just for clarification.. blofeld works great without a computer, except for loading samples... just hook up any midi keyboard

as a beginner, i suggest you prioritize knobs and controls over the sound nuances between analog and digital. that being said, kore ms2000. if you can get a decent priced juno 106 that's a great synthesizer as well. I always wanted to dislike it when I owned it due to it's simplicity, but then I'd g...

I would second the "avoid m-audio". Maybe the akai MPK line? You get drum pads and the knobs/faders (judging by my MPD32 anyways) are pretty good.

I had this experience in Moog Audio in Montreal. A whole store of synthesizers and the one that screamed (somewhat literally) "I'm Awesome! Buy Me!" was the virus TI keyboard. (funnily, and I know it's due to the depth of the machine, but I couldn't get the octatrack to even make a peep!) I'd be int...

I just did a lot of research on this because I wanted a laptop that could run softsynths live with very low latency. According to the experts, the laptop-for-audio killer in PC world with Windows 7 are Deferred Procedure Calls (or DPCs). These are interrupt requests, often stemming from poorly writ...

I'm not going to post a step-by-step guide but the basic idea is: - configure your Ion under it's MIDI settings to listen to an external clock - go into Ableton's preferences, MIDI settings, and in the bottom of the config page find the listing for your USB->MIDI device's OUT device, and enable "Syn...

LOL to the above.

My :-O contribution for the day. I wonder if the floppies come with the velvet background for that price?

I was thinking definitely a virus would fit. A much cheaper option with a ton of power is the blofeld, don't discount it. It's pretty amazing as long as you get one with working encoders. For $2500 you could get a blofeld and have enough for a mono synth like a moog little phatty, mopho keys, or a v...

Sound on Sound had a huge article about this a few months back!

with that in mind my workhorse just might be my ipod touch running nanostudio. I write a lot on there. I should get a MIDI keyboard for it so I can enter real riffs, but it works great for writing beats

I understand the desire to be able to recreate and understand the sounds from a synthesist perspective. Completely makes sense. From a songwriting perspective, I used to hate this ease of losing cool sounds because of the lack of instant recallability, but then I found myself stuck in a loop where I...

The tool I use for removing IC's is this:



With a bit of solder on your iron's tip, you apply heat to the IC pin by pin and use this vacuum pump to suck the solder out of the hole.

ableton live.

rhino wrote:Since the tone continues after shutdown, chances are the CPU is still running.

Just because the CPU is still running doesn't mean power is still applied properly from the powersupply or from the wall wart. Capacitors will keep power supplied for up to a few seconds.

Is there a wall wart power supply for this thing? Don't rule out that it has gone bad. Also, if you pull the power while the unit is on, does it fail in the same manner? Good for you trying to fix it yourself. regardless of the outcome you'll learn a lot (even if it is "I shouldn't try to fix synths...