The most useless piece of gear you own

Discussion in 'Soundgear' started by Lenny Belardo, Aug 27, 2020.

  1. Smoove Grooves

    Smoove Grooves Audiosexual

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    Shouldn't it turn into a truck or something? lol
    No it was the same model as above. I've never had any trouble with them myself. I like them.
    But I'm good at trouble shooting MIDI problems. I don't know why I've come across them making MIDI glitches so much though.
    Probably the studio owner!
     
  2. Funk U

    Funk U Platinum Record

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    If it's useless to you can I have it? Serious question.
     
  3. Xupito

    Xupito Audiosexual

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    It's a harsh truth, but being single... since the start of the coronalypse that's my most useless hardware. Not even worth for decorating as proved:

    [​IMG]
     
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  4. kintozero

    kintozero Kapellmeister

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    1) The original Korg MS-20 Legacy Midi controller.
    It only works with the standalone, not with the VST, so it doesn't do me much good.
    I spent countless hours trying to find a workaround to map the messages/get it to work with the VST, with no luck.
    ms-20 patchbay.jpg

    2) the OG Pro-Tools M-Box 1.
    Spent countless hours trying to find a way to make it work on Windows 8.1/Windows 10. I heard of a 3rd party driver that was supposed to do the trick, but it cost enough that it made more sense to just buy another audio interface. digidesign-mbox-original-l2.jpg
     
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  5. trutzburg

    trutzburg Kapellmeister

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    Mine works very well with the vst. Though I bought it just as a piece of furniture, reminding me of what I once have sold stupidly (and which was then pretty useless for me, too).
     
  6. Triphammer

    Triphammer Producer

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    Well....I hate to ding Presonus again....as I own & love a bunch of their stuff, (and I was a mod on their forums....LOL!!).
    BUT....that being said....the original Firestation is the most well designed and built boat anchor I've ever owned.
    But the fault is more Yamaha's than Presonus. This was a joint venture that incorporated Yammie's ill fated mLAN.
    The Firestation pretty much never worked as intended and Yamaha left Presonus holding a bag of dog doo and a bunch
    of angry customers. And they never really made it right. Bear in mind that this was a CRAZY expensive device when new.
    So anyone that bought it new probably swore off of Presonus forever. I was given mine so.....no loss there.

    I had heard a rumor that, if the device was running the original firmware, it could be used as a high end standalone
    preamp. But, in their infinite wisdom, Presonus released a firmware update that ruined the ONE useful thing this paperweight
    could do. And it can't be rolled back. Of course mine had the newer firmware so it's nothing more than a very well made boat
    anchor. I hate the thought of just tossing it in the landfill and I'd feel bad if I tried to sell it....even to someone I don't like!
    So their it sits.

    [​IMG]
     
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  7. Smoove Grooves

    Smoove Grooves Audiosexual

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    He plays it so well. He must be really experienced.
    What a flippin' noise!
    Give me a rain-stick any day!
    Frequency of baby's rattle chills them out, and evidently works on the crown chakra.
    That drum thing will make them cry!
     
  8. Smoove Grooves

    Smoove Grooves Audiosexual

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    You can do that with your socks, but these things are only supposed to be used once.
     
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  9. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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    How on earth does 59 euros makes any sense to buy another interface. Ploytek make & sell this driver and they are a very small company. You should know (and excuse me if you already do) that developing a driver for hardware you haven't built yourself, takes a lot of manhours and troubleshooting. Given that it reportedly works on Win XP/7/8/8.1/10 both 32 and 64 bit, this is a very good purchase because the pre-amp on this box is actually ok. In fact there are mods out there to use it just as an external pre-amp.
    The only minor about the driver, is it won't go below a buffer of 128 samples (fast setting), but this of course is hardware limitation and many modern cards won't go there either. For what it's worth, the shame of having to pay extra money to buy a 3rd party driver goes to effin' Avid and noone else.
    Errr, this should work under Win10 (there is also a variant version for Win8). If after installation your controller is correctly recognized, it should work with your vst MS-20 version and/or Legacy Cell as well, but with the latter the modular patch section on the right won't do anything unless you load the MS-20, so only the rotary controls will work with the rest of the synths.
    https://www.korg.com/us/support/download/driver/1/285/3541/
    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2020
  10. I can't get it to load the software anymore and without the software the hardware won't mount. That, I assume is the problem. Or maybe it asked for my serial number from 1834 when I purchased it, as I was sailing to Terra Australis. The piece of parchment with the number flew out of my hands in a sudden gust of wind from the Captains trousers and went overboard, so I sent a young deck hand to fetch it. He failed. Eventually we ran out of deck hands and the poop deck never got scrubbed again. The stench was intolerable.
     
