Bad Gear

Every now and then this show needs some blasphemy, a little slap in the face of iconic music history milestones and one of these “he’s obviously trolling” moments true Bad Gear fans crave at least once a year. Today we are going to talk about the legendary D-50. This LA synth and Roland’s answer to the Yamaha DX7 not only had a huge impact on the sound aesthetics of the late 80s, it is also still relevant for Enya Orinoco Flow Covers, creating high end General Midi Kontakt Libraries, channeling your Reagan Era soap opera PTSD AND I might have a point here…

While we - the inhabitants of this post-everything dystopia - live in the best times for being a synth nerd, our ancestors and younger selves who just survived the Y2K Bug had to deal with a much bleaker market for electronic musical instruments . Today we are going to talk about the SH-32. This unholy offspring of a JP-8000 and an MC-303, 2002 not-a- synth not-yet-a groovebox and Buchla Easel for kids design abomination is not only peak Roland Music but also seems to be the blueprint for the Roland SH-4D .

Senior synth citizens like me might get the impression that the technical evolution is going backwards: the mass market returned to the dark ages of analog, there’s an obvious disconnect between traditional manufacturers and their customers and sampling hardware is slowly reapproaching the tech specs of 1991. Today we are going to talk about the Korg EMX-1. This 2003 Electribe is considered to be the gold standard for groovebox design by many - and a gimmicky hotchpotch of cheap-sounding late dance sounds for more or less everyone else.

If sound synthesis in general was a family, granular synthesis would be the basement-dwelling and terminally online distant music producer cousin who listens to the sounds of humpback whales and lives off a diet of - depending on the moon phase - stone age keto or vegan MREs. Today we are going to talk about Liven Texture Lab. This 2023 Sonicware synth and sibling of the Sonicware Liven Ambient takes granular synthesizer out of its natural software synthesizer habitat, its UI is devoid of any proper visual cues to make the technique somewhat controllable for music production and comes with two goldfish brains of sample memory.

Back in the day when synth nerds had to walk 10 miles in the snow uphill both ways to get wasted and find a place for music production the term game changer had a completely different meaning. Today we are going to talk about the very first E-mu Proteus. This 80s synth and dumbed-down offspring of the Emulator sampler range not only made their iconic tones more accessible, its presets also burned themselves into the global pop cultural consciousness.

In a musical landscape dominated by the oftentimes characterless clarity of modern digital technology synth fans are yearning for the organic warmth of analog instruments. Today we are going to talk about the 2019 Modal Argon-8 wavetable synthesizer which - no pun intended - offers the exact polar opposite.

There is a terrible disproportion between the number of vocoders in the world and the number of real-life vocoder use cases. Today we are going to talk about the Roland Boutique VP-03. This string machine, vocoder and shrink-rayed digital reissue of the legendary VP-330 didn’t get off to a very good start when it was released back in 2017 and things only went downhill from there.

There are countless reasons to get a synth created by the one and only Dave Smith: the gravitas of early Prophets, the mind-boggling sound design potential of the Evolver or the intuitive UI concept of vector synthesis in general - just to name a few. However, he also made the Tetr4 .

Frequent viewers of this channel are well-aware of the fact that I - personally - love all gear, that this show is merely a reflection on the hate of others and that even some of my favorite electronic musical instruments aren’t safe from the relentless ridicule of the Bad Gear treatment. Today we are going to talk about Jomox MBase. This synthesizer with a strong focus on the nether regions of the percussive backbone of an arrangement is not only an integral part of my sonic arsenal - most of the criticism is also well-deserved.

While we, the aging population of hardware synth land, can only be awakened from our arthritic slumber by Swedish lifestyle product rage bait or the announcement of too-big-to-fail analog flagships, the flourishing software synth demographic just had a Steve Jobs keynote-like moment. Today we are going to talk about XFER SERUM The Second Coming edition so synth manufacturers - be prepared to get humbled by a true musical and technical visionary with a history of working with the Nine Inch Nails , unique 21st century marketing skills and a sense of integrity that has become a rare feat among successful business people.

