Bring No One
By ineff on December 4, 2022 6:10 pm
This week: Sequencing external gear with `CHD` and `ADD`!
One thing (of many) I've come to appreciate about WB is that it helps you get deeply acquainted with new tools FAST. This week, it's Zebra2 (pads) and a Dreadbox Typhon (initial bass).
I'm not much of a gearhead, but sequencing external gear yielded an important discovery: it's easy to burn an unconscionable amount of time mucking around with external gear.
› Similar observations
‹ Similar observations
I've been spoiled by the M8's onboard synths all year, on a lot of fronts: It was a chore to wire up the M8, Typhon, MIDI hub, USB hub, and audio mixer―especially after routing around audio and USB ground loops. And both synths are potentially infinite tweak-holes once you start programming patches. I've made nearly every M8 track's patches from scratch as I've needed them, and it often takes seconds to get something serviceable.
On the other hand: I've learned how to drive Zebra2 (the manual is incredible) and the Typhon pretty well (the manual's author is hilarious), and both synths can sound incredible. On the other-other hand: Sounding incredible isn't super-useful when sitting in a mix, and now that I've gotten used to the Typhon's end-to-end workflow: I think I hate it. 
In the end, working with the external stuff took over half the project's time and only yielded a few samples back to the project. Working with the Typhon actually became such a hassle that I ended up mocking the rest of the bass part in about a minute with Macrosynth―and found it was close enough that it wasn't worth porting back to the Typhon.
Made from and Mixed on a Dirtywave M8 Tracker.
