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@@@   Phenixzine    Vol 3    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
December 2019 @@@@@@@@
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[   Hello or welcome back music lovers, gear heads and synth freaks   ]


Apparently the updates of the Phenixzine e-zine always happen around Christmas. Not sure if it is the light or time of year, at least a good moment to wrap things up.

More or less it has become a retrospective over the past year, i hope you enjoy it! Not going to promise more updates, things are fine as they are. Just read the old episodes if your here to binge read my stuff :-)

I have passed on the ascii art for this episode, hope to find a way to make it more pleasant on a mobile device.

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The last year i have spend a lot of time on getting to know my synths a little better while adding a number of them in the meantime. This has lead to a sort of writersblock because i did not create that much music or, in another view not the music i expected. But while discovering i always record some stuff and in a retrospective some things are really nice.

If you really love your oldschool gear there is no problem with going through manuals, menu diving. Getting firmware chips and replacing floppydrives. In the end it is rewarding and i now see the benefits of it is i'm making more progress soundwise.


So while spending some time to discover features and quirks of the Behringer Deepmind 12 i played with the arpeggiator a lot which has lead to some beautiful melodies and haunting arp's.

See the video in the section below for some nice examples.

Change of view  ]

I moved my studio to another floor providing more space and less distractions to deal with. I also like to be in a dedicated room to play with my gear whereas it used to be in my livingroom and i would end up hanging on the couch too often.

Both has benefits but i also like to have my gear out of sight now plus i have more focus. Only getting a coffee has become a journey, the only thing i miss is the view on my garden.


Now i really have to set my alarm to make sure i will have enough sleep and since i leave my computer out of the room i have no distractions or feel the need to be online.

Plus, i have to stand all the time so i have a change from clinging to a desk 5 days a week.

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                 Input, comments or just a shoutout ? Send an e-mail to phenixezine[AT]gmail.com
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[ Gear ]

By now i consider my setup to be complete to work with, after i fixed my RM1x Groovebox i can use it to sequence all my gear and since my channels are almost full on my mixer there is no place to add anything anyway.

Behringer released tons of nice and affordable gear but at some point another monosynth is just another monosynth. Where budget was limiting me at first, i have become more aware of features and limitations. In the end it would be cool to own everything but there's a certain limit of time being available and i think you will never learn the deep end of a instrument when you keep adding new ones. 

From spending time on getting gear, hanging on auction sites, watching reviews/tutorials, reading manuals i got to sitting down with my machines, program them and build patches.

After reading someones post about the hunt on gear (and time/money wasted) i decided i should spend less time on buying and more on using. Ofcourse certain needs need to be filled but at some point you should be satisfied and work with what you have, less is even more at some point.

Also i spend quite some hours on making samples from movies and documentaries. I plan to integrate my sampler to my setup soon and use it on tracks. I expect this to bring something extra because until now i did not use any vocals or samples at all which will make my music more interesting.


[ Recording ]

I have recently moved away from taping my stuff as my deck started to have issues, i looked into something new but there's only one recent deck matching my needs but it is poorly build compared to classic one while still kind of expensive. So i'll stick to my 1970's Technics but only for specific needs. I have ordered new belts so i can continue to use it for listening.

So now i record onto a Tascam SD recorder which also takes away the issue i had with background noise and getting levels right. No idea why but it seems less now than when i was recording with my tapedeck.

So, gearwise i'm ready for 2020 to see what it will bring!





 

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[ Sampler ]

So after a long search i finally found a great sampler. It is a Zoom Sampletrak and has seen it's best and even some worse years but it makes up in functions and sounds. I had to find obscure smart mediacards and it will only accept ones of 16mb or smaller. So eventually i found some in the UK and got them by mail.

I spend a couple of nights making samples and now the card is full ofcourse but i've found some more by chance. I often look for them but they are either the wrong size or expensive.

Seeing the sampler is missing all but one of it's original knobs i hope to find some replacements or even better another one in a better shape. It has great filters and making samples is easy and fun to do. I really had to convince myself buying it seeing it's state but i'm happy to be the owner now.

I did buy the Teenage Engineering PO-33 KO and it's fun but does not meet my needs. It only has 40 seconds of sampling so i cannot work with it the way i want which is recording vocals and speech from movies or documentaries. Nice to make some beats on the go and do all kind of weird things to it but because of the size it is not really an instrument but something i will bring on a plane for entertainment.

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Two of my tracks are added to the Acid December playlist on a Swedish website. Here is one to enjoy, i used the Yamaha RM1x with presets only.


Are you still there ? :-) Perhaps read on in the first or second volume or wait until the next one! 

 

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