a letter to all the ?low end? gear manufactures out there.

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earl parameter
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a letter to all the ?low end? gear manufactures out there.

Post by earl parameter » Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:04 pm

you know what all of you "lower end" companies should be making?

the cheapest possible resonant filter rackmount / desktop units. i mean the absolute cheapest lowest quality boxes (i don?t care about hum or noise). with like 4 different types of filters sectioned off in a rack or desktop for UNDER $100. the cheapest A/D/A's with the most character. all ins and outs on the front, tons of aliasing, low bit rate, maybe throw a decimator or sample rate reducer in the chain. a passive ring modulator with an external carrier and mod input feeding a really cheap line amp. the worst quality oscillators (random is mandatory) that you can route to any of the filter's mod inputs or the ring mod. it would be nice to be able to use any line level audio signal as a mod source for any filter, etc... different mixtures of the above. you wouldn't be able to build them fast enough. as long as they have character they would sell themselves. im sick of you companies focusing on shitty preamps, stereo firewire i/o?s for your shitty mixers ( which only piss off your customers BTW, they want 8 or 16 i/o?s not 2. thats just stupid), recycled boring shitty multi effects boxes, amp simulators, blah blah blah.

IF YOUR GOING TO MAKE CHEAP CRAP, THEN MAKE SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS GOOD WHEN MADE CHEAP.

doesn?t that make sense?

and i don?t know anyone who wouldn?t buy a $100 slightly modular multi-filter box if it had any of the above features. if that thing were entirely 8 ,4 or even 2 bit cheapness it would fly off the shelves.

if you can make a $99 stereo multi-effects box then they can make these. as long as it doesn?t start a fire i don?t care how cheap its made. the worse the better.

AND STOP SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY ON THE LOOKS OF THE BOXES. WE DON?T FUCKING CARE WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. it can just be the color of the metal or plastic you use for the box. label the knobs, through on a logo and send them out.

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Post by cgarges » Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:52 pm

"The worse the better..."

So long as it sounds good.

Classic!

Chris Garges
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Post by kayagum » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:27 am

Inspirational post!

Crazy that you wrote this just now. I just made a discovery the other day that the a possible solution of all of my strat tone woes (going back 15 years) is a $20 Italian piece of crap volume pedal run at unity. It took just enough edge off of my hard tail Lindy Fralin bridge pickup to make it sound rock instead of geek. My brain said, "no way", my heart said "try some more" and my ears said "yes!".

Maybe we're all brainwashed into being consumerist monsters, either to get something for nothing (like crashsick's rants about crap preamps and I/O boxesZ) or that cash or credit line being no object, drop a few grand on esoteric stuff that only bats can differentiate. And plenty of companies willing to take advantage of our desires. It's the music equivalent of "hope in a jar".

We need a new generation of demented geniuses to make that "mangler box". I couldn't tell you the difference between a resistor and a capacitor, so it definitely won't be me. But I would definitely buy one!

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Post by snatchman » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:57 am

Hey....some vendors must have read this post years ago. I mean, sheesh, with all the already made crap, don't encourage them even the more..!.. :lol: .(YMMV)

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Ben Logan
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Post by Ben Logan » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:10 am

FS: Behringer Tremolo pedal. 20 bucks. Oh yeah, they go for 20 bucks new. Scratch that...

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Post by @?,*???&? » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:47 am

Nice pricepoint. Very common. The magic $100 threshold. They'd have to be able to tie that in to the name or something...

