Is there an intuitive (but powerful) music thingie?
Sorry about the headline. (not really) I know it doesn't make all that much sense. The thing is, I bought a Dubreq Stylophone Beatbox (review here) and it's really quite fun to play around with. At its core, it lets you record and play your own rhythms in a loop. It sort of feels like an unholy mix between a musical instrument and an editor.
The problem is that I can't save as an editable format (midi or ... whatever) or import new instruments, so while its great fun and quite powerful (I composed this) I still feel the need for something more flexible. Also, I accidently borrowed it away, so while I still "own" it, I don't actually have it as such.
So, are there any other thingie which (gonna repeat the headline here) are fun and intuitive, yet still grants me some more power compared to what is offered by the Stylophone Beatbox? I don't mind if it is a program of a physical thing.
EDIT: Thanks all! I had expected one, maybe two suggestions, so, wow! This is pretty much a new world to me, and I'm floored that there's so much music stuff available. I'm slowly beginning to get some sort of overview of it all.
You're getting into the hobby at a time when options are falling out of our ears for music thingies in which entire albums can be produced. You picked a good time.
Polyend Play has already been mentioned. It's fun but I'm a bias source because I like trackers.
On the topic of trackers: M8 Tracker is insanely powerful. I suggest it over the Polyend Play and Play+ because simply because the M8 leans harder into its form factor. It's my main dish when I'm away from my eurorack or banjo. I love it to death. Pre-orders for the Model 02 should be reopening again soon. $$$$ but worth every penny if you're fearless of trackers.
If you want fun curiosities that are relatively inexpensive, Teenage Enginneering's PO-33 (versatile little sampler) and the PO-20 (a quasi-chiptune maker). Their interfaces are not exactly user-friendly but they get the job done.
Avoid all other Teenage Engineering products. You'll run into them eventually if you continue down this path. They're overpriced, poorly built, gimmicky (as the POs are but at least the POs are relatively inexpensive for what they are), and whatever you want from a TE product you can find better elsewhere.
The Korg Volca line is just okay imo. They sound great (wonderful, actually, except a couple but that's subjective or course), but the workflow is just not there on many of them. If you're going to get a Korg just commit and get one of their classics or a flagship. Something bigger - Korg doesn't do compact workflow well (for my admittedly shitty taste, I mean I'm up there suggesting trackers which can be notoriously obtuse so take my opinion with a heap of salt).
If you really want to get experimental, SunVox on Android and iPhone. Really hard to use on the phone but it's also pretty cheap and uses modular synthesis philosophy in instrument design and quasi-tracker for composition. So just really super flexible and equally obtuse and cumbersome. I love it, but for all its efforts at approachability and despite its many improvements, I would still call it "user hostile" though it tries earnestly not to be.
For computers/DAWs (digital audio workstations): well SunVox is free on PC.
FL Studio is what I grew up in when it was still called Fruity Loops so I'm obviously very inclined to suggest it over something like Ableton but there's no technical or logical reason for me to prefer FL over Ableton. It's just what I'm used to and also I paid a bunch of money for it so why switch?
Ableton is another DAW that's extremely powerful and pretty much infinitely flexible. With both FL Studio or Ableton the only reason you might not be able to do something is because you haven't watched the right YouTube video or read the right tutorial. If it's even distantly related to sound design or music composition, Ableton or FL Studio can do it natively or someone has made a free plugin that can do it.
The above can be said about many DAWs. When you're working "in the box" with a DAW, they'll always be eternally more powerful, more flexible, and significantly easier to use than any groovebox or music thingies for actual music production. But sometimes a person wants to get away from a computer screen and instead look at a tinier, more difficult to read computer screen with multiple layers of menus, so we turn to things like the M8 or Polyend.
There are other DAWs out there like Cubase and Reaper but with Cubase it's something youths talk about and I don't know about them, and Reaper is a tracker (oops, I confused this with Renoise, see the correction by @V17) and I've said enough about them (but can you really say enough about them)?
Things I don't have direct experience with but envy those who do:
Liven XM - an FM groovebox that seems to have a relatively painless workflow.
