Elektronauts
Llllines
Muff/modwiggler
Mutable Instruments forum
Electronauts is where I feel most at home and actually post off-topic stuff in other areas of the forum - it feels more like a friendly pub where people can talk about music, gear, not take themselves too seriously and have some fun - more like being in a friendly pub with friends.
Modwiggler used to be great generally. Now, the DIY forums are like it used to be - really knowledgeable friendly people and great fun - the rest of the site is quite large and anonymous but sticking to a small area is absolutely great.
Mutable Instruments forum - great for MI stuff and DIY. Very very friendly
Lllines - DIY section is great and coding is great. Many people really try to be friendly and welcoming. But often I feel like a naughty school boy in the corner who is missing something and not understanding what the grownups are talking about. I think if it fits your total world view itās a great place.
Modwiggler is great, but Elektronauts is the best one, as evidenced by their handling of sensitive topics like Behringer (they moderate those threads to kick out the rabid haters) and communism (when a situation could potentially be solved by it, and i suggest it is the solution, i am never censored). Gearspace, besides having lots of knowledgeable and kind posters, is full of all kinds of show off know it alls, who will be as rude to you as possible to make themselves feel good. And there is no common sense when it comes to politics, i.e. someone wants to talk āconsumer choice politicsā or āconsumer ethicsā and you suggest there is no such thing under capitalism, you are just kicked off a thread, even though the economic backdrop is at the heart of the conversation
Iāve worked as a professional comment moderator for big news sites. I think the team here does well. Thereās civility here in how people write, but not the uncanny hive mind that can result either from over-moderation or from allowing outsiders to be bullied out of the conversation.
For those wondering why you got flagged, I think the first question to ask is: is what I wrote of any interest to other people, or am I in a tedious back-and-forth with another poster that no one in their right mind would care about?
it doesnāt - not as far as removed posts are concerned, but when it is being abused, the abuser is dealt with and the flag can be rejected
this happens quite rarely - so youāre mistaken there
This whole discussion has ironically gained way more flags for being so far off-topic - itās frankly tedious
This whole cynical/conspiracy angle should never have been brought up ā¦ it just derailed a discussion
Those belittling flags/flaggers are missing the point - itās helpful and the moderators appreciate it ā¦ people take ownership instead of getting sucked into the dumpster-fire debates
If the topic has any credence, then it at least points positively to the perception that itās a constructive place ā¦ thatās not by accident, it takes effort and community support
You canāt please everyone, but thatās a smallish price if the general consensus is that itās a good place to be online
I would politely submit that figuring out what is right and what is wrong is not easy, but rather a lifetimeās work of introspection, conversation and course-correction, particularly if you seek to develop your own conscience rather than apeing social cues. There are university ethics departments and all that, so itās not just me who thinks it is far from obvious.
I havenāt looked into monome recently, but I remember spending way too much time answering the question: āwhat even is this thing?ā I found it off-putting.
Iām probably not the target market, though, i.e., Iām not a software developer.
It sounds like their Norns product may be a bit more approachable?
The monome stuff is pretty cool - personally I couldnt afford any of it (itās probably worth it but too expensive for me) - but their stuff is open source so Iāve built most of their stuff (three norns, two grids and an arc - Norns+Grids is awesome !
My browser always has 4-5 open tabs; the Finnish news page, Pitchfork for music news & reviews, Discogs for work related stuff, Facebook for promoting my business and Elektronauts for hanging out with my kind of people.
Itās hard to explain but I feel like this place is my home on the internet. I update my social media maybe 2-3 times a month and Iām very tired of reading my fb-feed but on Elektronauts I post something almost every day and I kind of feel like I know some of you people better than I know most of the people on my facebook friend list.
Ever since quitting the nightlife in 2017 and then this pandemic since early 2020, I rarely see any of my friends anymore. All of my friends have kids, I donāt. So the families with kids meet each other quite a lot but we who donāt have kids are left by ourselves. I feel Iāve kinda estranged myself from my friends. Elektronauts is the place I feel most at home when Iām spending time on my browser.
