2018-09-18 19:32:15

assault_freak wrote:

After playing with the Allen and Heath sq5 at church today, I definitely prefer analogue without scenes and soft controls... can't even control two mixes from different rooms without switching scenes, which requires the use of the very large, very nice looking aparently, touch screen. Yuck.

My thought is this:  Who cares about how a board looks, as long as it works.  Just because digital is the new trend, doesn't mean it's going to be the best.    I'd much rather  get y hands on a nice Allen & Heath  analog mixer where I can tell exactly what I'm doing, because let's be honest, not all sound engineers  are good with computers, ya know.

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2018-09-18 19:49:12

Oh of course, I'm the same way. I am defiitely an analogue guy when it comes to mixing and sound engineering. Bt I know why digital is prefered by so many.. because it's easy to see what's actually going on. Just like for us, it'
s easier to feel what is going on with analogue than digital. Same principle, just an ironic case of the opposite.

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2018-09-18 21:14:51

you know, we should have a space in the web where we can post instructions or manuals from a blind users perspective that would make the job and the purchase hunt so much easier. I think some efforts had been made (namely the defunct zone bbs) did have a board where all electronics could be used from the blindness perspective and also the cool blind tech site. Lamentably all are gone.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2018-09-19 00:21:50

There are enough of those places for other tech.. but not for music gear or audio tech. lol That would indeed be nice to have.

Discord: clemchowder633

2018-09-19 05:17:26

I'm definitely one of those blind musicians waiting and wishing for the death of touch screens,  but at the moment it just goes the opposite way, but we can wait, right?
Being more interested in pure synth stuff, I'm not at all into arrangers or workstations, but simpler/smaller synths have touch screens too and that's not a good thing, while it's still quite possible to manage those devices, where touch buttons/sliders change function, but not size/position etc. And so, with some sighted help, I have marked the four touch sliders on my Yamaha ReFace DX with narrow strips of tape, so it's quite easy to navigate and feel the boundries of them, though still waiting for the Dtronics DT-RDX controller to become reality and grabb a box with like 40 knobs dedicated to that little fm synth. I also have the first trio of Korg Volca series and working with those is helped by a fact, that 16 touch step buttons also correspond to the notes, at least on the Volca Bass and Volca Keys, where on the Beats it's abit more difficult to access last six functions, as that machine has ten drum sounds, leaving six steps without anything assigned and so being silent. It's still possible to work with that drum machine, but obviously it's way better to have a bunch of buttons espetially on a drum machine. for wich my others, the Roland tr-08 and recently purchased Arturia DrumBrute Impact, are definitely in a better position.
So yeah. It's totally possible to be a blind synthesist on more serious level, but it takes a few things: determination and time, a really strong interest and understanding of the topic and of course a good and structured memory for managing all the menus and options of various synthesizers. Obviously a love for reading user manuals is also a needed propperty, but as we all know, those manuals can be really badly made for use with all our accessibility technology.
Still I can say, that in some places a blind dude can be above a sighted one. Let's look for example at the informous virtual analog synth - the mighty and insanely popular Microkorg. All the editing on that one is done via two large clicking multiposition switches for selecting pages and five knobs for changing parameters of each page. So for instance to get to the first oscillator, we turn the first page selector to the third position and use knobs to change the waveform, it's related modulation and other parameters etc. This way of working is often called a matrix editing. So where it falls down for most of the sighted folks, is in the small format lettering printed on the front panel and a small cryptic display of the instrument. I have watched countless videos and read reviews, where those poor dudes are lamenting and ranting themselvs into madness instead of just trying to use memory and logic, as these parameter matrixes are actually really logical and rigid.
So, what to say towards the end of this train of thoughts? I would deeply encourage those interested in synthesizers to never give up in a face of frustration, explore and experimend, but of course choose wisely in the first place and remember, that the most expensive sin't always isn't the best choice. Yep, Nord and Moog stuff is currently out of my budget and I still wish for it to change one day, but nowadays we are witnessing a new golden age of synthesizers: come on, analog, digital, modular, software or hardware - there's plenty of everything and new stuff is still coming like every week! So let's just keep on pushing buttons, turning knobs, blasting away even on the miniest of mini keys and make some great electronic music.

2018-09-21 13:00:15

Yep. Touch screens suck. However, I have a Roland FA 06 with no touch screen. It is awesome but I still haven't learned to use it very much. When I, for instance, go to the bass category and use the dial, I can't find the electric basses. I think you need to go into some menus to switch category to find those. Can someone help me with that?

Also, the Yamaha PSRS975 is amazing and it doesn't have a touch screen. And MicroKorg is good too.