That thing should do it.
But I'm not sure if that thing's able to seperate the incoming MIDI-events, looks like it's just a MIDI-merger that spits out the signal 6-fold.
So the question is, can you address any MIDI-item for itself from the Sequencer as you could do with a common MIDI-interface?
I don't think so, but if you jsut use it for solving combination problems, it looks like a good buy.
Also, most synth can be used in at least two MIDI-modes (Multimode, MIDI-mono-mode, Poly/Omni-mode, Homophonic mode, Monophonic mode, declaration may differ). Only the CV/gate and DIN-controlled synth are mostly monophonic, so it does not make a difference anyway.

you don't need exclusive kenton-stuff, there are loads of people selling MIDI-boxes and allround-solutions for any kind of convertness (CV/MIDI/Pedal contr./anything) on the net (maybe ebay).

Always nice to see another perfect match...

Hi,

the Mackies are great, right, if you find a way to afford them or get them sent, do it.

If you've got a bit more money, you HAVE to check out the Adam P11. They were the last Monitor-test-winners in a lot of mags here.
Haven't heard them so far, but everybody who did was totally flashed. Very linear, very truthful.

The Behringers are a good joke, if you ask me, they are labelled "Truth" and twist the sound like no other... ;-)
Good HiFi-speaker, though...

How's your experience with the W-30 so far?

Greets
Ekko

Part II...

If you watch in Liam's studio [well, I think you already have.. but just in case: www.theprodigy.com ;-)] I think he uses MACKIE HR624 (or maybe HR824, I'm not sure) as near-field monitors Than he has those big Woofers... but one thing i learned on a quick visit at Sae-Institute in Stockholm was: that first of all - the mix must sound *good* on the small monitors.
I don't know if that's just a "mainstream-music way of mixing" but I think it makes sense.

Yeah, it's not a NEED or someting you MUST do. There's never a HAVE TO in creating, producing, mixing or whatever.
Everything is legal, as long as it sounds good and makes you creative.
The thing is, that if you start with the big monitors (large Dynacords with subwoofers, for erxample), you might get used to the sound too early. Because of the higher loudness.
Usually you do it all on the clear-sounding moni's of your choice and then you check back on the large ones.
They produce more bass because of the larger resonance-room.
Better start off with the medium range-frequencys, then add the higher ones and then switch the bass on as well. The bass absorbs the biggest part of the musical energy you have to give away.
I like to look at it this way:
You have an empty pot for your audible energy. You might wanna fill it totally up with sound, but then you would get only 'loud' music with not much dynamics. If you fill too less in it, it sounds weak. Try to go to 4/5, that's the typical Prodigy-ratio, for example. Not much dynamics, but still better mixed and mastered then Korn or any other Nu Metal-band.
(Just loud.)
And the bass 'eats' most of the energy, because of some physial things like length of the waveform and stuff like that.
So room for the bass is spared, until you've got everything above mixed out.
Some engineers do it the other way round, just try it yourself.
Depends on what kind of music you wanna mix, as you assumed.

So...? The woofers is just a nice toy when the mix is ready, to satisfy our needs of booming bass :-)
Am I right??

In relation to what I wrote above...: Yes. :-))

(and of course - by switching the subwoofers on, we get a picture how the complete mix sounds on a Club/big PA)
/ Greetings from Stuff

Mhhhm. I'd say no, because every club has a different pa, beginning with the mixing desks, over the length of the cables, to enhancers, exciters and shit like this and finally the speakers itself. Not to forget the room. Might absorb something, might amplify something, you don't know.

Sure, you might get something like a certain picture of the sound when switching it on, but really, never rely on this.
You wouldn't believe how much things like roomsize, -material and -design matter.

dunno, guys.. first all, i'm not that rich to choose, secondly, i've got little another opinion about monitors. i prefer usual kind of monitor sound, some good mini hi-fi component systems (i like sony stuff here). why? because then i hear the sounds as all usual people hear it. when i'm doing a tune i hear the same that other peeps will hear. but that's my imho of course.