Liven Warps - chiptune instead of XM but same as above.
Liven Texture - granular synth instead, but otherwise same as above above. Granular synthesis will change your life. It's my one lament about the M8 - it's incapable of doing so on its own and needs outside help.
I've heard good things about the Roland MC-707 but I also see a lot of people complain about Roland in general so I'm not sure. But it fits the bill for what you want...maybe.
Some unsolicited advice:
Stay way from modular/eurorack. It's a hobby for drooling idiots like myself. I've spent several thousands over several years building mine to perfection, and it does exactly what I can do with a piece of 50 dollar software on my computer (or free if you are intelligent, unlike me, and just use VCV rack) in a fraction of the time. And unlike my eurorack, when I spend hours building a patch, I can click save on my computer and come back to it later.
I have a Liven XFM. It’s honestly not terribly great. The interface is actually incredibly obtuse, and editing sound is doubly so; you basically can’t do it without a cardboard overlay because every single button and knob is so overloaded with functions that they can’t put all the legends on it. The build quality is terrible (nothing has broken but it feels bad; it’s all hard plastic and unfriendly), and the only screen on it is capable of displaying just 4 characters.
It’s for a very specific audience, so it might work for you but I don’t think that OP would like it. All of the Liven series has essentially the same hardware behind it so for the most part my comments work for all of them.
Well, that's disappointing. They always intrigued me but I never pulled the trigger on them because I don't want to just buy one "just 'cause." Good to know I shouldn't hold out for one though.
There is definitely an audience who would appreciate it and the way it works. It’s pretty good for live performances especially. I just don’t think it’s a good recommendation for OP.
Reaper is not a tracker, reaper is a standard linear DAW that is quite surprisingly deep and flexible for how cheap it is. It's a great one. Getting something like Ableton's performance mode (or how it's called) is only possible with user scripts though, not really made for that. Perhaps you meant to say Renoise (which is also awesome)?
What you say about Cubase is funny because in my mind it's a classic DAW that was popular when I was a kid and is mostly used by pros. Apparently still really good and deep, but again meant more for standard linear work (recording in a studio or composing).
Signing this. It's one of the best toys ever made, but when you do realize that it really is just a toy for most people, it's expensive as hell. There is merit in doing things physically to get a different source of inspiration, but few people seem to really be able to use that benefit to create or perform music they wouldn't be able to with different, cheaper tools.
Every time I see a young dude with just a modular about to perform somewhere, I expect it to be shit, and most of the time it is.
Thanks for the correction. I confused Reaper with Renoise. This speaks to the depth of my experience with both of them!
I think I associate Cubase with a younger audience because it wasn't on my radar when I was first learning in '03 or so. Fast forward about 15 years or so, I was long-term subbing for ELA and while chatting with some of my students, we got to talking about music production and they all talked about Cubase. They're probably just better than me.
no justify my op1 purchase pls
Also this is beautiful and I would buy a cross stitch of it, because I am a sucker as previously demonstrated
Hey, thanks for taking your time for this meaty writeup! Eurorack and banjo sounds like a wicked combo. Regarding modular/eurorack, I already got that stuff .. in a sense. I bought SynthSpace and I could easily see that this was some plenty powerful gadgets. Only, there is a bit of a learning curve that I couldn't quite get past. (It's not the real thing, of course, but I think VR is pretty good at giving a close enough simulation of physicality with significantly less bother.)
What do you think of the PO-33 II? I might buy it because I find the PO-33 a bit more frustrating than fun when I want to play with it. I don't plan to do any serious music production with it but I'd like something easy to pick up and play (once I get past the learning curve)
Budget wise, €300 is the max I could invest. The M8 and polyend look cool but are quite expensive
I have no experience with the EP-133 II so keep that in mind as you read.
Teenage Engineering has had pretty big QA and build quality issues in recent years. This has manifested in various ways - with the OP-Z, the chassis would curve quite noticably over time. With the POM-400, the paint would chip off at the bends. With the OP-1, there is audio popping where a performance is sliced (lifted, I mean) on the tape between bars.
