What gear changed your production style or sound?

[Griffin Avid]

What 1 piece of gear changed your production style or sound?

I would say ASR-10. I Used to sample with an really old AKAI joint. I was just happy to get a loop going and I remember flipping samples manually by triggering the start button really fast. Having 8 INST tracks felt like overkill at first. It was also cool to just sample something and keep working it until something good came out of it. I remeber thinking 'man, I can sample anything and make a beat- I'm the greatest!'

Next I would say a Triton. I used to struggle with getting a sustained instrument to work with a sample. The pitch or length was always an issue and a seampless loop seeemed impossible. It was the greatest thing to find an open string passage in a record. That meant I got strings now in my beats!
After ROMplers got better, I had a choice of 15 strings, guitars and pianos...heaven.

Still to this day I cannot get myself to use any workstation drum sounds though.
There must be some unwritten rule I've made for myself that keeps me from using them.

If someone said ayo here's some sampled drums from the Motif, I'd probably download them even though there's a Motif sitting next to me. Weird.

 

[LDB]

I wouldn't say that there's any piece of gear that "changed it" but there are a few pieces that help to bring it out or develop it.

MPC2000 back in the day AND NOW ABLETON LIVE 7

 

[Krazyfingaz]

i never used gear (I COULDNT AFFORD IT) but i did start out on the mtv music generator and after I got put on to fl studio and reasons the 2 helped alot.

 

[elementsrtyte]

finally dropping cash on beatmaking and buying my first midi contorller axiom25. this led to the conversion over to reason from typing in qwerty keyboard beats in fl lol. every since then beatmaking is limitless, and i felt like i was obliged to make that money back so i've been making beats erday every since. every since, i bought that keyboard, i felt like it was aight to spend money on beatmaking!

 

[shadeed]

Soundforge and Vegas- I use these two applications for almost everything I'm into including my earlier days of Podcasting, to do lists (lol), you name it... -Although Cool Edit allows you to multi-track (in comparison to Soundforge), I'm so used to Soundforge and its ease of use that I just edit there and export to Vegas.

Vegas introduced me to the world of video. Although I'm proficient with various video editing suites, I actually got certified years ago using Vegas so now I'm attempting to master the program and push it to its limits and my own.

I'm an "early adoptor" of High Definition video output and I already have at least 100 hours of footage shot in HD. I'm really pleased with Vegas 8.0 and how it handles the workload that I place upon it.

 

[skidflow]

finally dropping cash on beatmaking and buying my first midi contorller

Me to...I used to have to draw notes on the piano roll for melodies and stuff. Getting that E-mu Xboard made things a little more productive.

 

[Dugsy]

I would have to say Protools....before i was just making beats ...now i am recording and mixing before i had to be going to other studios to record vocals now i have everything under one roof

 

[GRAFIK]

I was using Fruity Loops when I first started producing. Now I got an MV-8000 and it has totally changed my style of producing. I was more comfortable with Software but wanted a change. I am still learning to work with hardware and have a long way to go, but will eventually get there. So I would have to say MV-8000 has changed my production style...

 

[Relic]

No gear per-se, but this site has absolutely revolutionized my sound and understanding of almost everything, especially this music and all its aspects. Thats the one thing I would credit.

 

[thedon98]

fruity loops when i learned how to use it and the korg pad kontrol i felt so much more natural actually playing the drums with the korg.

 

[slik da relic]

damn...i didnt wanna do this, cuz my shit's kinda long... but...

1977-78: my music teacher told me i couldnt play the saxophone bcuz my braces might interfere with the mouthpiece... he then put me on the xylophone... didnt realize it then, but it has the same key configuration and note placement as a piano... that changed my life.

1981: my partner and long time friend, Count Da Relic, bought the Roland Juno 6 for the group... it was the 1st time i started fiddlin with LFOs, VCOs, sliders, knobs, etc... a nice synth for back then.

1985ish: i finally scraped up some cash and bought the Casio CZ101... this machine furthered my development into "tweaking" sounds with its envelope sections which was hard to understand, but when thats ur only keyboard, u learned alot thru trial and error... i remember bein in a talent show and i played the whistle melody from Rakim's "Check out my melody"... the crowd was goin fukkin CRAZY!!! unfortunately, we lost that contest, but that was a great feelin.

1987: my man Count brought home a Roland MKS100... an 8 second sampler, that was kinda nice for its time... i didnt really experience samplin until then... i watched him loop records and tapes and i was at his crib everyday, bringin tapes over just goin thru each one... this was the beginning of the end for me learnin the piano... the CZ began to catch dust for awhile bcuz i looped everything i could find.

