These past few days I’ve been writing about my recent journey into hardware-based music production and sound design. It’s been about three years since I bought an MPC One, which opened the doors to a world of possibilities for me, as I stopped viewing music production as simply a means to an end, namely making beats for me to eventually rap on, and started viewing it as art, and as something I’m interested to pursue and continue to practice and perfect for the rest of my life. As I mentioned, I started with the MPC One, which is a full-on music production center. It’s a groovebox as well as drum machine, and it has multiple synth engines within it. It combines a hands-on workflow with a really useful touch-screen. The MPC got me hooked on hands-on music production, and my next purchase was an Elektron Digitakt, which felt even more like an instrument, and converted me into a huge fan of the Elektron workflow. This is why it didn’t take me too long to dive into learning basic FM synthesis and grabbing a used Elektron Digitone, along with the powerful multi-engine synth, the Arturia MicroFreak. I admit I also picked up a Behringer TD-3, although I didn’t know much about it, simply because of its inexpensive price and the bright yellow color and smiley face on it. I definitely didn’t mind another synthesizer, as I was just getting into this whole thing and I was super excited to get any new gear. As I mention the TD-3, which is a clone of Roland’s classic bass synth, the TB-303, I want to get into the topic of Behringer as a brand. In the synth and electronic music production world it’s cool to hate on Behringer because they make clones of vintage synthesizers, which many people consider to be an unethical business practice. To be very honest, the way I see it, all consumption under capitalism is unethical. I think there’s truly something very wrong with the way we all live our lives and go about our days consuming all kinds of products and services which are often built upon literal slavery or child labor and things of that nature. Let’s not fool ourselves. Capitalism is about competition, and it’s the reason why we have to spend most of our lives sitting at a desk or cubicle doing shit we hate and have no real interest in. Why would I single out Behringer as a brand to boycott when they provide affordable music production gear for people who are on a budget? Yesterday I mentioned that my journey into hardware-based music production has ultimately led me towards exploring modular synthesis. Well, apart from VCV Rack, which is a free software I’d recommend to anyone who’s interested in exploring modular, my introduction to real hands-on modular synthesis was actually not a Eurorack case or any module, but actually a semi-modular synthesizer, the Behringer 2600. The 2600 is a clone of ARP Instrument’s classic synthesizer, the ARP 2600. As someone who hates the fact that we have to spend so much time of our lives at work, and who has a family and bills and expenses, I don’t see why I would spend $3000 on a synthesizer, when I can grab a Behringer clone which has the same, if not a bit more, functionality, for about $600. It doesn’t make sense to me to spend extra money on something which works exactly the same. Anyway, the 2600 is a semi-modular synthesizer, meaning it has pre-wired connections like any regular synth, but each connection can be overridden with patch cables, so each section of the synthesizer basically functions as a Eurorack module. Working on the 2600 has been so much fun these last couple months that I got a Eurorack case and started buying modules to complement the 2600, making all kinds of crazy connections between the synth and the different modules I’ve been adding into my case. I’ll get into more detail about this workflow in tomorrow’s post.
I appreciate you reading.
rebel eye 