I think a MPC Live 2 or OP-1 would be more fun on the couch considering I cart a battery and headphones over there with it, and they have speakers. I still like it, but this whole “based on Pro 53 but not and we’re calling it something else while also saying we optimized the controls for Maschine while making them bass ackwards” poly synth thing is… perplexing.
Still happy to have a prophet emulation, I suppose.
I’m going to keep an open mind to this at the moment, according to BT (Brian Transeau) this is false information that has been peddled by the music corporations because this new technology will totally remove them from the money making process allowing artists to collect every penny from their art for themselves
He claims you’ll release music straight from your DAW with code inside that will ensure you get paid for where ever your music turns up and a record company will not be needed, so they have concocted this bad for the environment story to knock the technology down before it grows wings.
I think you may be talking about NFTs there? I was just talking about regular old cryptocurrency, which has to be “mined” with heavy graphics power. I do not believe the two are related.
Yeah your right NFTs, i have not idea about the subject.
However BT’s interview about them for anybody interested starts off here at 10:21 after Gareth rattles his cage incidentally Gareth seems to put crypto and NFTs in the same bag, and so does BT.
@Creepr@canecreek As I understand it, most NFTs are run on the same underlying blockchain as the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Not the same technology, the same exact blockchain, so the cryptocurrency transactions are occurring on the same ledger as NFTs. I clarify that point because cryptocurrency mining is performed by the computers that record those transactions. So whether you buy something with cryptocurrency or buy/sell/trade an NFT, that is a transaction that someone else is going to “mine” in exchange for some small amount of said cryptocurrency.
I think both sides have an argument here. Cryptocurrency mining today is using enough energy to power a decently-developed, medium-sized, country. It may still be more efficient than the current banking system, but both systems have room for improvement IMO (I say this as someone who uses the banking back-end all the time as part of my job and someone who invests in cryptocurrency). The current banking system is definitely relatively inflexible, and fails to serve some businesses and individuals adequately. However, I don’t think cryptocurrency is yet living up to it’s desire to serve everyone either, most are too volatile to actually function as a currency (the values can change so fast that by the time a transaction is processed, you may have paid the wrong amount for what you were trying to pay for), and big players in the space (IE big miners) are actively holding back changes that would improve crypto for everyone because it would erode their competitive advantage.
For instance, the Bitcoin blockhain was, until recently, heavily mined in China. Because of that, network speeds for mining were limited to network speeds that could go through the Great Firewall. This was not a technical limitation, it was a fairness limitation, so that chinese miners would be able to have as good a chance at mining transactions as anyone else. A few years ago, the consortium that runs Bitcoin wanted to speed up the network to improve transaction times (transactions times were creeping from minutes to process to hours or days as more people used it). However, some of the biggest miners, with the most processing power crunching those transactions were in China. If the entire network was sped up, they would be less likely to finish the calculations first, and therefore less likely to get paid for mining. They were having none of it, and pressured the entire blockchain to stay at the older speed - at the expense of Bitcoin’s usability in daily transactions.
So say what you will, I’ve seen the big man holding back progress for the little guy in both systems. I hope both can change to be more efficient - and I certainly see things in both systems that are starting to do that. Whether it’s banks just pushing more for paperless statements - all my banks charge extra for the privilege of paper now - and you know what? That’s a huge change from 4-5 years ago when I started my first office job and I would go through a rheum of paper in a day printing hard copies of documents to put in a file cabinet that my company took to a dedicated floor to file. I think if people are looking at crypto’s carbon footprint, they should look at old finance’s too, and they should want to see improvement in both.
I mined a handful of Bitcoin back in like 2012-13 with some spare PCs I had around, kind of forgot about them, and sold them off last year for a nice profit. #accidentaldiamondhands
I find the technologically fascinating but useless in a practical sense. Until I can pay for dinner or buy shoes with it, it’s just a goofy investment mechanism based on cool tech - it’s the financial instrument equivalent of owning a hovercraft. I really doubt that’s going change any time soon, as there’s no impetus for day-to-day stores to replace the cash/credit system they’re already heavily invested in. Our grandkids might get to use crypto for something normal, but I doubt we’ll see it in our lifetime. And trying to pay your yard guy in crypto isn’t just futile, it’s kinda offensive. I do think it’s completely shitty for the environment (mostly because there are much less power hungry ways to secure digital transactions), but money has always won out over planet, and I don’t think that’ll change in the short term.
