# Hands, With Occasional Beard... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2012-04-01 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2012/04/hands-with-occasional-beard/ It's been a while since I did a Disembodied Hands Touching Gear video, so I busted one out this afternoon. I've picked up quite a few new pieces of kit in the intervening months, and some of it appears in this video. The bassline is the old MeeBlip, while the main melody is the new MeeBlip SE; I think you can pretty clearly hear the difference. The new one is quite a bit cleaner and more sedate. There are significant UI differences between the two, despite their identical panel layout, and this means a pretty big divergence in the results. I had a feeling this would be the case when I saw the specs for the new one, which is why I didn't update my old one. I plan to keep both. They are essentially different synths entirely. That said, a MeeBlip of any stripe is now, and has been since its initial release, the best deal in new hardware synth gear, period, for what you get versus cost. The drums and percussion are all from the Maschine. I have a Mikro controller, and am seriously thinking about switching up to the Makro one; I'm still trying to decide if it fits in my workflow, though. I'm having a strange struggle with the gain structure, and I'll probably upgrade to the bigger one if I figure it out. (Obviously, the software part that actually makes sound is not dependent on which controller is used.) The samples are all from my pretty large library of TX81Z percussion sounds; I sampled directly in to the Maschine software. This was an interesting exercise, since it functions essentially identically to a hardware sampling drum machine. Kickin' it old school with the new hybrid gear, yo. Towards the end, the little percussion pattern that comes in is the SammichFM, which is a [MidiBox FM](http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm_manual.html) in a little desktop box, from the same folks that brought you the SammichSid. Information available [here](http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=sammichfm). Short version: it is basically a MIDI-to-Yamaha OPL3 Chip interface unit, so essentially a 4-op FM synth nearly identical to a Yamaha TQ-5, except without the FX. Or a volume knob. This will rapidly drive me insane; as you can see in the video (or any of my many other videos) I arrange when I improvise by turning the volume on the units up and down. Grrrr. Argh. It sounds like an OPL3-based synth, anyhow, albeit with a much nicer user interface. The DSI Tetr4 makes its normal appearance, as well as my Eventide TimeFactor and Space. (They are the only effects used, period, other than a couple compressors and gates in Live to tame things; they are configured as External Effects in Live.) ## Comments (31) **inteliko** (2012-04-01): IM 10 Seconds into... that bassline is filthier than your first Hustler mag ! **inteliko** (2012-04-01): MeeBlip melody is lush, great tune. **Mike Nickel** (2012-04-01): Very cool, thanks. **bleen** (2012-04-01): This may be my favorite improv, yet. Sounds great and makes me even more excited about he MeeBlip that will be crossing the border to me next week. **MrMZ** (2012-04-01): That was well worth the wait. Thanks. Good to hear you're feeling better. **beauty pill** (2012-04-01): This is cool! (Also: Micronaut alias is officially retired? You are always the One True Micronaut to me.) - c **Chris Randall** (2012-04-01): Yeah, there's just too many now. I wasn't aware of "the Micronauts" when I concurrently chose the name. However, they only did a couple remixes then stopped using it, so it was never much of a problem. Now, there are 8 that I know about, and 7 of them are in other countries so there's nothing I can do about it. The one in New Orleans, I wrote him but he never wrote me back; neither did he do any more shows under the name, though. Basically, I just gave up. Plus it's silly to have name demarcations amongst the music I do, I think. -CR **DGillespie** (2012-04-01): Totally digging the funky backbeat. **boobs** (2012-04-01): the micronauts (french guys) seemed to have dried up around 2008 per discogs. speedy J did a nice remix of their track "the jag" otherwise their output is not my thing. http://youtu.be/aaaar7fINDk there's also the micranots who do hip hop. i some times think of dropping the moniker.... or retiring it and making up a new one like LMFAOWTFPOSBTWDTF anyway - nice jam. :) **bongo_x** (2012-04-02): >i some times think of dropping the moniker< I don't know, boobs is a pretty great name. >CR I was curious about the name thing. I