  11. Zenarcist

    Zenarcist Audiosexual

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    Have you got the Reaper firmware installed? It does a few useful things, and you can even program the buttons. It's also handy for punching in with a footswitch.
     
  12. Zenarcist

    Zenarcist Audiosexual

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    I have one (original 80s), do you know what midi => CV/gate converter is best?
     
  13. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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  14. kintozero

    kintozero Kapellmeister

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    thanks for responding!
    re: M-Box 1 & Ploytek driver
    $70 gamble (was not certain the driver would work) vs $130 for a Focusrite interface, I went with the sure bet.
    I now realize there is a demo driver, but after spending so much time trying to troubleshoot the M-Box, I figured I had it long enough & it was time to "upgrade" to a "modern" interface designed to work with a modern OS.

    re: Korg MS-20 controller
    I believe they redid the way midi works after the MS20ic models, so getting the latest drivers has never solved my problem, but I'll try again with the latest one. I try every few years with no success; I think the midi driver for the early run of the MS20 controller just works different. Again, it works with the standalone, just not with the VST. At some point I documented what midi message each patch bay port was sending out, see the photo in my earlier post. I'll also try with the most recent version of the MS20 VST I downloaded (I believe it was a couple months ago). Not holding my breath here, I've tried this on & off for many years & never gotten the knobs/patchbay to work with the MS20 VST in the entire time I've owned it, across several computers/OSes/different drivers & MS20 VST versions.
     
  15. phloopy

    phloopy Audiosexual

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    [​IMG]
     
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  16. 5teezo

    5teezo Audiosexual

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  17. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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    My most frustrating experience:
    Lexicon I/O 42 first edition.
    I bought it for my wife's home recordings but of course it had a run from the studio first. The outside build quality of this interface was perfect and as sturdy as the very best you can buy. Not obvious, but the first edition of this audio interface had DBX pre-amps, which essentially were the loudest pres i ever heard in an audio interface below 400 euros and perhaps most interfaces regardless price. Some quick measurements the first two days showed a really unusual ~82.5db of gain on the mic pre with some audible but sort of sweet (at least to my ears) saturation. Surely this was a manufacturing mistake, but one that i would never complain about if only the thing had worked for more than 2 weeks. After that period, the card started disappearing suddenly while working. Both in Win and macOSX (at the time). After two subsequent returns to the official service of Lexicon and many lengthy phonecalls, the fools replied to me that card works(!) and refused to refund or replace it. All i can say is that the audacity and rudeness of some people in the industry is beyond my train of thought. After a last unsuccesful attempt and installation on 8 different comps, i took a trip to Athens, went there with a hammer and smashed the freaking thing to pieces in front of their surprised and somewhat frightened faces. Sue me motherfuckers (but they never did). I also promised them to never buy anything from their fkn Harman corp. again. :trashing: :thumbsdown:
    On second thought this should 've been a combination of bad driver + faulty hardware. Moreover, a quick visit to their website, reveals that Lexicon have discontinued their entire audio interface line up, which speaks volumes by itself. So here, the beauty and the beast in one incarnation:
    Lexicon io42_original.jpg
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2020
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  18. Willum

    Willum Rock Star

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    My ears.

    Terrible tinnitus and also can't hear much above about 7-8khz.

    TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEARING.
     
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  19. spacetime

    spacetime Platinum Record

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    thats some nice gear you have there, it would be a shame if it were completely useless
     
  20. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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    I've started with just mouse+keyboard years ago, and I personally don't find Faderport providing any advantage in terms of workflow speed when it comes to editing/mixing, I don't even need a physical fader console when recording with RME's TotalMix FX live,
    hand-drawing/sidechain-key-automating is way faster and more accurate than waiting for audio to play moving fader along

    nah, works fine, some people may have problems since Faderport can operate at different modes, which may trigger randomly after power on or computer reboot,
    although I gotta admit upgrading firmware on that unit was the most frustrating experience I've ever had (computer had to have no usb 3.0 ports, specific OS version, I ended up building an i5-2500 based El Capitan hackintosh with injected usb ports solely for that purpose which finally worked)

    indeed, also works like a charm with Reaper here, and also I did some custom scripting to make it partially work as RME TotalMix FX controller

    nope, the old silver one as shown in the pic :)

    I find motorized faders far more useful than non-motorized faders, but still less useful than mouse+keyboard

    ah, it's the "most useless piece of gear" I have, but that actually means all the other stuff I have I use all the time, in that regard I'm not really planning/considering getting rid of the Faderport just yet, I got it fairly cheap so I like to use it for various projects, one day I'll make it a main volume controller for Windows perhaps

    :chilling:
     
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