low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
BitPop wrote:

But I have to disagree with you there.  While there is no substitute for a good song, melody and lyric writing, (possibly even more so in chipmusic), good equipment and the skills to use it bring alot to the table.

For music outside of chip and lofi, I'd say get the best money can buy.

I think you're 100% wrong. It doesn't matter what gear you have across the board. U can make a great recording using a cassette tape recorder, and an SM-57 and i can do the same using a C12 and a MM1200 multitrack. Will the C12 and 1200 sound better sonically.. of course.. but i bet if the subject matter that i was recorded was good enough that who ever was listening would be more distracted with the greatness of the song to really care about the audio quality differences.

It's not what you have or dont have. it's how you use what you have! be it for lo-fi music or hi-fi.

albino ghost monkey
Offline
Rice Lake, WI
BitPop wrote:

But I have to disagree with you there.  While there is no substitute for a good song, melody and lyric writing, (possibly even more so in chipmusic), good equipment and the skills to use it bring alot to the table.

I think just knowing your equipment is what really matters, be it good or bad.

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
albino ghost monkey wrote:
BitPop wrote:

But I have to disagree with you there.  While there is no substitute for a good song, melody and lyric writing, (possibly even more so in chipmusic), good equipment and the skills to use it bring alot to the table.

I think just knowing your equipment is what really matters, be it good or bad.

Agreed

syntheticaesthetics
Offline
LONDON

what i find amusing is the people who want to become a DJ, they go off and buy £1,000 decks and they're absolutely bollocks. As has been said before, it is not about the equipment you have, rather how you use it. As i previously posted, my gear is pretty decent, birthday laptop, few dmg's, NL, LSDJ, mixer assorted cables etc... and even though if bought in one go it can be quite pricey, if accumulated slowly, or over periods of 6 month differences (as my birthday is in june, 6 months after xmas, which evenly spreads out the moneeyy, as mentioned before) it isnt as expensive. i started out with a DMG, auxiliary cable and Nanoloop, all birthday presents, and i had my first, rather crappy, song, but nonetheless a song. And before that i started putting fun stuff together with the prebuilt loops in Garageband. And now that i have nearly been making chiptune for a year, i dont regret buying any of my stuff, because i use it all, and i use it all as much as i can. Sure, i may not use my gameboy colour ALL the time, but everything helps, and if i ever feel that i dont use a certain piece of equipment, i can sell it, and use that money to buy something that i do require at that time. It really is just starting off with about £50, ($70) and just getting what you can, when you can. But only if you NEED it, there's no point buying something you don't need/don't know how to use, such as people buying expensive DJ decks because they "want to be a DJ". Thats my opinion.

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

A good set of monitors or speakers might help, but it doesn't replace a good old "listen on every set of speakers you have access to."

little-scale
Offline
ad-hell-aide

@ Boomlinde: Agreed.

And also, for me at least, making chip music is about what gear I have (to a certain degree) - the music I write on a DMG is quite different to the music I write on a Mega Drive, and this is largely due to both the interface that I am able to write my music with, as well as the actual sounds that I can create / extract from the hardware.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

So many people have said it that I don't know who to quote: it's not your gear, it's what you do with it.  A teacher I had began class with the question, "What recording gear is better, digital or analog?"  The answer of course, is neither, because it depends on what sort of sound you are after.

Since most of the people reading this are into extremely pure and unaffected tones, I'd say you just need something that transmits that as transparently as you can handle.  For recording, a good cassette deck will do.  For mixing, anything that can take getting spiked by a hot signal will do.  Search for the property you want, and find out what it costs, then worry about how much money you need.

Labcoat and mac
Offline
Bath, SW

Student loan and Job. I'm trying to build up my gear now while lI have access to large sums of money at one time. I spend the loan money and then work to support my student life. I am poor all the time, but I now have an Access VIRUS! big_smile

Cementimental
Offline

I do find it kind of silly that I'm trying to make electronic music with cheap junk, toys and obsolete videogame stuff but end up spending many times the value of them in cables, electronic components and flash cartridges etc. smile

BitPop
Offline
York, Yorkshire
low-gain wrote:

I think you're 100% wrong.

100%?  That's really very wrong indeed!  Ah well, let's agree to disagree? smile

Labcoat and mac wrote:

Student loan and Job. I'm trying to build up my gear now while lI have access to large sums of money at one time. I spend the loan money and then work to support my student life. I am poor all the time, but I now have an Access VIRUS! big_smile

Welcome to the club smile  They're great fun!    But of course, you don't need one, a DMG and a tape recorder is all you need tongue

Last edited by BitPop (Jan 28, 2010 1:00 pm)

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

I believe that there is something to the gear you use, but most electronic musicians will probably agree that it doesn't have to be expensive. Many innovative ideas have sprung out of embracing the artifacts of crude/cheap tools. The use of tb-303, distorsion, tape delays, sampling artifacts, stuttering, dusty vinyl noise, "telephone" vocal distortion and indeed vintage computer hardware in modern electronic music suggests that there is more to sound than just finding the most transparent and "clean" gear.

ultrasparx
Offline
London, UK

if there's a particular sound i want, i'll research it, try to remake it.
if all fails, i sample it.
it's a lot cheaper than going out and buying the hardware.

Last edited by ultrasparx (Jan 30, 2010 9:09 am)