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Post by pantone247 » Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:14 pm

Ben Logan wrote:FS: Behringer Tremolo pedal. 20 bucks. Oh yeah, they go for 20 bucks new. Scratch that...
after many court cases they are finally shipping!

yay!
INDIE TILL I DIE

earl parameter
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Post by earl parameter » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:24 pm

so let me get this straight, you people are actually giving me shit for suggesting a slight shift in focus by companies whos products YOU DON?T EVEN BUY. in a hope that they will produce something that anyone looking to expand their sonic paint collection would buy without a second guess or risk of ridicule by gear snobs.


very productive. you should pat yourself on the back for doing your part in holding back the progression of modern recording and sound design.


your completely right, there is no need what so ever to expand on the vast possibilities of the acoustic guitar.


im not saying my little idea is entirely perfect (or articulated well), but maybe, just maybe it will spark something in someone?s head and some good will come from it. like i said their making gear that in many eyes is actually destructive to recording. why not make something that can fit in that category and is actually beneficial at the same time.


so how about adding helpful suggestions or features that you think should be added, or a different direction that should be taken instead of what i had to say. and yes keep the price point low. that?s the point. some of these circuits are actually really fucking simple and there is a ton of old gear that uses low end a/d/a?s and other things to achieve a fantastic sound filled with character that nothing else has.

why did i decide to focus on low end gear manufactures? because these companies have access to components at prices the average DIYer can?t compete with, so they can produce these boxes, which require very low R & D costs ( since most of it is stolen anyway) with minimal risk. im tired of having to make something myself by spending way to much money and time to have something that these companies could do easier and cheaper. its moronic. these people make 400+ products that i don?t want. whats wrong with telling them what i do want, and how much im willing to pay. wait im just supposed to sit in my chair and take what im given and don?t get out of line because the only people who have any control over what gets made next are the ones how can spend $10,000 a pop. FUCK THAT. lets say i make varies things and if someone called or wrote to me and said hey ?I want this thing and I want it like this and this and I want it to cost this much and there are 100?s if not 1000?s of people that I know that will buy it and we all know you can make it because you did all this other shit?. guess what im going to do? first a little bit of research of course and then, if I agree, im fucking making it and im going to do it the way they all want it so that it does sell.


and they?re always looking for that next product to cash in on anyway. why do we have to lose out because of it. if any one of them have the balls and can get over the failure of fake tube products then this could help out a lot of people and maybe even usher in a new spin on audio production. right, this is were the gear snobs jump in and say ?yeahhhh a new spin on shitty production? and this is were i say ?fuck you?. ?if you want to bitch about shitty production, then talk to the people who make the shit recordings, and more then likely these people just have shitty fucking taste.?

yes you can quote me on that.


or here?s the simple answer:


why the hell do i have to pay over $100 for a resonance filter. its simply not worth that much, and this way every single broke noise and experimental artist can afford to buy one.



_

steven

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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:45 pm

Yo Steven Crashsick-

I'm with you on this, at least philosopically-wise. The advert-driven market, though, is a tough one for your ideas. I see the majority of sales going in the direction of "one box that does it all", like the mbox, or the Roland DAWs, or the Fender amps with crummy digital emulators in them, or the POD, or the bloated 5th-generation Groovebox sequencer/sound module/CD burner, or the Focusrite preamp emulator, etc. etc. etc.

You seem to be asking for "a box that does one thing very well". The EH pre that many worship at TOMB fits that description and sits at a very low price point - and guess what - THE NEWEST MUSICIAN'S FRIEND CATALOG OMITS THE EH PRE!

[my assumptions follow - somebody please correct me if I am wrong]

Meaning that despite the hype around these circles, and despite the raw power of the EH pre, Musician's Friend was not impressed by the pace at which the EH pre moved in the first few months and so they dropped it from their catalog (although they will gladly sell you one if you know to search/ask for it)

Meanwhile, the MF and other similar catalogs continue to hype hype hype their multipurpose offerings as described above. If you were a telephone operator at one of those places and some dude calls wanting an easy way for his thirteen-year-old kid to record his Green Day-inspired garage band, what would you do? Would you tell him to buy an EH pre and find a 388 somewhere and start in on a long-winded explanation of balanced vs. unbalanced, not to mention guitar level vs. line level, or would you advise him to buy a $400 Boss 8-track with CD burner, hi-z input, passable effects, built-in HD, etc. etc. etc.