Instruments featured on this show usually come with at least one of the following three characteristics: corny sounds that didn’t age so well, a super nerdy concept people who actually have a life wouldn’t even try to comprehend and an impenetrable UI gatekeeping the sonic goodness. Today we are going to talk about Korg’s iconic Wavestations. These early 90s wave sequencing synths are undisputed top performers in each of the aforementioned categories and while the standard versions already require a certain willingness to suffer I - a trained professional - upped the difficulty level a bit and opted for the Dark Souls-like SR edition. Don’t try this at home or at all!

Presumably I’m not the only one who made a handful of Native Instruments “backup copies” a core part of his personality back in the zero years so it goes without saying that my mid-forties self is yearning for an overpriced yet tangible take on these plugins for the sole purpose of reminding me of a time when all it needed was sleep deprivation and a PC from Aldi. However, all we got was Maschine+. This 2020 standalone version of NIs software MPC ripoff ecosystem offers DAWless access to a small selection of these now-iconic plugins, it boasts the processing power of the aforementioned Aldi PC and will disappoint you with more broken promises when it comes to major updates than the GTA franchise.

In times like these when normal people try to steer clear of questionable spending habits, true synth nerds are still stockpiling esoteric Eurorack modules, vintage restoration projects and overpriced VST plugins in a box. Speaking of which, today we are going to talk about the Waldorf Iridium range. While young producers with an actual history of releasing music are currently benchmarking a Serum 2 torrent, these futurist top shelf instruments based on German technology seem to be the last missing piece in every middle-aged synthesist collection before their careers are destined to take off.

Around 10 years ago a company - that is of course identical to the inMusic-owned Moog brand we know today - released what is probably THE ideal synth keyboard for aging bald guys who really love techno. Today, however, we are going to talk about Subsequent 25. This recently discontinued analog mono synth comes without all the features that made its bigger sibling usable for actual musicians which turns it into the dream instrument for financially reckless internet posers.

When taken out of historical context it might currently seem like a bunch of big companies are stealing the ideas of a Swiss/German/Chinese innovator and trying to amateurishly emulate them in digital form to make a quick buck. Today we are going to talk about Korg multi/poly. This virtual analog synth and Raspberry Pi in disguise asking you politely to take it out of its misery not only looks like an AI-generated picture-to-CAD rendering conversion process gone wrong, it also comes with more features than a marketing blurb can handle.

A few years back I reviewed what was probably the most underwhelming piece of gear at the time - the original Arturia Drumbrute. This 2016 drum machine seemed like a dream come true: fully analog, great sequencer, one-knob-per-function UI and a design that pleases the eye of normal people and satisfies the basic instincts of synth nerds. The problem with this instrument: it sounded almost comically bad and might be the only Bad Gear protagonist I didn’t make any real music with. Although I sent it back after reviewing it, this cursed drum machine kept on haunting me and when I found one on Reverb for the price of a Volca I might have been hovering over the BUY button a little too hard. Was this the worst purchase ever?

Although this channel is often associated with enervating noise , my work environment is so calm I can tune a vintage synth to my tinnitus and I stick to low mixing volumes to avoid ear fatigue. However, a few days back I received this Audio Motor Synth MKII directly from Gamechanger as a long term loan and believe me - the peace and quiet is gone.

While other manufacturers either “pass on savings from process optimization” or relentlessly jack up prices once people are actually buying their music making toys, our favorite interior design company/copyright agency/nepo baby cult just flexed their monstrous marketing muscle and - did both at the same time.

Hey everybody, this video is a dream come true as we are going to do something I’ve been wanting to do since I was a broke teenager back in the day: build an Original 90s Dance Music Production Setup including synths, drum machine, recording gear and sequencer. All the equipment we will be using for making music today was brought to the market before the year 2000 and while you might be longing for the workflows of these seemingly simpler times - be careful what you wish for.