So not too long ago I picked up a Korg Monologue from eBay with a peculiar problem: it was haunted. The controls would just jump around all on their own, and wouldn't respond to your inputs. Luckily I'm well versed on electronic exorcisms and so I was able to sanctify the synth and rid it of the troublesome spirits.
I'm getting a little better at playing them too, but I've still got a fair way to go on that front.
So when we last left off with my new-to-me drum pad, it was just sitting on the floor.
For the sake of ergonomics, I feel like I should really get this up off the floor somewhat.
Hmm, yes, that's a start but I think we could maybe go a bit higher.
Ok now we're getting a bit better.
Anyway one of the nice things about this sample pad is that it supports external triggers, and that's quite convenient because having only 9 pads can be a touch limiting. Let's start off by adding a bass drum trigger.
Which also will necessitate a kick drum pedal, assuming I don't want to just kick the pad with my toes, which I most certainly do not.
Fun fact: most bass drum pedals are designed with a clamp at the front to grab onto the rim of the bass drum, to keep the two from walking apart from each other during a performance.
This also works quite well with bass drum trigger pads too.
Ensuring that the two units are united as one.
And speaking of staying put, they also come with some pretty nasty spikes at the bottom to help secure them in place.
Which might make it a bit more clear as to why I started with a floor mat.
So let's get that added to the setup.
Now looking at this, it occurs to me that I have two feet, and it is traditional to use one of them for the bass drum and the other for the high hats, so...
Yes, this high hat control pedal should do nicely.
It really balances things out. And speaking of balance, it's getting kind of hard to hover in midair while my feet work both the pedals, so I should maybe think of getting myself a throne upon which to perch my buttocks.
Hmm, yes, one like that. You know, this is almost looking like a complete drum set-up, but I can't help but feel like there's a crucial part missing, one last component to add that finishing touch and make it a real drum set.
There we go, now we're ready to play!
A while ago now I had noticed that there was a root or two growing up into the weep holes of my retaining wall.
These roots belong to the plum tree in my back yard, which seems to be very rootful indeed.
Unfortunately these roots aren't going to be doing good things to the cinder blocks that they've wedged themselves between, so we'll have to deal with them. And I happen to know just the tool for the job.
Now unfortunately the roots don't have any nails embedded in them, so I'm not sure if these blades will work. I'll give it a try, though, and if all else fails I can go grab my brad nailer to shoot a few in.
Well that's a relief, it seems to have worked ok without the nails. Saves me some time.
I just cut out a short knob of wood from each root, and the remainder in the wall should die off and rot on its own.
Of course, I should probably check the rest of the weep holes along the wall here to see if...
Ah yes, of course.
Of course there's more.
Well, it's a good thing I've got plenty of charge left in the battery of this oscillating tool.
I just wanna bang on the drum all day.
So when I picked up my SP404, as seen in the previous blog entry, one of the first things I discovered was that despite all the hours I spent playing the drums on Rock Band back when I worked at Palm in '08-'09, my sense of rhythm was just a wee bit rusty. Perhaps very rusty. And there's really nothing quite like playing back a recording of yourself to really make that painfully obvious.
Now I didn't much fancy the idea of buying a set of plastic toy drums in order to fire up Clone Hero, and instead decided to buy a set of plastic drums... possibly to play Clone Hero, we'll see. But mostly to have a rhythm instrument that I could noodle on to build up my rhythm again.
I'd actually been mulling over the idea of getting a full electronic drum set since before I dove into the world of synths, but due to the fact that even electronic drums take up an awful lot of space and cost an awful lot of money, I never actually went through with that plan.
But as it would happen, multi-pads, such as the above pictured Roland SPD-SX Pro, exist. They don't give quite the same experience as an actual full on drum kit, obviously, but they trade that off for being much more compact and easy to live with.
What's interesting though is that it's only really been over the past few years that they've started to actually not completely suck ass. Previous versions of this product, as well as Alesis's similar multi-pad, have suffered from glacially slow load times when switching between kits, peculiar amounts of latency, kind of shitty samples, and just general jank. Thanks to this somewhat inauspicious start, they haven't really caught on much yet, and while the electronic drum sets have also previously suffered from the same issues with their sound modules, the more familiar formfactor has lead to them having a quicker uptake since that was resolved.
So after having noodled around on this for a little bit, I can say I'm really quite pleased with it. The sounds are good, the loading is quick, the responsiveness of the pads is really nice, and the compatibility with accessories is... well, that's something for a future blog post, isn't it?
In the meantime, I've got a lot of practice to do.
Maybe he never said it, but he thought it.
So throughout my synth journey it has become somewhat apparent to me that cloning technology has not advanced to the point where I can summon duplicates of myself, and as such I am only able to play one instrument at a time. MIDI sequencing can, to some extent, bypass this unfortunate limitation, but it can only go so far before it too reveals its weaknesses.
But while I may not be able to clone myself in space, science has developed a way to instead clone myself in time.
This slab of metal, plastic and silicon right here is the Roland SP-404 MKII, a sampler. It digitally records audio and plays it back, but does so in a workflow that lends itself quite well to music creation.
I can, for example, record a piano clip, then chop it up, reorder it, run it through various audio effects, and then play it back while I record perhaps a bass line, some guitar, a synth part, or even some drums. And I can keep chopping and layering and sequencing to my heart's content, without ever finding myself descending into such levels of desperation that might otherwise lead me to seek out other human beings to play music together with. Can you even imagine? Gross.
Anyway, no dramatic repair story this time; I did find a different unit for sale that had a broken USB port, but when I asked the seller to take a photo of the PCB where it broke off they just ghosted me, and I didn't want to take a chance that the pads and traces had been ripped off the board when the connector left the chat. This one I did end up purchasing was a good enough deal that I didn't feel bad about missing out on a deeper discount.
