It’s crazy, I was just thinking about the Evolver this evening. Then I come here and see you two discussing it. It’s probably the only piece of gear I’ve seriously considered getting that I’ve never played. Maybe one day. I hear you about the programming matrix on the desktop unit. I have no use for a keyboard though. Maybe one day I’ll try one.
And also… @chasedobson on paper, sure close enough. But in reality a virus ti is no serum. Sounds great in its own right but there’s just something about serum that’s beyond perfect.
So getting back to your interest in feedback on the iD44, it is fantastic. The pres seem much much nicer than those in my Saffire Pro 14, and the outputs are definitely better. I had a weird effect when I first tried it out that I put on the headphones and thought the audio was still coming from the speakers, it just sounded much better vs my old setup. The headphone-out amps are not very hot, it is enough, but f.e. if I am recording myself playing acoustic guitar, it was not loud enough to compete and win against the guitar completely. (Using BD DT880s at 32 Ohm iirc)
The hands-on aspect cannot be beat…the dim and mute functions, the ability to have 2 headphones for adding a crappy pair on line 2 for mix testing, the on-the-box controls for pad, hi-pass etc on each pre is really handy for me as I will be recording different things and can adjust much faster without software diving. Overall I am very happy, and cannot think of anything that would make me want to upgrade further.
The only niggle is that it took some fiddling to get the standalone mode to keep the volume up on the inputs, so I could use it without the PC. Now it works, but damned if I know which combo of steps I took make it do so.
Oh you bastard. They were out of stock when I wanted one at the end of summer and no one had any. I so don’t need one but I fucking love that purple : ( Likewise between the Monostation and Trouble Maker 303 on iPad I certainly don’t NEED a 303 replica.
I keep thinking about shrinking my setup to just the Force and 1 synth to use as a sample source, not really to be sequenced.
Minilogue XD module would be high on the list.
This is because I realised that the less I have the more productive I am.
The Force alone might be enough, but I struggle using it’s internal synths.
Nice. Yea. I’m kinda in the same spot. I think it is also OK to have a setup where one just doesn’t use every piece in every song but that is always my instinct. I’d like to have an MS20 Mini or Behringer replica back some day but I know I wouldn’t use it in every track. Other than that still looking for that one synth sample source like you. Lots of praise of the Miniloque for people here but I want a tad more under the hood I think.
ms20 is my transition fx machine. its so good to just track in some white noise while filtering in realtime. add verb - BOOM, on to the next section of ones tune.
sure you can do this with any synth but i like the parallel hp and lp filters for this and its right to my left so its a go to.
Fuck my life.
I found on eBay a Rytm MKII for around 850£, they usually sell around 1K and as it was high on my wishlist I pulled the magic PayPal credit trigger.
Part of me is very excited, one of my best production of 2020 was made with a Digitakt only, but if I keep it instead of flipping it for profit, a few items will need to go…
I got into music production because of the 303. This was back in the 90’s. I bought the newly released Roland MC-303 because I wanted to make acid techno. It couldn’t, so I bought the Novation Super Bass Station when it was released with the hope that it would recreate the OG 303. It’s a great synth but, unfortunately, not great at OG 303 sound. So then I bought a Fat Freebass 383 or something. Another mono rack synth that was specifically aimed at copying the OG sound. This was pretty close to the TB sound and I was happy for a number of years until it died. I think I paid like £120 for it new.
This year I have wanted to get back into using a few bits of hardware and using Ableton and NI stuff. I bought the Behringer RD-8 in February but it suffered MIDI sync issues and it literally went back into the box and I felt unsure about going back to hardware. But Behringer updated the firmware for the RD-8 last month and it fixed the issues. I got the bug again for hardware and pulled the trigger on a TD-3. Best money I have spent, I think. When it came I just spent the day playing one pattern and listening to the filter in different positions. I’d adjust something and just listen for 5 minutes. I bought another one a few days later. I love my set up now. A few bits of hardware and Ableton.
TL;DR, if you love acid music and want something hands on that is pretty damn close to an OG 303, a TD-3 is a great choice for the money.
That purple does look pretty cool. I’m just wondering how this is different from other TB-303 remakes. It certainly is cheaper than the TB-03 I have, that one goes for like $300 I believe.
I decided that I’m not selling gear to keep the Rytm but I’ll keep the Force fixed on my desk, with the other gear taking turns on the desk as needed, I can only focus on one item at a time anyway.
Now I need a storage solution, I’m thinking a chest of drawers…
