Your old Sequencers...

cheeky b · Post by **cheeky b** » 20 Jun 2006, 23:26

I can't remember!!!!

But, started out with two tape recorders and then tascam 4 track then Studiomaster 6 - 4 track (Rolls Royce porta studio!!), various hardware sequencers and drum machines including Linn drums, sequential circuits drumtraks. 606, 808, various other Roland boxes.

Moved on to hardware sequencers mc-500 etc , Roland W-30, Korg M1.
Then Atari and Creator and Notator with a brief look at Cubase in conjunction with Akais mpc 3000 and 60.

Joined the Logic train at 3.5 and have played with Pro tools, Cubase SX, Live, Garageband etc but I no longer have the mental capacity for too many options. logic it is until they really piss me off!

Post by **Loopy C** » 21 Jun 2006, 00:43

timemist wrote:...and Band in a Box (remember that one?)

I should, it's installed on my OSX based laptop!

Janne · Post by **Janne** » 21 Jun 2006, 00:51

Mid 80's: Sequential Circuits Pro-One and a DX-7.
Early 90's: Atari ST and Steinberg Pro-24.
Mid 90's: Mac SE/30 and Opcode Studio Vision.
Late 90's PowerMac G4 and Opcode EZ Vison.

Got fed up with all this mess and the vision of my home studio that never really could get of the ground...

Early 2000's: Got Logic and the 'Virtual studio' is now a reality!

Janne

Post by **Loopy C** » 21 Jun 2006, 01:07

1970's: Roberts 'Sound on Sound' reel to reel, Arp 2600, Arp Odyssey, Arp Omni.

1980's: Drumatix TR 606, 808 using Roland proprietary sync sequencing (via 'Accents') Jupiter 8, Commodore 64 running Cherry Lane 'Sequencer', Atari 1040ST and Mega 2 running 'Creator' (then Notator, then Logic 1), 'M', several Dr T''s 'algorithmic sequencers', Alesis MT-16, Yamaha QX-3, Roland MC-500, Portastudio 144&244.

1990's: PC running Acid..loops of sequences! (live into Protools), Logic (all versions, PC and Mac).

2000: Logic 7, Numerology, Reaktor (a big time sequencer in the old school context). Many applications from Universal Music Machine and Machine For Composing Music to Symbolic Composer.

Wylie · Post by **Wylie** » 21 Jun 2006, 05:51

LennieJ wrote:70's 2 cassette decks.

Now that I think about it I started out using two cassette decks as well thats what gave me the recording bug in the 70s
Once I realist I could multi track my own songs I was addicted.
I can't believe you all remember dates so well the 80s are still a little blurry for me.

donaldm · Post by **donaldm** » 21 Jun 2006, 07:33

Loopy C wrote:1970's: Roberts 'Sound on Sound' reel to reel, Arp 2600, Arp Odyssey, Arp Omni.

If you have tape of this please post!!!!!

myself, I am a child of the Roland MC-50, wish i still had it

DHR · Post by **DHR** » 21 Jun 2006, 10:35

Yea, I meant Roland MC500/50 I had both... Although they did later make an MC80. I still have my bulk librarian for the 500 XL!

It was a cool machine...

RCory · Post by **RCory** » 03 Jul 2006, 08:00

Master Tracks Pro.

Which stills runs great in classic. Aww..nothin' like the good ol days when things didn't crash!

Hide · Post by **Hide** » 03 Jul 2006, 11:57

80s : Yamaha QX3 --> Roland MC500 --> Ensoniq EPS
90s : Ensoniq EPS16 --> Ensoniq TS-10 --> Mac/Vision --> Mac/CuBase
00-05 : Yamaha RM1x --> Mac/Reason --> Mac/LogicPro
06: Mac/dp

Maybe I forgot some things...

nebula · Post by **nebula** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:15

80's: Roland TR-909 and MSQ-100, then moved up to Sonus SuperSequencer (and the separate event editor app) on C64. The studio I recorded at had Performer on a Mac Plus.

90's: Kawai Q-80, then bought a Mac LC475 with Logic Audio 2.5, upgraded to a Power Mac 7200/75 (ugh), got an illegal copy of Logic Audio 4.x...

99: Upgraded to Power Mac G4/350 with Emagic AMT-8 and Audiowerk2

This century:

Bought Logic Platinum 6 Upgrade package and EXS24, upgraded the G4 to 1.4 GHz, bought upgrade to Logic Pro 7.2.

I'll soon be getting a Mackie/Logic control and an Intel Mac.