Hehe, no, you don't! ;-P

That's the reason, why there ARE monitors in the first way.
Because every hifi-stereo sounds different. From manufacturer to manufacturer of course.
They all use different IC-elements and so on. It depends on things like size of the condensers, coils etc.
Sony is a good example for a builder of hifi-components that put stuff into their amps and speakers, to alter the sound.
Listen to a cd on the NS10M's and then on some sort of hifi.
It will sound ugly on the NS10M's. Because it's honest!
There's a 'rule' for mixing: If it sounds good on the NS10's, it sounds good on everything. Sort of.
The other way round, it doesn't sound good on everything if it sounds good on your home-stereo.
If you want to make it professional and somewhat uniformly when it comes to mixing-quality, you can't get around a real studio-monitor set up.

Which is mostly the most expensive part of the complete studio set up. Beside the mixing desk, of course.

Cheers dudes,
Ekko

Hi Stuff, sorry for the late answer, I had a lil internet-timeout.
No modem, no access, nothing.
Okay, lemme see....

The frequency range on MSP5 is claimed: 50Hz to 40kHz. But I don't know if that is reliable values? How do I get an (actual!!) certification of the frequency response-values??

The values are quite reliable, as far as I noticed.
It's very important for the manufacturers to be honest with this, as they can be fined for even slightly wrong details.
Although many of them cheat a little bit, for example by indicating the maximum output gain noise

Uhh, big theme...

First of all: Cheap = shit.
Really, if there's one field where this sentence is really true, it's monitor-buying.

Genelecs aren't the best, since there is nothing like 'the best' and 'the worst' monitor.
Well, okay, there is a 'worst' monitor, the Yamaha NS10.
Still you'll find them in every good studio.
They sound like shit, you won't have any fun mixing on them, believe me.
The trick with monitors (and what most people oversee,) is to find a pair of monitors fitting your need. Your musical style. Monitors aren't made to sound good, for that purpose you buy normal speakers for your stereo.
Monitors are made for showing you what your mix needs.
Hence, if you get some cheaper monitors
(cheap = non-linear = bad), you'll get some speakers with added circuits to make music sound better.
Nice example: Behringer Truth. They're called 'Truth', but they heavily alter the sound. It's not what the signal really sounds like. But exactly that is what you want, nothing else. The truth. Not a good sound by itself.
This is the reason why the NS10 are spreaded so widely.
No one would put those monitors in their living room for good sound enjoyment, they soudn too bad, but they're honest.

Also, if you look for monitors, try to avoid passive ones, get active ones. Most monitors are availabe in those two versions, but for passive monitors you'll need an additional amplifier with very linear frequencys. There's a silly sounding rule, but it's true: The heavier the amp, the better the quality, because of the better material and electronics used in them.

Active monitors cost about the same as passive ones plus an okayish amp and sound better.

If I were you, I'd go to a good music shop and check out a few of them. And bring a reference-cd, a cd you know inside out (the sound), so you can get an impression of the weakpoints of the various moni's.

And always look at the frequency-response, most cheaper monitors (Tannoy reveal, Behringer Truth, Yamaha's for example) are weak at the bottom end (they should at least go down to 50Hz, better 35 - 40Hz).
Try to find the most linear moni's you can get for your money.
Don't save on monitors, they're the most important part of the mixing-setup.

Btw.: Don't buy monitors used, or at least, make sure you get an (actual!!) certification of the frequency response-values.
Be aware of eBay... Only buy when the auctioneer gives out beforementioned certification!

Happy mixdown,
Ekko

Yep, that's the one quote I'll never forget, along with:
"I'd like to quote Keith here, who said 'you can never have enough SE-70's'"

and

some stupid wrong quote about a dynamic-processor he used, where he explained that the mid-ranges reach your ear before the bass-levels and he used that machine to correct that, hihi...

Yeah, there are good tunes out there being all MIDI-sequnced,
but never as good as the native-timing-stuff.
Okay, if you keep the MIDI-stream slow and reduce data (some gear has options like 'decrease MIDI-Output' or something, where after one sent status-byte only command-bytes follow, which brings it down to 2/3 already), but still... Nothing for me... brrr... :-)

Nice shit dude!
I'd especially like to hear King Dubby (wasn't there a track from Beats INt. called like that?) in better quality.

