We live in a time were in almost every aspect of our lives is growing at exponential rates.
The new and cool trends come to replace the old antique corky stuff at a very high speed.
Many companies have ceased to existed, some merged and some changed their approach to the market resulting in ths discontinuation of various pieces of equipment.
However in this domain of forgotten products there are a few crown jewelry items.
Some people are lucky to own some of these while others are craving that they are produced again so that they also get their hands on them.
The question is simple.
What controller, gear, equipments, etc that has been discontinued would you love to have back in full production? And why?
Personally I would love to see again:
Evolution UC-33e
Why? Its cheap and accesible price, its versatille interface which can suit a studio and live setup and high programabilty.
Korg Microkontrol & Kontrol49
Why? Great metal quality build with lots and lots of controls, faders, encoders, light pads, keys, pitch and modulation, banks, lcd display.
Korg Zero 8
With korg trend in going nano and ultra portable they forgot of many of their great product such as the zero8.
Full 8 stereo channel mixer, with firewire, usb, analog, digital, midi, effects, soundcard. great look and almost every button is customizable letting you to integrate the digital & analong world perfectly
Alesis Master Control. If it worked. Only recently saw it, and it’s about the best thing I can think of for DAW control if it worked…and a lot cheaper than the Avid/Euphonics Artist stuff and the right kind of more limiting than the Mackie MCU Pro. Again…if it worked.
Other than that, the Technics sl-1200, though I understand why Panasonic did it. And the PMC-CX……probably the most gorgeous mixer ever.
I don’t believe it was the sound card as much as it was floor noise from the DACs. Also they arent built very solidly, had problems with both my Zero8 and now a 4 (although I suspect the 4 was not taken care of very well by its previous owner).
I’m going to go ahead and say that, personally, I think I most miss the black Urei 1176 compressors. I’ve used them (plugins as well as a pile of vintage ones) and while there are “better” and more “fully featured” compressors out there, they’re my favorite. It’s basically snake oil, but mojo counts for something……and those things ooze it.
The PMC-CX might be the biggest piece of DJ gear that I think I’m ever going to miss. They were gorgeous…well laid out, well thought out, awesome mixers. The only missing feature was the same reason I “downgraded” my xone:62 to a vmc-004xl, that there’s not a cue/master blend control for the headphones…but at least you could monitor the master with any channel, so I’d deal mostly because of how pretty and well thought out the metering is. And there were rotary kits available, which makes it that much sexier.
The Xone:V6 is another huge one. Well thought out, well laid out…some cool features…like the cuing I like…an HPF on every channel…analog VU meters, and actually well-thought-out EQs on the master and booth outputs…sub and high control on the master, while the booth sacrifices the sub control for the ability to boost the kick thump. The xone:s6 fits in there too since it was basically the same thing with all-transistor design instead of a few tubes. I’d spin with one in half a heartbeat if I got a chance and could afford it.
B/T the xone:[S|V]6 and PMC-CX……it’s a real toss up as to which one I miss more.
For synths, I’d say the Virus pre-TI models just because they were (I think) cheaper and I’d much rather not pay for plugin IO that I’m not going to use anyway. Other than that…there’s a lot of stuff out or coming out that I think is going to be at least as good as the stuff from the glory days. The 303 makes the list easily, but there are a lot of clones of it…they’re just bloody expensive.
I think the biggest thing that I miss is actual hardware. I’m pretty sure it was always at least as expensive as it is now, but somehow a bunch of poor guys from Chicago, Detroit, and New York managed to work menial jobs to save up for a mixer, a drum machine, and some synths……and changed the world. I look at what you can make doing the kinds of jobs that they–reportedly–did and can’t imagine buying all the stuff you supposedly “need.” And now we’ve got $200 to $400 software packages with more capabilities that “aren’t good enough” because of some bitchy technical squabbles and the fact that mice really suck. I’m sure I’m just glorifying stuff I haven’t had much of a chance to play with and romanticizing a “golden age” that never existed in the way my mind has imagined it……but the longing is still there.
I think part of that is so many of us are used to “seeing” our music now, and with quantization in sequencers, etc etc, you do lose a “human element” (that we re-insert with “groove” and such). Of course you can capture that “golden age” feeling by not quantizing anything and only owning (using) 1 synth plugin.
CHOICES ARE THE DEATH OF CREATIVITY. We aren’t ready for the freedom we are provided.
Don’t know of discontinued but know I haven’t seen a pair since 2004 and I found them far sexier then the 1000s at the time. That is the technics sl-dz1200
Agreed plus te came out without waveform display when the mk2 had them and came out around same time as mk2. Wonder if the newer ones resolved load time issues and scratching issue
The if the stanton scratch amp v2 was USB it would actually be the sweetest DVS card ever. Hardware controls for everything and a direct through- awesome.