We had a group of maybe 4-6 people who went for a beer once a month to talk about synths and music making. That was a great tradition. Soon we started a facebook group for our little group and from 4 friends it grew into around 3000 users. It is called Turun Syntetisattoriseura and we arranged synth meetings, gigs and all kinds of happenings. All the finnish producers were members from Darude to Jori Hulkkonen. It was the best (the only good) thing on Facebook.
But with 3000 people it started to get a little nasty. Many of the newer members were acting up and behaving badly. After one such encounter I left the group and never looked back. I had joined Elektronauts earlier and felt that this forum filled that hole in my heart. At best Elektronauts feels like the early times with 4-6 people drinking beer and discussing synthesizers. Thanks dudes and dudettes for making this the best synth forum for me.
It doesnāt take one flag to hide, it takes multiple.
This is by design to prevent abuse of the system, and the design works.
And these flagged:hidden posts that you do see are often off topic stuff that is derailing the thread. Reads as āinnocuousā but is flagged for reasons us mods agree with. Occasionally some things fall through the cracks, but 95%+ of flagged posts are dealt with in a manner that prevents most people from even knowing they exist. And the overwhelming majority of flags made are helpful.
And we do reject a fair amount of flags. In other words, there are a lot of flags. So many that a ton are helpful, but also so many that more than just a few are rejected (these arenāt āattackā flags, just things where we have to decide where to draw the line, and so we will choose to be a little less restrictive when the lines are flirted with, often we resolve things through PMs)
If seeing hidden/flagged posts annoys you, then Iām sorry but the alternative is a garbage forum that no one wants to use. It isnāt perfect here but it works.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
The highlight of Norns, imo, is softcut, a looping/sampling software which features 6 mono loopers.
Lots of Norns apps are built on the softcut architecture - cheat codes is popular, Otis is popular, but tons of good ones, MLR is a classic
But thereās a lot of pure data synths built in - a Yamaha fm keyboard emulator, a drone synth, etc
Also, thereās sequencers you can use to control external synths.
Thereās a built in tape function to record everything on it to a microsd, both the internal machines and external input, concurrently. This makes it a daw+computer substitute for recording if you want it to.
Building a Norns shield would only cost a couple hundred, and with a kit it would be a few hundred.
Itās very open but thereās a lot to dig into for someone not into coding.
I donāt use one at the moment but it is truly an impressive platform with lots of utility, and an engaged community. Thereās a lot of overlap with octatrack in terms of what you might want to do, but very different implementation.
I used to read a lot of Gearslā¦ Space for a decade, since my GAS infection started, but currently not anymore. There are still a lot of good threads about the older gear.
Spent (i.e. wasted) a good several years on GS. As far as Iām concerned itās a toxic dumpster fire and the internet would be slightly improved if we could vote it off the island.
Donāt really bother with any other forums except this one these days. Havenāt owned any elektron products for a coupla years now and tend to hide other gear threads as they come up. But itās nice to chill out and have a bit of a chat or at least try to interact with other internet strangers. Donāt care for when real life starts leaking and things get political but itās easy enough to hide the thread and move on.
Canāt say i know much about the forum but ive seen it referenced as the go to for roland stuff.
This place is the best. I donāt own (or really like) any Elektron gear, but I joined here because the community is good (unlike Gearspace or KVR) and it isnāt noob central (like Reddit).
seems like being nice, saying āpleaseā and āthank youā and respecting the humanity of your fellow forum-goers does not require an advanced degree or even a passing interest in philosophy. At the very least, I hope people can ape social cues.
I only go through here for info on Elektron gear. I get my culture/music intersectionalism from CDM, which is not a forum, and the comments sometimes are filled with retrograde types with sharp elbows and poor manners. There might be a few here, but i find this place to be similar to Lines when it comes to discussing gear.