You seem to suffer from the same problem as me...:
One can immediately hear that you love Prodigy... :-))

Which is absolutely shitty, as far as it concerns me, because I had to work heavy for getting away from that.
Now that I got away, my tunes are like electrojazz-type of stuff.
And when I even *dare* to write something with proper beats, it immediately becomes a second Funky Shit or something.
Just a few days ago I started something that could be a rmx of Narayan. I tried so hard to make it different...

I don't have anything on the web, but I could send you something per mail or ICQ. Or, wait, I'll reactivate my old website. I used to sell music on there, but I do that differently now.
By the way: You should try that as well.
I sold single HipHop-beats for ads or wrote a friendly little piece for a firm that wanted to have a telephone-waiting-line-loop, its not much money, but it's good, honest money. Enough for cables at least ;-)

Cheers mate

Guess what, I wanted to write that as  well (Liam with having everything in one long chain without too bad timing probs), but I thought "Naa, not a Liam-quote again"... :-)

Sure, you can do that, but you mustn't forget, that Liam used the W-30 to sequence, which means less controller-data for the received machines. MIDI is old, seriell and darn slow.
Nobody (including Roland and SCI, who invented MIDI) knows why it hasn't been replaced yet - awfuuuul!!
I use software to make tight beats, MIDI isn't capable of giving you tight drums that are 'on the spot', (as Experience shows well, by the way), and it's even less capable if packed into a daisy chain.

For gods sake, get good MIDI-interfaces, boys and girls all over the world!

Okay, nuff interface-praising.

What was I about to write?
Mmmpf...
Crazy MIDI ruined my mood again...

Soundscape would have been so much better than brainstorm ... ^_^

I'm using opera, never had problems with login in?
seems to be a common problem around here.

Nice collection of gear, man.

If I get you right here, you have two problems,
a) no distributor of midi retrofit-kits around there and
b) no midi access to the mc-303?

a) is a local problem, maybe you can get modofication charts or whatever on the net and take the risk of a diy-action?

b)
more info needed

the hardware-connection seems to work fine, since fruity receives MIDI-messages. Does the send-way work as well?

Does cubase receive MIDI-data from the mc in first line?
if no, it seems to be a driver/configuration problem
have you got a MIDI-interface or did you set up a daisy chain?
if the latter, how much gear is intended in it?
oh, yeah, you said you used the joystick port.
no more than 5 pieces or MIDI-equipment, if possible, because the optokoppler (no idea what's that in english) uses to weaken the signal after a few MIDI-in-plugs. Which might be an explanation for your problem as well, as cubase isn't set up with a  strong MIDI-software converter.

But I suppose it's a driver problem anyway. what card do you use?
and does all the other gear respond to cubase's MIDI-messages?

I would recommend to get a MIDI-interface nonetheless, you got enough gear to get latency problems already.
with every machine you attach to the chain, you get an awful 7ms more latency.
therefor i would try to put the r-8 and everyting that needs tight timing at first.

Cheers,
Ekko

Lately my equipment list has growed because i have a little bit more money nowadays (not a student anymore) though i've always problems paying the rent ;-) And i haven't shopped as many 12inch records as used to do before. But i don't think i got more gear than anyone else in here.

No Behringer stuff from eBay, i promise =). But you're from Germany, aren't you? I thought you loved their stuff ;-).

I look forward to getting a job soon, then I'll be back in the game.

Noooo! We hate Behringer for being from Germany...
Really a black sheep in our flawless productline ;-)
No, honestly, Behringer is on a new way, as it seems.
They seem to put more effort in their stuff now, and they also got a good position with their Feedback Destroyer Pro, which of course isn't as good as the Sabine-gear, but for THAT price really rocks the ass out of the pants.
PLus, the mixing desks get better with the time and one thing that is really good and would be more acclaimed if 'Behringer' wasn't written on it is the Ultrafex-series alongside the late Virtualizers.
But never buy anything with tube-bulbs or any Dynamic-processors from Behringer, they are quite low end and mostly react very slow. They even build microphones, they must be awful...

