Zenitram

You, er, you wouldn't fancy making two of those cases, would you?

That's fab. Where does one go about sourcing all the parts for this sort of stuff? And what are you going to do for a case? I'm ever so impressed with the Shruthi, it really can do some wild things. I'd love to get more of them, or the Ambika. I also wish I had the knowledge and skill to do all the soldering and understand what does what, and why, and how, and all that stuff. I suppose it's just knowledge you accumulate over time, once you get started on these things.

What string emulator have you got?

[quote name='paulbuzz' timestamp='1415281510' post='2598713'] In my experience, all of Orchid's products are very good value, and really good.[/quote] I agree. The quality is ace. And they're basically hand made.

Yeah, audio is far more elastic than it used to be, and in many ways is [i]more[/i] malleable than midi. Stretch it, compact it, chop it, tune it, you can do all sorts these days. I'm sure Pro Tools is packed with fun things to do with audio; in fact, isn't audio its strong point? Or is it more about "tracking" and "producing" than composing.

I just discovered the Waldorf[size=5] [b]Streichfett[/b][/size]! Fans of German will know that means [i]spreadable fat[/i], or as one wag put it, it makes you sound like Margarine Dream. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiwo6ljvg9E

I know I sound like a broken record, but Orchid Electronics uses Neutrik and Van Damme, you can choose a straight or angled jack, and cable colour, for really, really good prices (better than anywhere else I've looked).

This is a good deal: http://mutable-instruments.net/forum/discussion/5901/fs-shruthi-smr4-mkii

Yes, it's very intuitive. The LEDs below the knobs let you know where you are. And if you have a midi controller thing, like a Behringer BCR2000 or a Novation Remote SL, you can control the 24 most common parameters by CC, so you have all those controls at your fingertips at the same time. Apparently. I haven't tried it yet, but I read it somewhere.

I'm noodling around on it right now!

Yep, buy any version second-hand from anyone, get it transferred over to your Propellerhead account and you can upgrade to the latest version for €129.

I just bought the upgrade. Am now feeling mild post-purchase remorse. Which is silly, as it's great (but not that great).

Ah, well, great, someone who actually has experience of using it. Perfect. I'm very very impressed with the quality of sound from my two TC rack things.

http://forum.tcelectronic.com/topic/2299/gmajor-with-bass-guitar-any-users/

Is it any good for metal?

Well, for what it's worth, I have a TC D-Two delay (which is just flippin' amazing), and a TC M350 dual FX (which is really really great), so, er, I imagine the G Major 2 is good as well. The ones I have are mainly used on synths, but can work perfectly well on bass, provided I go through a pre-amp (Joemeek VC3Q), obvs. So, nothing like what you're considering at all, really.

I can't remember if I've done this already, but John soldered my lovely little Shruthi-1 monosynth for me, and it's just ace, completely fab.

Thanks. I've installed it, and it looks a bit different, but no actual difference in functionality, that I can see. The drag and drop is quite nice, granted. And the new amp sims aren't included, that I can work out, so I can't assess those. The Line 6 ones were pretty poor, so I'm sure the Softube ones are much better. One good thing about Reason is it always costs the same to upgrade, no matter hopw many versions you jump. So I'll wait for 9, I think, and jump then. As an update, it seems great. As a new version, that has to be paid for, I don't think it's worth it.

Can you download a free demo of it, without it affecting your current version? I didn't know that. Do you know how it's done?

It strikes me as not offering very much at all to make me part with my money. Drag'n'drop surely doesn't set anyone's heart racing, the new interface doesn't actually look any different, and amp sims are similarly not things to get me worked up, when you can combine so many of the other things in Reason to create an interesting sound. But, hey, convince me otherwise and I'll cough up.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1410882578' post='2554274'] Expect to pay around £25 for a 6m cable [/quote] John at Orchid Electronics will do 6m for £12, I think it is, using Neutrik connectors and Van Damme cabling, in any colour you want, right-angle connectors, etc.

I do also streamline Windows down to a very bare-bones kind of install, so that probably helps as well. Doing this, basically: [url="http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/"]http://www.blackvipe...configurations/[/url] And, yes, as I suspected, it's the video games thing.

I'm always interested by the specs of people's "fancy" computers, although much of it goes over my head. I'd love to have something really amazing as my work computer, but instead, I always buy a cheap crappy PC from eBuyer for about 200 quid, install the OS myself, and use that pretty much free of trouble for about three, four or even five years (I can't remember), and then buy another one, again for about 200 quid. And everything I do on it seems to run fine - Reaper, Reason, Photoshop, Lightroom, my CAT translation software (my actual paid work), everything. Often all at the same time. So I then wonder if I'm missing out on something really whizzy, or being clever (in spending as little money as possible), or if it's probably somewhere in between. I don't play video games though, so maybe that's where I'm not having a problem, if you see what I mean. Edit: None of which was any help at all, sorry. I was just thinking out loud.