Newbie Intro

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mbiafb

Guest
Sup people. I figured I would intrduce myself instead of just posting all over the place. I'm in Seattle now, but I grew up in New Jersey and New York. I used to make beats a while back in the day, but got away from it so I am rusty and playing catchup. My equipment setup is not really designed for hi-hop, but i'm going to work with it. In fact, most of it is old stuff i picked up dirt cheap. Right now i think my stuff is kinda wack, but I'm going to keep working with it until I have mastered what i have at my disposal. This is my current setup:

Alesis QS6.1 - A piss poor choice for a hip hop synth, but a damn good overall synth for the money. At the time i needed the best overall synth in that price range and that was arguably it. The onboard sounds are basically useles for hip-hop. Howver, there is a hip-hop expansion card available. I got it for free. it's ok, but still not the best sounds for hip-hop. ( although, supposedly Swizz beats i think it was used the presets for a song). best feature is you can add up to 16 meg of your own samples. That and the fact that the onboard efcts processor is not bad makes it somewhat usable for hip hop.

Alesis HR16 Drum machine- yes, it's ancient and i keep it around for 1 reason and one reason only. Despite all my compuetr stuff, there is nothing like bangin on a drum machine and i can't afford an MPC right now. I rarely use the onboard sounds, but i use it to trigger samples. it is one of the easiest drum machines to program and it forces me to depend on my programming skills instead of the machine. besides, it was $50

Alesis MMT8 Sequencer- Another ancient item I rarely use. At the same time, it is the easiest sequencer in the world to use. i mostly keep it around because i can transport sequences easily with it. It also is a good just in case when my computer is acting up. Also $50. I actually know of a few hip-hop producers who used these as recently as 5 years ago.

Casio cz3000- $25. this is not one of those casiotones. This was designed to be a low cost competitor to the yamaha DX7 line. hard as hell to program, but it can make sounds no other synth can make because it is the only synth that uses its type of synthesis method. You will never get a realistic sound out of it, but it makes nasty sub-bass and is good for unusual sounds.

Roland JS30 sampler- absolute piece of shit. useless item that is only usefull for triggering loops or one shot crap. no editing ability other than basic envelopes. Only redeming quality about it is that it's small and portable. since there is not much you can do with it, that doesn't amount to much.

various software both legal and illegal. name it, and i probably have it.

Trumpet- i grew up playing trumpet, but hardly touch it now, but i guess since i still have it, i will list it.

Doumbek/ Arabic Tabla- I got into middle eastern drumming long before that beat DJ Quick jacked (which isn't even middle eastern BTW) and fell in love with making beats with Arabic tablas. I'm tweaking the sound a little so it can be usefull in hip hop.

native American Flute- Don't ask lol. I got it as a gift and use it mostly to meditate and chill to. Doubt i will ever use it in a hip-hop track, but you never know.

That's my current setup. not the most impressive collection of equipment, but better than nothing.
 

vitaminman

IllMuzik Staff
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 1
Hey,

Nice to meet you. That's so awesome, you've got some old cheap gear and you're learning it, I'll bet your music will be really good.

The MMT8 is legendary in the techno world, bands like Orbital still use them for live gigs. They're small, easy to use, and reliable.

A friend had a QS6, while the sounds on it were pretty good it lacked a resonant filter and it was very difficult to make it squeal. He returned it and got a Roland XP-30, which he loved.

Another friend has one of the CZ rack mounts, he loves it because it's the only synth that does Phase distortion. I don't know anything about this type of synthesis, it's supposed to be a lot like FM (as you mentioned with the DX-7). I can't believe you got it for $25, that's such an awesome deal.

I remember the JS-30 from many years back, wasn't that supposed to be like a 'groove' sampler thing? It looked like a toy more than a sampler...:D

Nick
 
M

mbiafb

Guest
"toy" is too nice of a word for it. Would you believe Roland tried to charge close to $2000 for that junk when it was new? They tried to market it to Djs. Not one of their better moments. It is decent for someone that has nothjing and wants a quick intro to sampling. it makes a good scratch pad for ideas. Did your friend have a QS6 or 6.1 . there is a big difference. The pianos alone on the 6.1 make it a muich better buy. Also, the ability to add your own samples and use all of the QS editing, synthesis and effects make it more powerful than it seems upon opening the box. It's just not an instant gratification device :D Now that i ave learned how to use it I can keep like a bank of mo phatt soudfonts on the expansion slots that i can edit just like any other sound.
 

vitaminman

IllMuzik Staff
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 1
Hey,

You know what, I don't remember if he had the 6.1 or 6.0 version...I think they were just about to release the 7 or 8 model, so the 6's were being blown out.

I remember one really cool thing about it, you could burn these PCMCIA cards from your computer and use them as your PCM sounds. The advantage of this was that you didn't have to load anything into RAM when you turned it on and you could give the card to other QS users. I think the technology was called Sound Bridge or something like that.

$2000 for the Roland? What a laugh!! I wouldn't pay that even if it came with Salma Hayek...what did you get it for?

It sounds like you've had some pretty good deals on your gear, what's your best conquest?

Nick
 
M

mbiafb

Guest
i paid $200 for that junk and i am ashamed to admit that . That was 6 years ago though and they were still trying to blow them out of stores for $400. At the time the cheapest you could get a sampler for was about $800. i think the best deal was the hr16 and mmt8. bothj can be had for $50 each now but at the time they were each worth over $100. It NEVER hurts to have hardware. The HR16 is nowhere in the class of the Rolands for hip-hop, but, attach it to a distortion pedal and a compressor and you can actually use it for a hip hop track.

Once i learn programming synths though, i think 25 for the casio will top the list.

I only paid $200 for my QS and it came with two Qcards, including the hip-hop one. One of the maind differences between the 6 and 6.1 is the latter can hold two cards instead of one. you can use either their expansion cards or two pcmia cards. I usually keep one of theirs plus a card i have loaded with loops, basses, kicks and snares.
 
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