I only bought a 16-channel mixer from the states (for half of the price!! as in sweden - and i don't know if i want to pay the shipping cost for a 24 or 32-channel mixer from USA :-p ).
The one i bought is a Mackie 1642-VLZ Pro which provides 8 mono and 4 stereo-channels (the biggest difference from the 1604). Some things that are good with the 1642 is that all input connectors etc are placed at the top of the mixer. It also has two headphone sockets, good if you have a partner like i have sometimes (the 1604 has one headphone i think). The only downfall is that only the mono-channels have sweepable midrange EQ (fucking nice 15dB filters to play with). The stereo-channels has ordinary HI Mid and Low Mid Eq. But it's nice to have some stereo-channels.

Yeah, Mackie's always a good choice.
It was just yesterday, that I put my old 1604 on sale...
With a broken heart.
All this VLZ-gear is very good, they got the greatest Mic-Preamps in that price-range. Which is what I'll really miss, I guess.
Nonetheless, I'm going digital now (Yeah, I was so against that, I know, but in the end, you can't resist... It's just more compfortable and cheaper).

Indeed, 2,5 months is too much! At least the guy is answering all of my mails and seems helpful. Maybe he's just slow, choosed the wrong shipping method and all that. I'm still very hopeful to receive the JD-990 any day. Or maybe this guy is just playing with me, having a good laugh at the dumb european ebay buyer ;-).

Yes.. i payed him (sometimes i just can't control myself ;).
I've searched for a second-hand JD-990 everywhere in Sweden but no one wants to sell it. And if they do, they want about 800-900 dollars for it!! (but you'll get one of these JV-1080's for half the JD price). Anyway i payed the guy in the states $400 including shipping and insurance.
But as you mentioned, the smartest way must be to deal inside the European Union. Low shipping cost - and no Voltage Transformers needed.
If i won't receive the JD.. i'll contact you. Btw, i may need an Access Virus in the future ;-) (i must admit that Germany beated the Swedes in the.. eh 'VA-synth league', Virus is phatter than the Nord Lead).

Alright.
Mhm, I'm not sure about the beating thing, as far as I see that evolution departs quite a lot with the last versions of 'our' VA's. The Virus C is a total monster, for sure, although I hate the red didplay on it, but the Nord 3 must be cool as well (haven't checked it yet), and the Modular is great stuff anyway. I think the actual natural progression is good for both manufacturers.
But one thing is clear: The advertising for the Nord is WAYYY better than that for the Virus (you saw the ad? That cute blonde swedish babe lying in bed with the Nord Lead II KB?).

I see your point about the Asian card, it could be very useful. And there's not so much synths out there packed with these Asian sounds..(

Stuff you definitely have the right nickname!

I always thought I had quite a nice equipment list by now, but lately all you guys out there seem to overdue me.
Gotta do some serious shopping again, I guess...
[And some seious working beforehand]

What mixer did you get yourself that had to be shipped from the states?

Say Behringer and I'll never talk to you again.
(Just joking, honestly I would just never set a foot up here again, hihi)

Weeow, 2,5 Month makes it an unstable buy, as it looks.
Can the guy be trusted?
Did you send him the money yet??

I can't believe it's that hard to get a second hand-piece of gear like the JD in Sweden!
Mhm.
I get gear easily here, if you want (and trust me ;-) ) I could
look out for your future buyings (or a JD, if you have the possibilty to take your money back) and send'em to you sooner and cheaper.

Maybe I shouldn't write this so openly, I'm not interested in opening a sechand shipping shop for the broad mass... :-P

About the boards:
Well, I'd love to get hold on the Vintage one, but I have to set priorities now (which means getting a good dsp-powered native recording system together which means it will suck out the last drip of money which means I have to sell my body again, whcih means I'll be too exhausted to write music which means something else again).

