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Showing posts from December, 2016

Down memory lane: Music Hardware I almost had as a kid

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It's Christmas time and all the gift buying'n'giving (and some other random conversations with like-minded people) reminded me of a bunch of hardware I almost got as a kid but... due to unfortunate (financial) circumstances, it was never meant to happen :P Let me begin then, not with the "I wished I could access them" but the main "I almost got them" as a kid: 1)  Casio Keyboard CZ-101 (1984) Because that was the most affordable (4 voice) polyphonic MIDI enabled synth (I thought) I could get my hands on! Also, besides polyphonic, it was multitimbral! =D ...which, in my mind, would kinda solve the issue of only having 1 synth ;) ...and... that never happened :] 2)  Amstrad Studio 100 (1985) I clearly remember passing by a local shop and seeing a mixer-like panel and instantly stopping to investigate it further. It was a 6 Channel mixer with a built in simple BBD echo and a 4 track tape recorder plus a stereo/2 track ta

Arturia DrumBrute Remote Codec

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Hey :) When connecting an hardware instrument to Reason, where it can work both as a MIDI Controller (sending notes, controls, etc to Reason) and also as a MIDI Instrument (receiving notes, CCs, etc from Reason) it's always good practice to turn off its Local Control. (unless you prefer to set the outgoing vs incoming to different MIDI Channels). Local Control?  What is that ?! Well, usually, MIDI enabled instruments are able to disconnect their physical user-interface (keyboard/pads, knob/fader/buttons controls) from their sound "engine" or section(s). Why is  Local Control needed ? To avoid MIDI feedback loops or double triggering of notes, etc. Imagine the following scenario in Reason (or any other DAW): You have the External MIDI Instrument (EMI) rack device point to Arturia DrumBrute's (in) MIDI port, so you can send MIDI notes from Reason and trigger DrumBrute's pads (sounds). But you also want to receive notes from the D