These are just what I (and others) have direct experience with. I say all of this to establish that their build issues are endemic throughout their product lines - it's an issue with the entire company. They just don't build quality products.
So with that in mind, I've read many reviews which mention that the fader knob breaks off. Sometimes right away, sometimes after some use. Because they have an established track record of building sub-quality products prone to breaking (but not bricking, it's still technically functional), I don't believe these reviews are isolated cases nor are they exaggerating.
I believe if you spend money on an EP-133, you'll be buying a product in which a key element will break rather easily. For that reason, I suggest you stay away from it.
I've frequently heard it said: "Teenage Engineering is a design company, not a synth company." I've never quite understood what the point of this is, but my interpretation is that they have great design instincts. They make things that look cool and funky and very artistic. They have style. That compels people to buy it. Why not? They problem is that for some reason they can't stamp out their build quality issues. Whether they can't or won't, I don't know. But when you compare build quality to the price you pay, the gap is too large. Teenage Engineering should be charging Berhinger prices for how shoddy their build quality can be - not Apple prices.
I don't want to wax cantankerously for too long lest everyone is blinded by the grinded edges of my axe.
With your budget in mind, if samplers are what you want, may I suggest an SP-404a on Reverb? They regularly pop up on there for 250-300 USD. There will still be a lot of menu diving but I think it's unavoidable at this point.
I know I suggested to OP that Volcas may not be great for them, but the Volca Sample 2 is 150 USD new and it I think it might work well for you. BUT please keep in mind that I have no idea if you can put down an entire track with one. It has 10 tracks but I'm not sure if they can trigger simultaneously.
Check out a tutorial videos on the SP-404a and Volca Sample 2 and see which one has the workflow that clicks better with you while still targeting your musical goal. You may also want to download the manuals for them and read them through to get an idea of it beyond what a tutorial video might offer.
Many thanks for that thorough answer, I appreciate it.
Edit: The Volca Sample 2 looks really fine for its price (especially compared to my PO-33)!
That thing is some A+ product design. I'm not musicly inclined, but talk about a great curiosity to have on a shelf.
Gonna throw out a recommendation for Koala Sampler, available free on Android and iOS, but I highly recommend getting the Samurai add-on for a small fee.
Koala is an awesome app for its price.
I also use it to clean samples before importing them into my PO-33
Fruityloops is software, might be what you're looking for. I think it's free? Or there is a decent trial.
If you just want to build some beats, practically every DAW has some sort of beat builder interface that lets you visually lay down beats.
If you want a good way to do melodic beats, the best interface for that is a tracker. It will seem extremely weird at first but once you learn the fundamentals it’s extremely intuitive.
Polyend Play, which can be had for $400 US, as mentioned. It's quite powerful and super fun. The Tracker is solid as well and can be had used for around the same price, but more fiddly by design.
I'm partial to Renoise, a tracker, for computer-based music because it has three main interfaces: Patterns, Samples+Instruments, and Mixer with an arrangement blade to the left and fx/automations on the bottom. The complaint is they look unintuitive but there is also no data abstraction which, I think, lets you focus on just putting stuff down. Sampled instruments/drumkits are super easy to configure, and automation (changing parameters in real time) is super easy either with channel effects or automation graphs.
In tight second is Bitwig, but it's a bit pricy. You can do what I did and buy a used/cheap license and upgrade it, so I got on board for like $150 off buying a used Bitwig 16 track license and upgrading it. It has everything one needs to make music. It costs like $150 to renew, but you can use the major version last released in your year-long license indefinitely. Like Renoise, it runs on Window, Mac and Linux
FL studio is amazing, but I don't like it for workflow reasons. Enough people do, though, and it truly is a deal, especially if you catch sales. I got the full bundle for a total of $400, starting at Signature and catching the Complete set on sale for $200. It's all perpetual licenses as well, and runs on Windows and Mac.
I love my Synthstrom Deluge, which I sometimes use in combination with Bitwig DAW.