But sooner or later...
If you think about getting one of them, I'd really recommend the Vintage board, since it's the best buy value-wise.
It's got the doubled amount of wavetable-forms than all the other boards.
It's like getting 2

Oh, about the boards:
I don't have any.
Too expensive when ordered as single pieces.
Really, 250

Aiii, sorry dude, I had quite some time off...
I think answering the asked q's wouldn't make too much sense, since your JD should have shipped in by now anyway.

How do you like it?

Greetings,
Ekko

Ekko, It's not good if you're tired of writing. Please, don't be tired ;-)

Okay :-)

So you have a JD-990. I bet it's a gem! But how is it in use?
JD-990 is said to be a rack-mounted version of JD-800, though with much better features than the 800.
I've played on a JD-800 (for some minutes..) and it was pretty hard to get into (but it just has to be user friendly with all these sliders, just like if it was analogue).
Is the JD-990 (user-friendly) reasonable to program?

Mhm, I'm not really sure what exactly are the differences betwenn 800 and 900 (despite the format and the price), I think Liam and some other people said, the 900 sounded a bit more crisp and crunchy.
A friend used the 800 to remote control the 900 and have more voices.
Ah, I think the 800 lacks a few voices, IIRC. Not sure, though.

The 900 is easy to program, it's got that big screen, which really shows you the envelopes and stuff - okay, which isn't very important, since everyone can just listen to the sound and 'paint' it's own envelope in imagination, but a huge advantage in relation to the JV-1080 is the amount of information shown on the screen, which also has a higher resolution.
So this makes it quite easy to programm, plus, you can switch into the Palette-mode, where you get rid of the visual format and just enter everything value by value.
You can act very fast by doing so, which is important when you have to work under pressure.
It just takes a few days to get the basic stuff into your head, but if you know how synthesizers work in general, you shouldn't have any probs with this machine.
And it's great fun, I never worked with an expander that is sooo much fun to program! It's one of these synth were you think "Alright, the song now needs this and this and this, mhm, which synth to take - ahh, of course, only the JD can do that the way I want it!"

Strings: No problem, the build in fx make them as broad as you want them - or as tiny.
Textures: Its speciality! For more details listen to any Prodge-record.

Another good thing besides the fx (phaser, flanger, exciter, reverb, delay, distortion) is the eq which is quite 'on the spot' for a synth that existed for ten years now. (HAppy Birthday!)

And the thing I love it the most for:
Oscillator-sync.
THE shit.
Like mentioned, the bassline from B&E is build with the JD.
Ever heard a track with that kind of sound again?
Well, I haven't.
Besides one, I build myself. Sounds pretty much like B&E, which freaks me out...  

The only flaw is the number of voices.
only 24.
Sound much, but if you build a patch, you have up to 4 tones in it, so if you play two patches at once (a broad string-sound for exa<mple), you run out of voices when you play 2 keys at once, and when you change keys now, the decay of the previous 2 keys will be erased in order to reserve voices for the now played keys.

You won't have that with a JV-1080, which has 64 voices.
But sounds very boring. it's a bread and butter-machine, as we say here. Heard in every Pop-production.
Well, the JD too, but wayyyyy less than the JV!

Man, I bet your BassStation sounded cool! I hope you sampled some sounds before it broke down. What did you do to increase the voltage?

I only have a couple of tracks with the sounds somewhere, but I plan on buying a new one and do it again, but this time I'll sample everything before it f**ks up again.
I entered over the battery-slot and had an adjustable voltage-adapter. I can't remember how much he was over the normal value, I think maybe 0.3V, which is pretty much for analog gear. OKay, for digital it is even worse, but you just would have to change cheap ic's or other parts, not complete analog units.

..about using 303 sounds, isn't it like this nowadays; "Oh, so you have downloaded Rebirth, I have a cracked version too" ;-)

Yeah, I think so ^_^
I can't hear it anymore, it really gives me the creeps, this overused squelch... brrr!

But okay when routed through fx and by this made harder to notice, like Liam did in Funky Shit.

Take care.

Thank you, I will.
You too.

Cheers.