Worthy of note: in the 1980's my C64 was controlling a JX3P, a Yamaha DX11, an Akai S612 sampler, a Roland TR-505 and TR-909 a Yamaha RX21L, all through a Simmons SPM 8:2 programmable mixer ON STAGE! It took my poor 1541 disk drive about 90 seconds to load the next 4 songs, during which I, along with the other two band members, would play "unplugged", unaccompanied by the horribly unstable MIDI rig.

Kubi · Post by **Kubi** » 19 Jul 2006, 18:46

Started on Performer in 1990, switched to Digital Performer 1 on a Quadra 650 in 1994. DP ever since... (now of course 5.01 on a 2x2G5)

Personally, I get the willies rather than warm and fuzzy feelings looking back. I mean:

Converters sounded like shit. Samplers had 8 Megs RAM. Computers maxed out at 17Megs of RAM, and came 'loaded' with 80M HD. My first 1Gig drive cost me well over $1k. Turbosynth's filters sounded like ass. Digital eq's/com-pressors were horrid. 16/44.1 was as good as it ever gets. Dither was dismal. Every digital synth output had crappy, cheap IC sound, and every synth output, analog or digital, was noisy as f..k. In fact, everything you could afford was noisy as f..k. Mackie boards were a break-through in sonic quality (now I wouldn't touch one...) ADATs were considered acceptable professional quality. Most digital processes were destructive, non-real-time, and allowed you to go see a movie before you came back to find out the computer had bombed, or it simply wasn't a great result and you had to do it again (and watch another movie...) Crashes took down the entire computer EVERY time. And on and on and on.

Glad the bad old days are over!!

rod samuel · Post by **rod samuel** » 19 Jul 2006, 19:32

mid 70's Ralf Harris stylus.
late 70's 1 cassette deck.
Very Late 70's 2 cassette decks.
Somewhere around here a Korg sigma http://www.gordonreid.co.uk/vintage/sigma.html (I still think that was the coolest synth).
Somewhere after that a Casio VL-Tone.
Then I was hooked, a parade of Tascam 144 porta followed by a fostex porta (no idea of the model) then another Tascam 244 ( wow with parametric EQ and Dolby whatever).
Somewhere around '82 with a bunch of friends we bought Phil Lynotts Brunnel 1", Allen and Heath 16/8/2 mixer and a cool rack of scamp gear and some really crappy FX.
Around 85 it was off to the races with an S900 akai a commodore 64 / six-tracks / drum-tracs and some midi programme called JPS or something like that. That software sucked.
For a few years I just used other peoples gear. Then stienberg 24 pro on someone else's cpu.
1988 an Alesis sequencer ( the grey one with the crappy buttons) a K-4 and some half decent monitors and amp.
Late 80's ... Back to Steinberg Pro 24.
Then used other peoples gear for a long time.
Around 98? went to a D-160/cubase /DP /O2R and have not really changed since.
I found my happy place. (But I still prefer to use other peoples gear).

sourceofuncertainty · Post by **sourceofuncertainty** » 19 Jul 2006, 19:49

Kubi wrote:Samplers had 8 Megs RAM.

Ha, if you think 8 Megs was limited, you missed out on the 256k memory of the Korg DSS-1. You -really- had to plan things out with that kind of limitation, and for its time it was pretty luxurious.

Post by **Loopy C** » 20 Jul 2006, 00:05

Hey Rod, you still have a 244? I need to get one to transfer my archives (the rubber in mine is gone so no real transport (Play/REWIND, etc). $?

Kubi · Post by **Kubi** » 20 Jul 2006, 13:13

sourceofuncertainty wrote:
Kubi wrote:Samplers had 8 Megs RAM.
Ha, if you think 8 Megs was limited, you missed out on the 256k memory of the Korg DSS-1. You -really- had to plan things out with that kind of limitation, and for its time it was pretty luxurious.

Yes I know, I was jumping around a bit in between 1990 and 1995 in my reply... I used the DSS-1 once at a client's studio because he wanted to use a specific sample. Boy I hated the living hell out of that thing, much preferred his sampler workhorse, the 8MB SampleCell I card... I remember going shopping with him, sometime in January of 1992, at the good old Electronic Music Box, maxing out his MacII and his SC card with 8MB of RAM each! I kept track of our 'comprehensive sample library' with a Hypercard stack I programmed for him.

Ah, and then the luxury when I upgraded my own studio to two 32MB SampleCell II cards! Their outputs distorted/aliased like f..k (try listening to a crotales sample through a SCII output...) but I had 64 Megs of sample RAM!

Now of course I stream samples off disk in my Kontakt/MachFive setups, and I don't even know how much memory I'm filling up because I STOPPED PAYING ATTENTION... what luxury!