spacebug: (Default)
spacebug ([personal profile] spacebug) wrote2004-10-12 10:56 pm

hey, music geeks!

Aimed mostly at, but not limited to my music-geek friends:
Tell me, if you please, your recommendations for two things.

Firstly:

Trip-hop. I want more trip-hop. I'm familiar with some, but not a lot. I like it, I want more. School me! Dark is good, glitch influence is good. I really like Portishead, I really like Bowery Electric, some Tricky and some Massive Attack.

Secondly:

(Warning, music geekery following.)

I wanna save up for more gear in the next 6 months to a year. I wanna continue and refine the live-loop-based solo thing, but get more gear that will facilitate doing this without hauling my whole dang studio around. I basically rigged up the K2000 to a MIDI fader box (Peavy PC1600, for those who care) to be a 16-track looper, but it's not really built to do that; setting it up is a pretty severe pain in the ass and it's glitchy in a not-good way. Not to mention that thing is HEAVY. I like the ease of the boomerang, but get annoyed at its limitations pretty easily. So, my geeky gearhead friends, lay it on me- Pros and cons of grooveboxes? An Echoplex? A laptop running Live? The various electribes? Possible combinations of these? I'm thinking a MIDI synchable looper would be really awesome, so I'm seriously considering saving up for an Echoplex even though they're mono.

I'd eventually like a new keyboard too, maybe an Ion, something so I can put Sigfried the Prophet into gigging retirement and let him live out more of his lovable yet detuned old age in the studio and have something more conducive to Low Orbit shows and recording practices. Also, I'm still poor, so only cheaper or older gear is usually really feasible. Okaythanks.

I might know as much as I need to know about this stuff via Low Orbit and just have to hunker down, save some money and just decide, but thought I'd think out loud and solicit opinions anyway.

(Music geekery done.)

I feel some trip-hoppy kinds of things wanting to come out. I haven't made nearly enough music this year, so this is the seed of the plan.

Reason and Trip-Hop

[identity profile] azure-armand.livejournal.com 2004-10-12 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
oooh - I love trip hop, and like you I only know the really famous stuff. Please share any cool stuff you find.

Gear: a laptop running Reason! (preferably Mac, which are known to be more stable, hence more reliable in performance conditions) Reason is designed to replace a whole rack of hardware. You might not know that Reason is designed to be able to be used live. You can assign almost any parameter to controls on your midi controller. They make several kinds of midi controllers to be compatible with Reason too. You can, for example, trigger loops or silence loops by pressing a key on your MIDI keyboard.

I don't think you fall into the category of "boring laptop musician" if you have a Midi controller hooked up to the laptop.

Reason and Pro-Tools both contain the Rewire application, which allows them to work together. Ableton Live also came bundled with my Pro-Tools, and it contains Rewire capability also. So I imagine that Reason and Ableton can work together easily.

A laptop is more than you wanted to spend, but its something you wanted anyway, and you'll use it for other stuff (example - getting out of the house to work on music). Once you have it, the other costs are minimal compared to buying a new piece of gear every time you want a new sound. You have connections to get a deal on that, and on software.

Re: Reason and Trip-Hop

[identity profile] azure-armand.livejournal.com 2004-10-12 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I forgot to mention, that there is a motorized mixer box on the market that is specifically designed to interface with Reason.