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Old Tech, better or just making you more creative?



Most of us who have produced Music for more than perhaps a decade have a nostalgia for old gear. Often very basic setups, but enough to maybe make a first record with it. But were they really that good? or did they just make us more creative?

I started making electronic music with software, then moved to a hardware setup with just a few pieces of gear. I remember my first sampler, the Zoom ST224 phrase sampler. It had 8 voice polyphony, 16 mb of ram, 8 drumpads, 3 banks, Effect processor, sample editing and  resampling capabilities. It didnt have a perhaps say a AKai s950 sound but it was special and its limitations made me work around it.

I finished a first demo in the early 2000's with it, slaving the device over midi to a 4-track portastudio
and then importing the wavs to a computer. This was my 1st music setup. Using my Technics 1200 to sample from, and then editing and looping on the Zoom st224, making the arrangement as a live session and recording it over to a zoom 4 track portastudio.


With only 16 mb of memory the ram was filled quickly. Comparing to a modern setup, the amount of memory now is allmost crazy.

Limited sequencer, with a low resolution, with no 1/2 notes. The workaround was to sequence in 240 bpms instead of 120bpm . 
No timestretching?  The workaround: I inserted a reversed copy after the sample extending the sound to as long as I wanted it to be.
No mixer? The workaround: setting levels right from the volume settings in the sampler.

With a few mentions of working around the limitations, was my old sampler better than the software used today? The answer is no. Not in terms of specifications, but its limitations made me more creative and I had to think outside of the box.


Music includes alot of problemsolving, when the sound doesnt have the sonic characteristics it should have, you have to know how to shape or edit the sound to get back to the "sounds good".

Old technology is often compared to how big the gap is in specifications to modern Tech, or how advanced it was for its time. The 16 mbs of memorycards vs todays terrabytes, are a million times bigger. The limitations can make a musician more creative.

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