I couldn't agree more!
The SU700 found its way into my rig, in spite of having other samplers, HW
sequencers, and "sampling drum machines" simply because it did something
very well that no other piece of gear I was aware of could do. Yamaha
created a "sweet-spot" with the SU700 that was well suited to one way that I
like to work. Consequently my productivity and useful output went up
dramatically.
It is hard at times for me to separate gear lust from true need, especially
when it is a productivity or even joy of working driven need. But
occasionally a good choice is made and it can make all the difference in the
world.
The one side effect of this though has been that it is nearly impossible I
have found to have all of these special tools integrated into a working
studio at the same time, and still maintain even mediocre ergonomics. My
solution has been to rotate each piece into a core set of gear depending on
need and desire.
Specialized pieces of gear could be the next area of innovation in e-music
making. We have witnessed the "modular approach" where one assembles a
system from components. This has proven to be flexible, powerful, and in my
experience complex and sometimes ineffective at maintaining creative flow -
too much overhead to keep it all working smoothly. We have also witnessed
the "workstation approach" where a particular piece of gear is designed to
be an all-in-one solution. Again useful, especially in limited gear
situations, but rarely does one of these scale well. In particular they all
loose much of their charm once you try and control external additions. A
studio with some core capabilities augmented by a dynamic/changing selection
of specialty tools may be the needed compromise.
For this reason I applaud Yamaha and other manufactures for attempting to
fulfill these niche needs. I also would speculate that some of the revered
gear of today - TB303, TRX0X, MPC60/3000 - is actually popular because it is
a specialty piece tailored to a particular compositional or performance
style (though clearly the gear in this case defined the style). Lets hope
more of this type of gear comes forth!
drk
www.delora.com/music
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: su700->short-comings (was: SV: SU700 -> F*CK-ASS!)
> I hope nobody minds me changing the name of this thread, having that old
title popping up is enough to make me want to unsubscribe (it's the caps
that bother, mostly). One thing that most people seem to forget is that
it's often good to have dedicated machines for certain jobs, having a
machine that can do everything is great, that's why we have computers, but
more often than not the usability gets buried by the flexibility &,
inevitably, so does your creativity (that's not to say that a deep machine
isn't inspiring in it's own way, but that's a different kind of creativity).
Personally, I'm at the point in my life that a machine that doesn't inhibit
creativity is worth more than anything, & I'm more than happy to spend a
little extra dough to augment an intuitive loop/hit sampler w/ something
legit.
>
> That said, the esi-4000 did the best job of combining features w/
intuitiveness; I use an mpc/k2000 combo, myself.
>
> Eric Dahlberg
>
