

Hit submit, and screen locked up, hit it again, and ended up with a double-submission of Ableton Live 9 for artist. If the lock-up was on my end, sorry!

https://equipboard.com/pros/yung-bae

I've only ever made submissions from desktop. Copying/pasting quotes from interviews/etc seemed like it would be more of a pain in iOS, so I've yet to attempt on mobile.

issue:

When logged in, and viewing my own Equipboard, the star rating I've given some items appears blank. I'm talking about the view availible immediately after clicking "Your Equipboard" from one's account icon in the upper right of the browser.

Has anyone else noticed this issue?

I first noticed this change at the sime time I noticed that some site aesthetics/graphics had been updated on this same page, but that could be pure coincidence.

Just checked out your board Pete... you've got a goddamned sampler museum on your hands. You didn't build it to impress me, or anyone else... but I'm impressed anyway. :)

+1 on helping Pete's inventory stay orderly.

Many thanks for the link. I'm glad to hear you got a lot out of the section on recording & mixing live instruments and vocals.

Godspeed on your journey through these new courses. :D

I'll be interested in hearing how you like those lessons.

I didn't know Andrew Huang did monthlys... but of course he does. Did you come away with 3 tracks you love, as the course promises?

Oh hey, that's good info to know. I'll start checking around on here for affiliate links to gear I'm looking to buy before I buy of the internet in the future, just to try and help out a bit as well. And as I'm (hopefully) going to be renovating my studio space soon...

I hope.

Maybe.

Probably.

Right on!

Thanks! ---(^-)/---

ヘ( ^{o)ノ＼(_^} )

So I need to acquire a portable audio interface. After some forum discussion here, I think i'm gonna give the SSL2+ a shot:

https://equipboard.com/forums/dj-electronic-music/topics/anyone-have-the-new-ssl2-2-yet

Am I correct in my assumption that, if I find the entry for the SSL2+ on Equiboard, click the links to Amazon, Ebay, or Reverb, and purchase any of the SSL2+s those links take me to within the same browser session, that Equiboard will get a tiny sliver of the $$?

I've enjoyed getting to know the Equipboard service & community, y'all give me a place to ramble on in feverish purple prose about the instruments I've collected over the last 2 decades, and flex all the otherwise-useless (ok, totally useless) trivia I've amassed re: which obscure '90s dance music stars sequenced on Amiga/Commodore and which used Atari ST...

...anyway, my gear trivia is way left of center, but buying a budget SSL interface is totally mainstream, I'm guessing that's kinda right in the center of the intended usecase for this service... I don't wanna miss a chance to knock a few fractions of a penny into the Equipboard checking account.

Can anyone confirm that my afiliate link understanding is correct?

Thank you!

slightly more awesome than nitzer ebb

With no disrespect to Mr. Harris & Mr. McCarthy, I don't know if That Total Age would exist without the handful of DAF records that predated its release.

@Simon, thank you! So glad you're liking it... and compared to a UA Apollo Twin Duo no less? That's great!

Thanks! Just tried the upload with the jpeg provided, and even a PNG version... still no luck it seems. Oh well. It's not like users are flocking here to find out what gear they need to make 40 year old brutalist electropunk. ;) Maybe it's an issue on my end... I've had random upload issues to some services using Safari in the past... just not with Equipboard, historically.

Today I uploaded a profile pic for EBM forefathers DAF... then waited a few minutes... nothing, uploaded again... waited... nothing... uploaded a different pic, nothing.

I don't recall this being a problem with artist profile pictures I've uploaded in the past.

Any ideas?

Equipboard is incomplete without a vintage pic of DAF looking totally DAF:

https://video-images.vice.com/articles/59b7fadc26ffb66742cc6770/lede/1505229997002-DAF_Sabine-Raef.jpeg?crop=1xw%3A0.5612xh%3B0xw%2C0.3285xh&resize=2000%3A*

If you say it can go there, it can go there. I just misinterpreted/second-guessed that section's purpose.

I'll be very curious to hear your assement :)

Re: General vs. DJ & Electronic:

"Forum for the community to share ideas and have conversations on how to improve Equipboard"

I read this description as "share ideas on how to improve Equpiboard & also have conversations on how to improve Equiboard"

... and a quick scan of topics in General, after I posed, confirmed this reading... nearly all were about Equipboard itself... so I deleted and moved.

The shame of having one's post moved, it burns like fire... better safe than sorry. :D

Thanks for the clarification!

Does anyone here own either of these new budget-priced SSL interfaces yet? Is the 2/2+ noticably better (in terms of A2D and D2A quality) than (roughly) equavalent interfaces from others such as Focusrite or Native Instruments?

I'm in need of a bus-powered interface I can pop in a gigbag, that has the lowest latency possible for all my precious VST synths, and 2 headphone outs with individually adjustable volume knobs... the SSL2+ is one of the few on the market that claims to be able to accomodate... and the SSL name doesn't hurt either.

Who here has already taken delivery of either model?

(mods: deleted and re-posted this after I realized General section is only for talking about Equipboard itself, sorry!)

All fair and good points... and I didn't know Behringer was the source of said new chips, but that makes some business sense, given the volumes they're probably aiming for. We're in such early days for the boutique analog synth market. There will eventually be other companies making clones of these classics, at different price points and to please different tastes and/or ethical stances... Behringer might still be one of our cheapest options when that day comes, but I suspect we'll have companies equivalent to the likes of Lakland and Moollon, but for minimoog and juno clones instead of P & J basses.