LOL yes when Moog & Elektron both decided to release BLACK w/ a bit of red devices at same time I wonder why? 
I find the black boxes to be rather nice tho.
That’s nothing I use more than one finger to play my Digitone all the time, Elektron can’t dictate to me how many digits I can use, ain’t nobody got no time for that.
2 Likes
Well I’m ambitiously hoping I can try to wangle one as a 40th birthday present next year, but seeing as my wife’s the breadwinner right now it’s going to take some serious persuasion.
2 Likes
I’ll have to agree with the Miserable Git…I was watching a demo of the “new Make Noise thingy” (brilliant) and thought this makes absolutely no sense to me. Personally, if I owned it I would forever just be blindly plugging plugs lol.
1 Like
I agree that the other extreme draws to mind just as much elitism and restrictions as overly complex interfaces. I’m really hating the “blacker than black” Beghain-first design ethos going on right now; Dieter Rams if he got really into Ketamine and NTS. Personally I feel there is space for techno to be fun and woolly, not just black and dour. I’d much rather have some color on my synths that invoke fun and lightheartedness rather than anxiety of if I look cool enough to get past the doorman. More 
less 
2 Likes
Come on in, the water’s not quite satisfactory.
4 Likes
exactly. it’s expensive and clearly targeted for people with certain very recognizable set of fetishes.
also, a friend of mine who is into modular stuff told me that modular community has fairly low interest in it.
Literally all my clothes are black.
I have 5 pairs of black shorts and 10 black t shits.
My shoes are black
My coat is black
But I’m told I’m a ray of fucking sunshine.
Go figure
3 Likes
I don’t really like modular, but I’m very interested in it, so your story checks out.
1 Like
Jeve Stobs
Roll necks are not welcom in my house.
Too fancy.
Ray Sunshine and the turtlenecks.
5 Likes
You watch your mouth, you…
Oh, OK - fair enough.
5 Likes
Yeah of course I like some serious dark techno, I don’t want to make it into a thing about music styles so sorry if I did that, I also wasn’t trying to say the Erica was elitist or restrictive (if it came off that way) - The Ciat Lombardi (sp?) stuff seems elitist to me a bit, even if fun looking, so they are not opposites necessarily. I find elitism overused as a term though idk. I mean if you look at straight $ most of euro is actually pretty elitist.
1 Like
was gonna stay silent on this debate but calling Ciat Lonbarde or modular synths elitist on the elektron forum is kinda wild
all this gear is expensive
so where do you draw the line?
3 Likes
And is it a nice straight line, or is it all squiggly?
3 Likes
$ vs functionality I guess, sure Elektron is expensive but in terms of functionality not as much vs eurorack.
$800 digitakt you could do a whole track/album - how far is $800 going to get you in euro? Even the shared system powered case is $650.
AR is what $1700 now vs Erica Techno system which is 3900 euro - so approx. $4700 USD so 2.5 timesish more.
Definitely a squiggly line.
I’m more calling design systems that require a user to be fully invested in a set of standards that are unintuitive/hidden behind glyphs or muddy graphics as a form of gatekeeping. Ciat Lonbarde kind of gets an excuse since the instruments are not something many people turn to if they want to learn how a synth works, but I do not give that same kind of free pass to modular companies who aim for more “universal appeal” since I’ve seen many people recommend eurorack/modular emulation on computers as a gateway to learning how a signal flow works.
I mean all gear is expensive. I’ve never told someone starting out to even look at any hardware since everything that a $10,000 box can do can be done using free plugins and a free DAW. I’m just speaking from experience of running workshops and helping out with people who rent out gear for flat fees that some boxes and modules are much less heady and intimating than others, and a lot of the time the more complex machines offer little to no extra maneuverability at the cost of scaring away whole sections of the population who may really want to get into making electronic music but only see machines and communities that do nothing to guide you into their ecosystem.
Not saying everything needs to hold your hand either, just that in an art field that already has a bad rap for being unkind to outsiders, maybe some designers should think more about the greater culture they are feeding with their instruments.
3 Likes
Don’t get me wrong CL stuff looks cool and I’d love to play it, honestly I don’t mind some pretension or elitism - I think these words are used way too often to just dismiss things and unfairly so - but if any synth company could be said to be maybe a little overly precious and a bit on their high horse I’d nominate CL. I don’t care much personally.
1 Like