1993: with all the bs goin on with the Beastie Boys, and Biz Markie in court over samplin, i decided to buy a Yamaha SY35 digital synth... i was like an improved CZ101 to me and it had this "vector" stick where u can change the sound with the sweep of the stik and save it... i worked with it for awhile, but the samplin kept callin me.

1994: my man Count had bought the Roland DJ70 (a samplin keyboard, similar to the ASR10)yrs earlier and was KILLIN samples with it... i finally got my own pieces by then, but i needed a sampler... i borrowed the MKS but by that time i need more samplin time... thats when i bought a used Akai S950... OMG, 2 min sample time out tha box... all i had to do was hook up the SY35 thru midi and get busy.

1998-99: once again, Count brings home a these crazy machines, the Roland MC505, and the Yamaha RM1X... i liked them both, and i wanted to get something like them, but not the same exact... i wanted the ASRX but it cost to damn much... just bein able to basically complete a whole song on it was amazin to me.

2002: well... here we are... the motherfukkin RS7000... i got fed up with all the machines out there, but i was at this kid's crib and he was on the MPC2000 KILLIN tha game... i decided to go to Sam Ash and conform to what everyone was usin, but when i got there, they had the RS and the MPC rite next to each other, the RS costin only $100 more... with built in sounds and no floppies to use, i took it home and just fell in love! my experience with all the machines mentioned above is why i use it... i was brought up on LFOs, VCOs etc, so its ez for me to navigate thru what others see as a chore... i bought the Nord Lead2 virtual analog synth, the Korg ER1 drum machine and the Alesis Fusion yrs later for tha same reason... also, sample clearance is a major issue to me.

da relic

 

[ch3ck-ch3ck]

FL Studio. at first i used online programs and whatever sounds came with them

 

[Greg Savage]

Reason

When i touched reason my whole world opened up workflow was just crazy not to mention i was able to do more projects in a small timeframe.

Love my 3000 to death but reason is what did it for me

 

[Relic]

damn...i didnt wanna do this, cuz my shit's kinda long... but...

2002: well... here we are... the motherfukkin RS7000... i got fed up with all the machines out there, but i was at this kid's crib and he was on the MPC2000 KILLIN tha game... i decided to go to Sam Ash and conform to what everyone was usin, but when i got there, they had the RS and the MPC rite next to each other, the RS costin only $100 more... with built in sounds and no floppies to use, i took it home and just fell in love! my experience with all the machines mentioned above is why i use it... i was brought up on LFOs, VCOs etc, so its ez for me to navigate thru what others see as a chore... i bought the Korg ER1 drum machine and the Alesis Fusion yrs later for tha same reason... also, sample clearance is a major issue to me.

da relic

you bring up an interesting point, one of those crossroads moments. I was there in 94 lookin at a mpc2000xl or a sp1200, messed around and got the sp but I shoulda gone for the future and got the mp. Then in 05 I had seen the 2500 in the store and picked it up cause THIS time I needed to be with the future..Then everyone went software!! LOL
I think the Korg S-3 changed everything for me, like the gear that you get alot, you could freak the sounds and the fx so it gave me a better appreciation and understanding of wav forms and fx.
Nowadays I really dont wanna spend all the time "making" asound, instead I wanna go already, so the 2500 is where I am most comfortable at the moment.

 

[ForestGlenn]

shyt, my electronic drum set, i still chopp records up, but now along wit my guitars, bass and Edirol Orchestra vst i can create my own samples/songs and chop them up

 

[Rackoon]

I have to say FL studio too....

That software just opened up my interest in production...I didn't even know how to use the FX section properly....but it didnt matter really, the sequencer was easy to use and it was actually fun to program a loop....

Is it just me or the "midi timing" feels more solid on FL than any other DAW....

I wish Steinberg/Cubase would take notes...

 

[izodone]

Mpc 2500 first mp I ever owned and ever since then the amount of beats I make has probably tripled.it has such an ease of use and the workflow is just unmatched.

 

[mono]

i second that. not the 2500, but use of pads in general has increased my output immensely. playing with samples like a drummer, instead of placing them in a sequencer, makes me accomplish things i would not have dreamed of before.
should have gone to pads ages ago. i feel a little like those guys from the movie, where the coke bottle dropped from heaven... realizing i could have been far beyond already

 

[izodone]

Yeah the only way I could explain the mpc after the first couple of days was,"It's just laying there all spread out like do me baby."

 

[slik da relic]

some sort of hardware is here to stay for alot of us... as a matter of fact, alot of users of software, eventually come back to hardware anyway... it works both ways.

da relic