wow. suddenly my penis is shrinking into its mons pubis like a cowering sea anemone
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Thanks for that imagery 
. I haven’t done a jam session in soooo fucking long. Spent about 5 hours tearing down, cleaning, rearranging, and setting back up. Got the main rack all hooked up. NOw I will hook up that secondary rack, put up the KRK’s and laptop, and record with it as well.
I will post up a jam sesh next week for sure and go from there.
I like how everybody’s setup is infinitely cooler than mine, which is literally just a laptop and a pair of headphones lmfao
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Hey! That is sufficient to make cool things!
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That’s 99% of setups out there and I promise you in my case, even though I have other stuff it is still how I do nearly all my music.
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That’s all you really need.
Weirdly I feel a lot better without the small amount of gear I had. I don’t feel guilty for having anything around anymore that’s not getting used, because I don’t. I never got too far into it, but there’s definitely something to be said for having more gear than you need.
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Honestly, I don’t need anything more than a good pair of headphones and a ton of software as a hardcore producer. It’d be really nice to have a few monitors and a good pair of studio speakers. (Also called monitors… Apparently.)
I already have some guitars and a really shitty little midi keyboard, so I’m pretty content where I am. I think my music has been progressing in leaps and bounds recently, but I can’t speak for myself.
What nobody talks about is that hardware is 70% blinky lights and 30% menu diving, at least until you get to eurorack. Then it’s 100% cable management and 100% empty wallet.
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Haha blinky lights go brrrr
I think hardware is cool but really annoying to actually use… Softsynths are so much easier…
I feel the opposite actually, I enjoy the sound design process more on hardware (for the most part, I can’t give up sample editing on a PC so a lot of sample/WT hardware synths are out for me). Recording is a bitch though.
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I used to feel this way. These things have a steep learning curve, are a bitch to sync together sometimes, and I tend to enjoy having visual representation along with audio. most importantly, I have always been too poor to buy nice hardware. once I started being a little bit smarter with money and acquiring hardware, it was mostly because I thought it w ould make me look cool, cuz all my closest music friends have their studios FILLED to the brim with amazing, boutique, bougie ass shit. also my best friend was the lead programmer at Sequential/Dave Smith (till recently). Once I let the hw sit around for awhile and collect dust, there was a series of events that forced me to only use those pieces of gear or no music would be made so I dedicated my time to learning certain machines (my baby is my Pro3) and after quite a bit of time and hair pulling, I’ve found the audible results to be staggeringly higher quality than VSTs in so many ways. Now I almost NEED a tactile surface that operates as an organic instrument (how it feels to the touch) or it doesn’t feel like I’m actually “music-ing”.
Another point for outboard hardware is the presence of limitations. I have a theory that software with too many options can actually hinder me from writing something I like because I spend more time clicking around all of the options experimenting the infinite things I can do rather than stay within the confinements of the synth’s limits. I have this weird habit of making things so complex sometimes that 1) I eventually lose track of the signal in the chain as well is my original intent for the sound and 2) I become more obsessed with pushing the limit of my CPU rather than focusing on the sound design. The K.I.S.S. concept is easily discarded when I’m in the mode of “ok this is some crazy shit… how much juice do I have to make this crazier?”
I’m excited to start building my modular. I’ve accumulated a bunch of modules, just waiting for my case! This has been a life long dream and I’m finally doing it.
It may be the evolution of most producers to desire to step outside the computer as much as possible later on in their music journey. I was told this when I was young dumb and full of cum (and just starting learning to produce on DAWs.) and I thought my mentors were full of shit. Like “what? this synth only has 2 oscillators and it can’t even poly psssssh” but now I’m like “oh there’s only 1 VCO, 1 VCF, 1 envelope, and 1 LFO? LFG” where as I open Serum 2 and it’s cool, not knocking it, but bells and whistles and moving GUI with a million different modular options… it gets a little distracting. At least for me. Don’t get me wrong I love options and freedom but that’s the mad scientist side of my personality, which often overtakes the musician side of me. Trying to balance. Anyway rant over.
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That’s two people so far trying to justify their blinky lights, anyone else want to give it a shot? 
(kidding! kidding!)
It’s really whatever works for you, no wrong way to make music. Some people really like the immediacy and limitations of hardware, some people like the expanse of in the box, some people do some of both. As long as what comes out the end is to your liking, I think you’re doing it right.
