how do you feel about the pitch and mod wheel being band slider thingies? I can’t tell if that’s the kind of thing that would bug me or if I’d really like it.
Am i the exception for using WIn 32 bit?
My studio equipment consists of a Behringer B1 mic, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, AKAI RPM “Monitors”, a pair of smaller old Logitech speakers, a Behringer cardioid mic, portable booth, and a pair of not-professional cans which i use for monitoring myself. Looking forward to buying a keyboard and/or upgrade the preamp.
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If your CPU is 32 bit, then 32 bit windows is really your only choice. If you have a 64 bit CPU, there’s really no good reason to be using 32 bit windows.
@bozmillar, it depends on what you do with it. Here’s the deal. What do you usually use the mod wheel for? On synths it usually triggers an LFO or filter. Those are automatically mapped to knobs. On complex orchestral plugs like Vienna, the mod wheel switches articulations. Those are key mapped to color LED’s on the keybed. On a B3 it flips the rotor. I use the sustain pedal to engage the rotor instead. Short story long, everything I typically use a mod wheel for, I’ve ended up using the dials for.
The pitch wheel is a different story. I don’t like it. I liked Novation and Korgs, where the pitch bend is a joystick that moves left to right. The problem with Novation and Korgs design is that it eventually goes bad. After seven years of heavy use, they start to have all kinds of calibration problems. I use mine for kind of wild and sometimes extreme tremolo bends. Thats really hard to do on this.
What actually got me fascinated with recording music was the album by 1 Giant Leap. Granted, the two guys who travelled the world and record music were not using $59 dollar(!) equipment, but the principle was the same - they turned up to where there were musicians and just recorded them singing or playing. That could be in hotel room, a shack in the middle of nowhere, wherever. If you haven’t, give that album a listen - it’s great.
I like your line of thinking Cpt! Lately I have felt the pull to bring miscellaneous pieces of ‘gear’ all together in one place for more of an ‘official’ studio space - but then something is also pulling me in the other direction; less structured and more flexible, more adaptable to creating “in the moment” with a few patches here and there.
Things such as “Essentialism” and “Minimalism” seem to be calling my name. Hmmm …
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I think if you are just recording in the box or vocals it is doable without having a standard setup. Vocals aren’t too difficult to make a portable setup and as long as you measure out distances you can recreate a semi dry environment each time you unpack. Whereas with other instruments you have ton more measurements to recreate a similar space.
I played one of these today. They certainly went for the heavy keys feel. I guess it feels more real, but I almost think it feels too real for my liking. But then again, the midi controller I use with weighted keys doesn’t feel real at all, I’m just used to the way it feels, so anything that feels real will feel too heavy to me.
The velocity curve is really what makes a heavy keyboard feel more agile. Piano techs measure the weight of the key in grams. The down weight of a Steinway D is about 50g. The down weight of the NI is up there. Its heavier than the Motif and the Roland Phantom for sure. I like the texture of the keys. But I liked the fact that Roland built theirs out of actual wood.
What do you think of the smart controls?
I didn’t really have a chance to try them out very well. All the kontakt developers I saw didn’t have their instruments take advantage of the hardware. I don’t know what it takes from the developers end, but I’m guessing it’s not trivial being that it seems nobody was doing it.
NI’s tech support told me they weren’t even going to make a showing at NAMM. I was pretty surprised, especially given the recent focus on hardware controllers.
The NKS stuff was supposed to be pretty easy. I hope a lot more developers pick it up. There are already a good number of them