Hi @ll,
You remember my first version?
Here are some new features:
- new song.
- changed backlight color.
- timecode added.
- SHOTCUT LOGO implemented in the LCD-Matrix.
Have fun!
5 Likes
A very imaginative use with Shotcut. Great.
Simple and effective. 
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Love it! Music is great. Youāve given Harold Faltermeyer a run for his money there!! 
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Thank you!
Thereās more to comeā¦
I used to make a lot of synthesizer music and now I have rediscovered it for myself.
So my old tracks will be polished up and new ones will be created.
Greetings from an old 80ies fan-man!
4 Likes
Really enjoyed that track, please make more.
Reminds me of the 80s Synthwave/Synth-pop where the instruments of choice were
the DX7 and the Prophet-5.
Now you just need to run that track through a tape emulator and get that warm fuzzy sound
of ferrous oxide tapes slightly saturating on the bass and those growly low end synths.
Those were the days.
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I didnāt know what that might be, so I looked and found this:
SN03 Tape Recorder
Iāll try it to see how it modifies the sound. 
Hi @ejmillan
I donāt know that plugin, never used it, but try it out, you never know.
The one I use comes bundled with Izotope.
The trick to emulating that old tape sound is to slightly over drive the bass so that it just goes into saturation.
Not too much or it will sound awful.
You want just a bit, to give you that warmer sound.
Also, tapes had a high end cut off at around 15KHz (there were some exceptions in the professional world, but letās ignore them), so that plugin should also emulate that.
The effect is slightly less bright high end.
I remember as a youngster, that lack of high end always used to bug me, so would from
time to time adjust the azimuth of the tape head to bring out the highs. 
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Thanks for the explanation.
Iāve only been interested in music for a relatively short time.
I play bass and guitar in my spare time (but not very well)
So Iām pretty inexperienced in all this and I use free plugins.
For me, theyāre good enough because a lot of concepts I donāt understand.
I just tried this plugin and it cuts the treble and rounds off the sound making it less sharp. Maybe this means warm.
I have several commercial softwares but they have always seemed too complicated for my needs and are in the drawer.
I always like to learn new things and every day is a perfect day to learn.
When I was young, there were no CDās, and cassette tapes ended up magnetizing reader heads. I vaguely remember that the high frequencies were the first to disappear when this happened.
Thank you very much.
No problem at all.
Free plugins does not mean bad.
I know of and use, several free plugins that are far better than the paid for equivalents.
Just cutting the high end does not make it automatically warmer.
Itās a combination of things.
Completely cutting the high end and turning the song just into low frequency āmudā is also not very good at all.
Each song calls for a different eq and dynamic range.
What is important is that each instrument in the mix is still audible and at the intended level.
For example cutting the high end too much and killing the cymbals aināt a good thing.
Taming them is so that they donāt make your ears bleed
Unless you are producing music for a client, whatever sounds good to you is good.
A good way to practice, āgetā songs that you like and experiment on them.
Adjust eqās, use a compressor, go crazy.
If you can get the individual stems of a song you like (they are available, just need to look),
then even better to practice on as then you can have the percussion on one track, vocals on another and so on.
Hello, musicians,
first of all thank you for your feedback.
You will laugh, because my very first tracks I made with a double tape deck I converted, because the 4-track multitrack recorders of that time were too expensive for me.
You canāt imagine what an effort that was.
First the unit had to āwarm upā for a few minutes (no, it was not a tube unit)!
That was because of the cheap trim resistor potentiometers that control the tape speed. If the speed is not correct, everything will get out of tune during recording.
So I had to record a sine reference tone each time to adjust the speed of the second drive by ear, like tuning a guitar.
The position of the tone head also had to be adjusted.
As an electronic engineer I knew where to put the high/low rheostat, which was also a trimpoti on the circuit board.
And thatās where it got really difficult, because if you make several recordings alternating between the tape drives, the pitch would add up to either the highs or lows.
Also the tape noise can increase with each additional recording.
My first āsynthesizerā was a CASIO VL-Tone, the device that made the German group āTrio - Da, da, daā famous
This thing has only one mono output, which I artificially stereoed by playing the same notes twice and adjusting the pan knob on the tape deck.
I still have these recordings today! 
For a long time I didnāt have a sequencer with which I controlled my later VZ-1 via MIDI. So I had to record each track individually and flawlessly live, - not to mention the later cutting!
Over the years I invested more in equipment, synths, etc., which are now mothballed in my basement.
Now I make my music with DAW software and plugins, and record my melodies with a small master keyboard.
I also experiment a lot with other devices, like Android music apps (āMusicmaker Jamā or āYellofierā) and use them later in mastering.
Well, I lost a little āAphex Twinā or āFlorian Schneider-Eslebenā, mixed with the influences of āEinstĆ¼rzende Neubautenā, āDepeche Modeā and āArt Of Noiseā.
Iām starting to make more music again and if youāre interested, check out my Youtube-Playlist:
Those are some interesting stories.
As a youngster, I too would āmis-useā equipment and modify simply because I could not afford the real thing.