As for investment, I guess it’s okay, but there’s both safer and more profitable places to put spare cash for the most part. It’s a lot like real estate - the time to get in it was back in the 70s and 80s, and again during the 08 recession. If you’re just buying now, you’re late to the game and gambling with a serious bubble in my opinion.
I think possibly sometime in July Abstrakt Instruments are going to build a final run of Avalons
So its simply a case of keeping an eye out on their online shop for now on a daily basis to see if they go on sale.
Im kinda blowing hot and cold as to weather to order one if i get the chance, if there was one in front of me now id buy it, the problem is Abstrakt instruments are that arrogant with their customers, you’ll basically pay them a grand whilst they never answer emails and leave you hoping one turns might up in 6 months or so, so i’m pondering on that one, im thinking if i pay a grand then its a grand i should be prepared to lose (i know you shouldn’t have to think like that but in the case of Avalons thats how it is)
The UDO Super 6, is also catching my eye more and more.
I got one back in december. Is very nice. I’d say I play it the most of my synths now, but that could be because I’m still learning it and trying to design better sounds. I know it has a ton of unlabeled features, and I still don’t know how to use at least half of them. Just bear in mind it’s firmware version 0.26. We’re still waiting on things like USB MIDI. And for one synth in my studio, I’m OK with that. But I’m not running out and buying something like a Moog One or an Iridium while I wait for this one to get sorted out. I only have room for one complicated not 100% finished synth in my studio it turns out.
Other than that, I can’t complain about anything. It’s built better than anything I’ve ever touched, and I have a Prophet Rev2 sitting under it when I say that. It sounds great. The super waves take any sound and just make it gooder (though I’m trying to make sounds without it because I know the synth can do other things). I’ve got a couple of effects pedals now and integrating them with the Super6 is a unique challenge. Reverb, Chorusing, Delay, all of them don’t quite do what you expect when you feed them a super stereo signal to begin with. So it does come with some unique problems to solve, but that just makes you think in a different way, and I’m enjoying that. I don’t want another challenging synth for awhile though, as I said earlier.
I’m about to head out on tour and these days my mixes rely pretty heavily on UAD plugins and I can’t travel w my tower. I was sort of not jazzed about this until I came to the realization that a PCIE USB-C card is available for my tower, extending its lifespan.
The two interfaces, the twin and my rack mounted unit can be used together as a system, it’ll expand the DSP on my home system now that I’ve got USBC/Thunderbolt, not a bad deal I suppose.
Im the other way around been using UAD plugin since 2004 (i think been a long time)
However as of now i’m finding native replacements for all the UA plugins i’m fond of.
I’m doing this because my UAD set-up has been my achilles heel for far too long every time i want to upgrade my computer, first i had 3 X UAD-1 cards in a PC which cost about £380 each back then, then i went to MAC and non of those cards worked in the MAC so i bought a UAD-1 PCIx for £380 which was supposed to work on the Mac pro but there was some hardware issue that UA were working on and in the meantime i bought a UAD-2 Quad for £1200. Ive had my Mac pro 13 years now and all the latest software doesn’t work on it anymore so i may go the Apple M1 route but again ill have to buy some type of UA hardware to run my UA current plugins when i’ve already spent £2720 on hardware to run them (an expensive dongle), i just need to get out of this UA ball and chain scenario.
“SHIPPING UPDATE:
Our vessel is now just off the coast in some kind of ‘Holding pattern’ Waiting to dock.
Our shipment should be cleared from customs and being delivered to us around July 16th.
The next 500 after that are still on the ocean and will be delivered to us around Aug 6th.
ALL outstanding orders will be serviced between July 20th - Late August.”
I live in California and have been trying to get to the beach most weekends lately. The line of ships sitting of the coast is real. Doesn’t matter what beach I go to, you see them, pretty much all the way out to the horizon.