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I was asking for a friend!
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You don’t have any friends
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So just for everyone’s peace of mind that I am not suicidal, this is the very casual process that led me to initiate the topic:
I have been having a blast with the M:C (and occasionally the MC-101) this summer. I was on my eighth song, very happy with exploring this unique sounding machine, but I had to resort to p-locks and place both bass drum and snare on the same track. Which was ok, but I thought, damn I could use more tracks here. Admittedly, I am a bit of a compulsive arranger, what can we do. I looked around and I saw the 4-track MC-101, then the Seqtrak, and then I turned to the other side with my Proteus 2000, Fantom X6, QY-70… which are really old. It ocurred to me “well the newer ones are not that much better”, then I was casually browsing another forum where people were discussing polyphony, and manufacturing defects with frustration (some even buying two identical devices), and I thought, well how is this happening. And I thought I’ll post it in this nice (!) forum to try to understand and have a normal, healthy discussion with peers. I love gear, old and new, but not many friends share my passion for music so not much opportunity to discuss face to face with other gearheads.
The result can be seen above, which I didn’t expect at all. A very educational experience. Thanks to the few posters who respectfully replied with their thoughts about my original, otherwise completely unimportant, question.
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To summarize the answer on your initial question “is it my impression?”
No. Some have similar impressions and some don’t. Both with legit points of view. Let’s call it a tie.
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To add on to this a bit, if you somehow have the money as a smaller company to make something actually properly high-spec, you still have to sell that to somebody if you are planning on staying in business. That isn’t particularly easy considering how differently the market segments for music tech work.
Selling to professionals is quite different than selling to hobbyists.
Hobbyists are less likely to spend several thousand euros on your super high-spec DAW-in-a-box, even if they think their home computer is literally satan and touching it after 16:00 condemns their soul to actually finishing tracks.
Professionnals are most likely not going to rush to buy one either, since it’s never going to outperform their DAW anyway and is bound to have more issues all around.
Your solution is to then spec lower and to focus on something simpler, which you can actually produce without running out of money before you even have a prototype.
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Internet mate.
Not possible.
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Telling people their current discussion is a waste of time is probably the modern version of yelling at clouds.
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“Ummm teacher. I have a question. I don’t understand and can you cite some examples of the properties for me?”
“Just read it again”
I hope you’re not working in education.
“Well, if a device is physically confined, and anything that functionally happens there is digitally produced or simulated…can you please explain what is different? for example, a digital synth has sound produced and simulated and is confined to the device it is created on. A sampler is a digital device and once sound is inserted into it, and by modern standards is done by a data transfer, it can only be produced and further manipulated by digital means. I took apart my MPC Live 2 and only found and SOC. So please correct me if I am wrong, but the only differences I see here are some dedicated controls for a dedicated workflow. Are these the properties you are talking about, because i dont understand the properties you are saying exist…"
I can’t even spell edubacaztion!
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I don’t have the energy to make it through the last 100 posts but I think that manufacturers already tried to go super techy and people rejected it because the technology wasn’t ready, so people started buying vintage synths and companies are there to make money, even synth companies.
Now we got cheap analog and it’s boutique makers exploring the more cutting-edge hardware tech, but it’s buggy as shit because they do their own dev work so at this point it all seems farfetched or like a laptop is the only option.
When (and if) the “next” Anders and Hansson come along I bet they’ll hit the scene hard and find a way to bridge the gap.
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What i meant is that laptop is device with certain properties, physical and functional. ( like any other thing or device ), and it cant be substitute for something that has different physical and functional properties, even if sometimes this properties can overlap like in your example with MPC. And since we talk about music gear, in my mind there is a big repertoire of musical devices that i can think of and i was compering all of them to laptop, from guitar to synth to mixing desk. hope that answers your question.
No, i don’t work in educational system, i couldn’t wait to get out of it when i was growing up.
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I think this is the future of samplers. Instead of simply filling up memory with samples, there will be full-fledged resynthesis. Which will save space and create potential for creating new sound forms.
the author of the plugin himself hopes to someday implement this technology as a full-fledged tool
I think if Elektron implemented such resynth technology in Model Samples series with the ability to morph between several instruments, it would be mind-blowing
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it does. thank you.
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Again, this isn’t an attack on your person!
The very broad and unspecific complaints touch aspects that we, tool owners and users understand.
The healthy aspects are the rejection of projecting our frustrations out onto society.
Which is not to say there aren’t problems with society or any comfort with capitalism, but they are ancillary to why and how we can make music beyond the amount of time and headspace we can devote to art.
Specific complaints about a tool one is already using generally go in the context of discussion for the tool.
Untargeted complaints are very commonly tossed out on the internet, so we get them. But why fixate on blaming the tools? Life’s way too short.
I have to say that reading this thread makes me feel insane.
OP @juliusmonk asked a reasonable question, and even demonstrated some humility by admitting that they may be wrong, and that this might just be their impression. since then, several people have straight up attacked them, accused them of not being able to make music, tried to shut down the discussion (which has actually been a pretty interesting discussion) by suggesting that there are too many of these threads (maybe those people should simply spend less time on forums and let people have the discussions they want to have), projected a whole bunch of their own ideas about what they thought OP said (that they never actually said), and honestly have just kind of been assholes. I feel like I have less in common with some of you after reading this
@juliusmonk, stick around Elektronauts and don’t let the pushback you got here discourage you from enjoying some of the better threads.
@fin25 i actually totally agree with your sentiment that the tech we have nowadays would make most peoples’ brains explode 20 years ago. but i think OP asked a reasonable question (why doesn’t modern music tech simply have more polyphony, more memory etc). Sure a laptop is the answer for a lot of people but some are still wondering why hardware has had certain specs reduced over the years. My answer to that would be that the EP-133 has a tiny amount of memory to encourage users to be more economical with their samples, to coax them with creative limitations, etc. But why don’t elektron boxes all have 8 bar patterns by now, for instance? Is the answer the same, creative limitation? I personally view the elektron boxes as meant to be more powerful than limiting, and it’s aggravating to have to create pattern chains or use trig conditions when i could simply have 8 bars. There might be a good answer, but i don’t see why we need to shut down the question. Thankfully digitakt 2 finally addressed this.
If the bad discussion or bad content is drowning out the good content on this forum, then sure, i can understand why we’d want to shut some of those threads down. but most folks dont spend all day on elektronauts, and if a lot of people want to have this type of discussion, then just ignore the thread, or at least don’t come in accusing people of whining and trying to shut it down.
@thermionic i think youre doing a bit much unsolicited therapy on OP
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The initial complaint and followups have been about one’s relationship with gear.
Not about development or technology or bugs, or even about capitalism.
Hence why the best response is “look within”.
That angle may make you uncomfortable or “feel crazy”, but this is about self-awareness, not the phantoms outside ourselves that for whatever reason may prevent us from making art as we see it in our heads.
All this is again, from having a million GAS-related threads, this is not materially different.
And it is not a value judgment! These are issues I think about in my own life, and my relationship with all of my creative tools.
Separate industry, same issues- I could rant and ramble about consolidation in the camera industry and find another gear treadmill to climb, instead I can use the imperfect shit I have in the most streamlined manner I can.
whats your daily therapy rate?
my wife is a therapist and im sure you will work cheaper than her…
…and i need help 
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I’m not trying to shut anything down, just voicing my opinion, with a bit of sarky humour in there. I don’t have the power to shut anything down.
My issue wasn’t really with the original question, but the mad shit people were saying after that.
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