Looking back on it now, it was actually a lot of fun and it certainly taught me a lot.
Do you have a website where you tell all those stories?
If you donāt, you should consider it.
Put some photos of your old equipment, mods that you made, links to your
youtube recordings, etc.
BTW, you forgot one band from Germany that made it quite big in the 80s, Camouflage.
They had the hit called the Great Commandment.
They together with Depeche Mode, Yazoo and a couple of others, pretty much defined the 80s.
Quiz question time: Without cheating or using google, can you remember Trioās second hit song?
Not as popular as Da-Da-Da, but still got some air play on the radio.
You two are light years ahead of me.
Additionally, my musical hobby was the product of a personal misfortune with my right shoulder.
I used music for movement rehabilitation. I simply bought a guitar and a bass for beginners after my wife gave me Rocksmith 2014.
The use of the bass almost daily made my arm better. I use the guitar less. In any case, I enjoy those moments and feel good (which is very important)
Music helps me a lot to bear certain limitations.
But I never got involved with synthesizers and Iām obsolete in many things.
Like I said before, itās always a pleasure to learn new things.
I donāt create music, but I do edit some custom DLCs for Rocksmith.
Usually, I canāt find scores or GP files for the music Iād like to edit for RS, so it takes me a long time to transcribe the bass by ear on some songs. MIDI is a big step forward to make it easier to synchronize with the DLC creation software suite.
Yesterday I tried MIDI Bass (Jam Origin) to move my bass performance to MIDI in Reaper. Previously I tried with the built-in tuner (Rea Tune MIDI event pitch change) but for the bass notes, itās not fast and it takes time to stabilize with Rea Tune.
I always try to avoid buying expensive equipment and even repairs and mods of my instruments are done by me after researching. This is also part of my hobby and itās great to get a satisfactory result.
But one thing I learned is that amazing marketing does not go hand in hand with an amazing product. So I avoid pigeonholing my preferences for brand fame.
My post goes south of the thread content (electronic music-synthesizers), but this is my story and my interest in music is great, but there are so many things that at my age itās not so easy to assimilate them anymore.
Greetings to both of you. I hope to learn more things. 
Sorry to hear about your misfortune, but glad to hear that music is helping you recover.
Your approach is certainly the correct one, willingness to learn, experiment and try out new things.
Take your time and learn just one thing a day, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.
It the end, it all adds up to knowledge you wouldnāt otherwise have.
You are so right about good marketing does not make a good product, just wish more people would realize that.
Good luck with the tuner to midi.
Some of them are slower than others like you say.
Have you tried a hardware based solution?
Of course I know the other groups they were in the 80ies. 
I was a big fan of Eurythmics, Nik Kershaw and Icehouse. Donāt forget OMDā¦
Spontaniously āAnnaā, āBumm, bummā or āHerz ist Trumpfā goes through my mind.
Thank you and good luck! 
No, I do not have a website and it would be a hard additional work to keep it up to date and Iām not a programmer also.
Maybe Iāll tell my story with Fotos in a seperate Film.
This was my first set-up in 1986.
Thatās an interesting point. I donāt have a āman caveā I think itās called. So if my wife finds another new thing in the house, I think Iāll just fly out the window (me and all my gadgets)
So something software-based takes up no extra space at home and my wife wonāt throw me out the window anymore.
Surely a hardware based solution would be more accurate and more comfortable, but maybe using my money on that would be a bad investment in my case (a whim), because I would use it for leisure and punctual use (I only made a dozen DLCās in three years)
I may have to address the problem by trying out multiple alternative solutions to strike a balance between functionality and economic cost, but if there is a moderately acceptable solution for free, I will be there.
That photo says it all. 
A true engineerās setup.
Power source is a variable power supply, a DMM to check the voltage and an āabusedā tape deck to record onto.
Still trying to figure out what purpose the TV served.
The best is the ironing board and wine rack, brilliant.
BTW, that DMM, is that the model that also measures inductance and capacitance?
I used to have a similar one and loved that thing.
Good idea.
A universal problem. 
That depends.
Second hand units often come up for sale at vastly reduced prices.
Keep an eye on ebay and audio forums.
Now that lockdown is starting to ease, take a trip to local second hand shops.
You will be surprised what appears from time to time.
Introduce yourself to the owner or shop assistant, tell them you are always on the look out for audio gadgets.
This way when they get things in, they will call you or send you a whatsapp.
You wonāt be popular with the wife, but at least you will get great gadgets at good prices.
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@Paul2, 
My soldering iron is actually missing.
The DMM is a simple Volt-Ampere and Ohmmeter with continuity tester.
The TV was there for repair purposes.
In 1989 I had a Spanish guitar, a Yamaha PSS 470 keyboard, an ICE 680 R tester and of course an ironing board.
My first recording was with a blue plastic toy mixer (for small children) (that was pathetic).
But I didnāt follow that path very long.
Those adventures of my youth were just an anecdote. I abandoned all that and dedicated myself to other things until a stop along the way made me return to music.
We all have to start somewhere. 
I canāt even remember what my first equipment was, but for sure it was not very good. 