What I’d caution against is broad, sweeping statements about any of it. Don’t toss the baby with the bathwater. Like @White_Noise points out, it’s pretty bonkers not to have a DAW in your recording chain these days, and nobody’s going to care or notice if you throw the built-in limiter on the master. Even if you’re 99% hardware, software has its place if only as convenience.
Likewise, if you’re not piratebay-ing (or whatever the kids do these days) all your software, most of it has a cost, and some of that is pretty on par with hardware which also tends to be more robust and fun to twiddle with. One piece of hardware you use all the time is better than 20 VSTs you rarely or never use. Even most software purists will admit that hardware is a lot more fun to jam with, and it will almost certainly take you places you didn’t expect or would get to with software.
tl;dr - pics of laptop + headphones is legit if you like what you’re getting. you do you, boo.
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yeah @Mecha_Twitchy show us your station already. it’s not even about the gear for me, I like seeing the actual rooms/settings/vibe people here make music in more than anything else.
And btw… I’ve said it many times. I have written entire bodies of work on laptops/headphone combo. @Artificer hit it on the mark. seriously though, i’ve also mentioned the very first production tutorial video i learned from and put to practice religiously right?
whatever you think about his music or dubstep in gneral (personally I think his music is FUN AS SHIT), Rusko and I are from the same tribe: sprinkling gold flakes on hot shit. this video to this day is still valued as one of the best high-quality production tutorials, like of all time, for real. dude’s in a messy college frat-like flat with probably 5 roommates, sitting on the edge of a bed lmao, using cigarettes as a laser pointer, producing on ACID (the archaic DAW; not sure if he’s on Lsd hahaha) and Audacity with a crappy ass OS and a CRT monitor. Look, I used to put my monitors on stacked egg crates and mount my microphones with duct tape … just saying. 
Edit: Rusko used Acid Pro and Soundforge, not Audacity. I miss Soundforge!
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This seems to be pretty common. It seems like a lot of people on the software end aren’t sure how everything works together, but most hardware-heads seem to spend considerable time with what’s in front of them and understand every nook and cranny about it. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but the trend almost can’t be ignored.
TBH I’d love to know just how much of this potentially correlates with piracy and digital hoarding (for most people), because ever since going 100% legit on software, I’m much more willing to open the manuals and try to use everything to its maximum potential, because I feel like I’m wasting money otherwise. Whereas unfortunately, I didn’t see a whole lot of value in any of that.
I might also be full of shit. Hardware is more tactile and inviting for most, so it might just be that. We all have a million apps on our PCs competing for our attention, shitty updates and things to contend with, too.
Well, I guess you can see my desk setup. It’s really nothing special. One day I’ll have a much better workstation. I always try to keep my whiteboard empty if I don’t have anything important there.
[Image deleted for privacy reasons, maybe I’ll upload a new one tomorrow]
Soundbar is behind my laptop, subwoofer is under my desk. I know, I know, shitty stereo mix, lol.
I also have my guitars. Amp is under the desk, lol.
And for the keen eyed, yes I do have a chunk of concrete on my desk. I stole it from school in front of a deputy. Fuck him.
Also have an old GPU with a little purple dragon lying on it behind my laptop, and the cat card is a present from my family in New Zealand. Tha’s about it. I would kill for bigger desk, but I just don’t have space in my tiny ass room.
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I don’t think it’s much about the cost, but rather the intention behind the purchase. I have found that the most used things I own were bought for a real use. In contrast to my yeti, which sits and collects dust (3 years and counting), my digitakt is used rather frequently for drum sequencing. The difference between them is that the yeti was bought because I thought I might use it, while the digitakt was bought because I knew I would use it.
I think this also happens with software. More people might be prone to just buying a bunch of plugins without knowing when or if they’ll use them, which is of course amplified when they ignore paywalls and use the software illegally, but I don’t think that it is necessarily correlated. Some people who pirate may know exactly what they want and how to use it, and some people who buy software may not know what to do with it.
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Jesus fucking christ with the essays guys, lmao. Show pics or get the fuck out. Just kidding, but at least create some drama or some shit.
@wayne you’re getting modular, you dirty bitch? I wanna go full modular but my dumbass will spend everything I have. I gotta stop the GAS for a while. My mind works best for modular and patching. I fucking hate menu diving, just give me knoooobs and patchbays.
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yo bitch wtf
why you talkin shit
reveal thyself
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