Topic: portable jams

whats your favourite portable music toy
often i work away from home and think about the best thing to take with me to work on tracks when off shift. obviously a laptop can do a lot but its nicer to work with something more dedicated to sound or a fun interface.  In the past i've used gameboys, a palm zire with microbe/bhajis and also a korg pxr to use with guitars or whatever was lying around
battery operated things are great, 202 is an option and 606/303 would be a portable acid luxury i suppose.  I've never used the yamaha qy's? Can you do whole tracks on them that actually sound good?
OP-1 looks perfect but its quite expensive. 
the korg monotron/tribe look pretty restricted - though maybe fun for a jam?
What small battery operated boxes (analogs / samplers) am i missing out here

Re: portable jams

would imagine its all about the android/iphone apps with these youngsters nowadays  roll

have a nintendo dsi with loads of music apps. really must flog it or use it more though

Re: portable jams

If I recall correctly, Franz Falkenhaus is almost all QY70.

http://sneak-thief.com - raw electrofunk

Re: portable jams

I've got a korg monotron, it's quite small and very fun, but rather limited.

Honey, in the morning the bees are singing and the birds are stinging in an open head surgery.

Re: portable jams

qy70, im currently working on to make a lo-fi pseudo-italodisco release with it.
It's got all what it needs for that, except vocals smile

http://fossa.bandcamp.com
Shitting in a lavatory, conducting experiments.
Farticles come near and disappear.

Re: portable jams

Franz Falckenhaus is mostly DX7 but The Rise and Fall of Manual Noriega and F.Mavelli's Special Brigade is all Yamaha QY70 I dunno if those are actually sounding good but yeah you can do whole tracks on those things 8 tracks of drums synths effects etc., they are great all in workstations sequencers...the QY100 is the same but with an input for external effects or something.

The Korg Monotron is a useless piece of crap imo...i mean what the fuck can you actually do with it? fun for making bleeps...attention span limit 30 seconds..for speedfreaks or ADHD people

Another cool little portable thing is the Korg Kaossilator but you will need something to record to cause it doesnt remember anything.

7 (edited by cebteq 2011-10-19 21:45:24)

Re: portable jams

http://operachic.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c83e69e2011571385d3a970c-450wi

Re: portable jams

Electribe EM1 with battery pack is good, hook it up to a boombox, walk around at night when everyone is getting out of the bars.. keep the party going, take it to the streets

Re: portable jams

Wouldn't a 303 alone cost more than an OP-1? Unless you already own one that is.

About 12/13 years ago i saw a guy jamming on the street with the 606/303 combo and it was totally great. I didn't know what they were at the time and asked him where one could buy such machines, his response was 'maybe a car boot sale if you're lucky'. I'm still searching.

Re: portable jams

Two of my friends have OP-1s and from the time I've spent with them, they are the coolest portable jam box around.

Re: portable jams

So whats needed is a qy / xox 8ch sequencer, with poly seq tracks on a few channels at least, simple track mute/solo, drum sounds, rompler sounds, sample slots and onboard mic, an analogue synth or two (, sd card memory, a couple fx slots, midi in/out, small portable and able to run on batteries.
who wants to design one :-)

looking at that, the OP-1 comes closest. korg esx is pretty much there but doesnt have the poly sequencing and isnt so portable. MPC500 ticks a few boxes.
could do it all with a couple boxes but I'm a sucker for all-in-one toy, just keeps the workflow easy.

12 (edited by mortis lock 2011-12-08 16:18:37)

Re: portable jams

i badly want an Op-1 ,I used the ES1 for years and it is pretty amazing still.
also the korg MS20 thing for the nintendo DS is a laugh and very cheap.

Re: portable jams

@mortis lock - OP-1 for 700e in Rotterdam:

http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewto … 34bec31632

http://sneak-thief.com - raw electrofunk

Re: portable jams

Hi, I just discovered this site but I've had the OP-1 for a few months so I thought I would post. I picked it up to be sort of like my synth "harmonica" that I could take anywhere and make music with.

It's attractive and fun but has some frustrating limitations that make it hard to go beyond a scratch pad. Little things are missing that you would expect in a device of this level, like changing velocity on hits in drum patterns. It can also be hard to sync things together and edit using the tape recorder. It's not pleasant to have drum loops click when you loop them and with the limited midi sequencing makes constructing a whole track and recording it to the 4track live a less likely solution.

The synths sound great, the arps are wonderful and the unit is well built so even with these limitations you can still get a lot of mileage out of it but don't expect the type of sequencing you would get with an MPC.

Re: portable jams

rarara wrote:

would imagine its all about the android/iphone apps with these youngsters nowadays  roll

Well I got an ipod touch at xmas(2nd gen) as a lady at work was selling them to get new ones for her spoilt children.
Anyway, I thought i'd try out an ipod as i've always been a bit scathing about apple things without every really owning one to be objective about it.  And my impression is its a great interface, though i'll stick to my stance of not liking itunes.
Anyway, the 1st thing i did was search for and install some music apps. 
Nanoloop - Being an original nanoloop user I was keen to try and it works great.  The parameter sequencing isn't as exciting but interface works quite well and sampler is great
Tonepad/Beatwave - tenori-on style things.  not too editable but i don't think the tenori is either?
technobox - simple rebirth type thing. 808/909/303. its great. pity theres no reverb.
nodebeat - nice to play with and uses touch interface quite well. I like these sort of generative things though you can't help but think your playing someone elses music
nanostudio - seems to be popular on iphones/pads etc.  the mpc-pads - drums bit is good and synth is easy to work
sunvox - pretty mad design of tracker with slight modular side to it

thats what i've tried so far.  Theres maybe another app thread somewhere but i posted here because though its no OP-1, as a hardware substitute its not too bad for portable jams. (bus, train, hotel room, bed, impromtu house parties).

Re: portable jams

cool i'm looking forward to checking out tonepad and sunvox

i like funkbox, bebot, technobox, rebirth, beatmaker, minisynth, bassline, DXi, sampletoy, and nanostudio

they are all good fun and cool to mess with but aside from using them to sample into an sk1, never made a track with them

nanostudio looks to have good potential to cover the bases to make a track

yeah boyeee

Re: portable jams

I've got Nanostudio. It's great but to be honest on small screen it's a bit too fiddly to make a whole track with. Never seem to get beyond messing around on it.

Re: portable jams

how is the QY70 or 100 for live shows?
i'm currently use RM1X but think about smaller sequencer for traveling

can i copy data from RM1x to the QYx ?

19 (edited by score100 2012-07-22 03:37:16)

Re: portable jams

I just found a Yamaha QY10 in my dads storage. It's about as big as a gameboy, and I'm planning to use it for sequencing. Might play around with the hardcore cheesy sounds of it as well though. big_smile
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJCuQQ3V … re=related[/youtube]