Or I am totally missing your point. Could be.

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Post by thethingwiththestuff » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:53 pm

i think you're missing the point. he's coming from more of a circuit bent/fucked up sound generator angle, it seems. i'm totally with him. think "arion pedal line."

if you're going to manufacture cheap gear, make things that dont mind being cheap. how much can it cost to make a box that goes, "lsdkfjghhhhhhhhhhhbbbbbtttttt" with no consideration of bandwith, linearity, how well it tracks your guitar playing....blah blah?

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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:14 pm

Okay. That makes sense. The closest I ever get to that type of thing is via VST. I know, plugins aren't the same, but there are a lot of demented plugs out there and many of them are still free. Hardware would be way cooler than lousy plugins. So it goes.

earl parameter
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Post by earl parameter » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:51 pm

it doesn't have to be a completely fucked up. im just saying the level at which it is fucked can unashamedly (is that a real word?) be so, based on the price.


funny, i had the eh pre in my head the whole time i was writing that. i don't own one but i will when i can afford to spend money on another pre. its a good example of doing something very well at the lowest possible cost. no bullshit, it just does its job.

what im envisioning is something that might resemble a one or two rack space quad pre box. where its sectioned off in 4 quarters. but instead of pre amps two sections might be a high/band/low pass res filter with switchable poles, the 3rd could be a combfilter, the fourth a ring modulator. all ins and outs on the front so they can be routed to each other or to completely different instruments. i assume that in order to do this as cheap as possible the companies would go digital so A/D/A's now come into play right. but if you choose the right ones then you can also get a nice usable distortion out of them by having the option to lower the bit rate and/or removing the aliasing filters (which i personally like a lot). thus the decimator/sample rate converter. maybe even have the option on all inputs and outputs. you would then get the filters to react differently at different depths. ( i have reaktor patches setup like this and i can get a ton of different sounds out of them ). also instead of having to have an onboard oscillator which would raise cost you can just have an input for each section to use an outside source to mod the filter, opening up tons of options. if you then make it so ANY line level audio source can be used as a mod source this box will give you so many different tones and/or colors its fucking crazy it hasn't already been made.

so anyway, there can be different versions of boxes with different filter types. yes they could come up with cheap modeled versions of filters from past synths like moogs, arp, korg. but we're on the cheap so ANYTHING that will alter a sound is good. something new is always welcome, but it would be nice to figure out a way to have 4 sections of emu's z-plane filters in a rack with external mod sources. there are so many different things they could throw in there that they could have a huge series of products based around this idea.


the marketing is the easy part, those bastards can sell anything

in a world filled with companies trying to model the past i think its about time to push foward. i want new types of distortion and filtering. can't people understand that. and i don't want it to cost $1000 or whatever


````

" "one box that does it all", like the mbox, or the Roland DAWs, or the Fender amps with crummy digital emulators in them, or the POD, or the bloated 5th-generation Groovebox sequencer/sound module/CD burner, or the Focusrite preamp emulator, etc. etc. etc. "

i refuse to pay money for any of this shit by the way.

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The Real MC
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Post by The Real MC » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:59 pm

Behringer was caught by the FCC for cutting corners:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/a ... 3862A1.pdf

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Catch 22

Post by DJ Coin Op » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:33 am

People with good taste and no dough shop in thrift stores, hunt for bargains in weird places, and or build stuff themselves. I would never expect Behringer or any other similar mass-market manufacturer to build cool, single-purpose, interesting, artful products. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the market they're selling to. They sell to nerds who shop in Guitar Center or Sweetwater or similar such acropolis. The fact is when you have specialized taste (as in the circuit bending crowd), you pay for it or you figure out how to get into the nuts and bolts yourself. Expecting Alesis or Behringer or any of these types of companies to become "cool" is a waste of a wish. This thread is asanine. Move on.

djco

thethingwiththestuff
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Post by thethingwiththestuff » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:42 am

oh, welcome, dick!

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