I also have a Novation Circuit Tracks which I can't recommend over Deluge. It's one third the price though
Oh my goodness, I think we've all failed you horribly here, or at least three of us did, and this demands a top-level comment.
Bespoke Synth with Surge XT and Vital, and you've got a nice, easy modular interface with non-linear arrangement, and easy to use sequencers that let you go much deeper at your own pace. @Bauke posted something he did which gave me an epiphany that this probably checks all of your boxes. The two VSTs I mentioned are free and run on Windows, Linux and MacOS, an probably anything else you could build them on. Get TheModArchive's Waveworld bundle for a bunch of solid drum machine samples and you're off to the races.
Its connections are completely straightforward and its sequencers are small and customizable. You have to create your own workflow, but it's not that hard, and you can take your time to learn how things work to go deeper.
Oh no, I would not consider Bespoke to be beginner friendly at all. It has a somewhat miraculous level of user-friendliness to the UI considering its capabilities, but you have to know a lot of the theory behind it to get proper use out of it. Without that you will come across so many roadblocks that won’t make much sense.
The post isn't about beginner friendly, but intuitive and powerful interface. A major advantage Bespoke has is its general transparency as a modular system. There's logic to sort out for more advanced setups, but it works perfectly fine in simpler contexts, and doesnt have three to five interfaces to learn, just a bunch of modules that show you how they behave, and optional scripting modules.
Another major feature that led me to that comment is that It locks to scales which removes the major barrier to musicality, a major thing I struggled with early on, as well.
I don't know how intuitive they are to use, since I've never used one myself, but I've seen a lot of musicians using various music/beat/groove/launch pads over the years. E.g. Madeon - Pop Culture (live mashup) using a Novation Launchpad.
For something more piano-ish, I'm a fan of the Arturia Minilab. You get a two octave keyboard and a bunch of programmable knobs that integrate well with the bundled software: you get the lite version of Analog Lab from the Arturia V collection and the basic eight-track lite version of Ableton for free, either of which would cost about what the ~$100 controller costs on their own. It's definitely a good starting place, with a lot of flexibility.
I have a Minilab, which I use in conjunction with Reaper. It's been a great little device for getting down whatever melodies, drum rhythms, or just little synth experiments for random plug-ins. The knobs and pads can be set to control all sorts of parameters or samples, the pads are velocity sensitive, and the whole unit is pretty compact. Not sure I'd call it intuitive per se, and it's not really standalone as it requires a usb connection to a computer, but it's been a delight the whole time.
They're fun controllers, but they're usually used in conjunction with Ableton or another DAW, which I'm not sure if OP is looking for or not. It sounds like they want something more stand alone?
The Novation Circuit range are supposedly standalone:
https://novationmusic.com/products/circuit-rhythm
https://novationmusic.com/products/circuit-tracks
You presumably still need access to a computer (and their software) to load new samples onto them though. And they're also pretty damn pricey too.
I've recently gotten my hands on a Polyend Play, and it's incredible. Especially for a DAWless setup, you can sequence 8 tracks of samples as audio output while simultaneously sequencing 8 tracks of polyphonic MIDI (yes, that means chords) -- this thing has become the new heart of my studio tbh.
Benn Jordan's got a great review, and he did a video where he took it across the country and used it to make music from samples he recorded on the journey. Definitely worth checking out.
They also just released the Play+ which is basically the same thing but ~$250 more and has an on-board digital synthesis engine, so you can synthesize your own sounds instead of just samples. But tbh the regular Play is still worth the $, and you can find them cheap now that people are upgrading to the +.
Have you heard of the Artphon Orba? It’s a more intuitively built looper that lets you layer drum, bass, chords and a solo of various electronic sounds. It doesn’t take much music know-how because all the notes are automatically in the same key. There’s an app you can change three key as well as experiment with various sound packs to use, but the real fun is just doing an impromptu jam when you’re bored.
Easy to travel with and it can connect via aux cord to a speaker. It can output midi through USB to use with a DAW but I’ve never tried doing that with a whole loop going, so it may only capture the currently played voice.