I was always a hardware nut. Over the years I'd collected, sold and rebought masses of synths and samplers starting with the Korg MonoPoly and pro-One and ending with an EPS-16. I did most of my music with my music partner at his studio, but also had a small home set-up. About two years ago (is that all?!) I decided that my home set-up was getting a bit old and songs had stopped "falling out" of the machines.
I already used computers about 12 hours a day and was pretty familar with sequencing hardware with VST, so my first thought was: "I'm not going to have anything on computer. I'm sick of fiddling and tweaking. EVERYTHING will be hardware, including the sequencer."
Nice idea, but when I started adding up what it was all going to cost me I felt a bit ill. I could either get a good hardware sequencer/sampler OR a good workstation.
So at the suggestion of my studio partner I started looking at the computer-based options. I researched like crazy and after many late nights on the web I was simply confused.
How many voices could I get ? How choked would my PC be (just a PII 450 at the time) ? I was seriously considering Reaktor until I went to a music shop and they just shook their head when I told them what PC and sound card I had. It seemed I needed a new PC, new soundcard and Reaktor.
"What else have you got ?" I asked. The salesman pulled out the Pulsar-II box. Well, I'd read about it on the web but it wasn't clear to me at all how it really worked and what you got.
I asked him to set it up so I could have a listen. He turned a bit green and said that it was too complex and it'd take then a couple of weeks at least.
So I offered to take it on 7-days approval.
Well, for the first day I couldn't get a single f^%$*king sound out of thing. I was going nuts. The routing window struck me as confusing and complex.
But after another few days everything came good. I downloaded the free ModV2 and fell in love with it immediately. It was so superior to the rather lame stock synths.
I was a bit disppointed there was no sampler included and so bought the STS-3000. I perservered with it for a while, but since I don't use sample CDs, I found it exremely unfriendly and slow and have never used it since.
The first few weeks were heady though: I discovered all the free devices and was downloading and tweaking like crazy.
I've often said that the Pulsar-II was the best bit of kit I've ever bought and still believe that to be true. It's a brilliant card which has just got better with every update
But don't think that'll stop me from complaining about it
. That's the best spended money.
for