was just discussing last night how people use different names for projects that sound even slightly different, while in the past artists would put out a wide variety of material under the same name. I always say that if I need to become familiar with an artist I just listen to the 30 second iTunes preview of one song and I know everything about their career. bb **obscurerobot** (2012-04-02): The Nautsteppers **boobs** (2012-04-02): @bongo_x - i'll never give up the boobs ;) music making moniker is different.. if i had used boobs as music making moniker i might have become infamously famous or something. **cymatics** (2012-04-02): This is great. One of those 'grooves' that can just go on, and on, and on, but never gets bad. Those are hard to find... **synthetic** (2012-04-02): Great jam, my favorite of this series so far. **metaphysician** (2012-04-02): percolate-o-licious...agree about the meeblip bassline too...very nice! **Cutter Filtoff** (2012-04-02): I dig that SammichFM line noiking along. **Wade Alin** (2012-04-02): You could always just give up and call it "The Micronaut Project." Fucking Bulgaria. **synthetic** (2012-04-02): Just watched this vid that's not as good, and each of the synths used are worth 100x more than your Miniblips (and doing the same thing). I thought it was an amusing contrast: http://youtu.be/3SOM0bLpRrc **Chris Randall** (2012-04-02): There's musicians, and then there's wankers. Wankers seem to have a lot more money than musicians, by and large. -CR **shamann** (2012-04-02): I don't think I'd stick Benge in with the wankers, although based on that video, I'd certainly like to ask him to invest in a tripod. **Chris Randall** (2012-04-02): Oh, I've done my share of wanking. It usually coincides with large bursts of income. Correlation is not causation, but I'm just sayin'. That said, if a review of a dude's album concentrates more on the gear used than the musical result, that could be considered a big yellow "WANKING AHEAD" warning sign. -CR **shamann** (2012-04-03): True enough. Oddly, that puts me in mind of the liner notes of some Spacemen 3 record we listened to in the late 80s/early 90s, had the brands of instruments they played listed. "Sonic Boom plays the Fender Jaguar, Jason Pierce plays the Farfisa Organ..." **rollmottle** (2012-04-03): This sounds like Autechre meets John Carpenter. That deep reverb on the melody is very nice. Thought it was Valhalla until I read the post. Pretty impressive for a stompbox. **Chris Randall** (2012-04-03): The Eventide Space is a really excellent pedal, no doubt. You kind of have to like the Eventide 'verb sound, which trends very robust. But assuming you do (which I do) it is probably the best current bang-for-the-buck as far as hardware reverbs go, at least that I'm aware of. -CR **Duke Fame** (2012-04-03): Damn, I'm getting old. The PAIA Fatman used to be the best deal in new music gear, bar none. Now it cost $260. **Chris Randall** (2012-04-03): Also, you have to build it, which is a minus. -CR **obscurerobot** (2012-04-03): Money -> New Gear -> Wanking -> More New Gear -> No Money -> Practice -> More Practice -> Still No Money -> Years of Practice -> Finally Adept With The Gear -> Music **seancostello** (2012-04-03): @shamann: Speaking of Spacemen 3 and wanking, I saw Sonic Boom play with a local band, Jessamine, back in 1996 or so. Boom had a 6-panel Serge Modular, as well as a Synthi AKS. The keyboardist from Jessamine had a Farfisa and Micromoog (pretty cheap, minimal kit at the time). The sounds that the Jessamine guy got from the Micromoog were far more musical and interesting than anything coming out of the Serge/Synthi combo. It seemed like Sonic Boom had the money for the gear at that point, but hadn't taken the time to learn how to use it. **ehdyn** (2012-04-03): Really nice jam - You should call it Many Worlds Theory, sounds like it could spiral out in so many different directions. Something about that reverb decay is just better than any of my software reverbs-need one of these eventides **Chris Randall** (2012-04-03): That's the Hall algorithm. Some of the other ones are just too thick to use for synths, but Black Hole and Hall (which are the "classic" Eventide reverb algos, anyhow) are fantastic. -CR **ehdyn** (2012-04-03): Good to know-listening back to my files and most of them are ruined because the reverb is cycling or something-tough to describe and very subtle but its there-Just Ropey. Im going to try one of these Valhalla reverbs but thats probably it for computer reverbs for awhile. EQ's too.. Never should've sold that hardware! Guess the Pros in SOS and TapeOp know what they're talking about :)