i’m living in tight quarters these days & must confine my entire recording setup to a 2ftx3ft desk, so i’ve become obsessed with the long-term goal of gradually accumulating the most versatile hardware setup possible, using only the tiniest synths/pedals/etc available. (cont)

Another big benefit to tiny hardware is that most small things are typically A LOT CHEAPER than larger units. Saving $$$ + saving space are my two biggest priorities. I’ve been selling larger gear ive accumulated over the years & have no room for, so i can invest in smaller stuff

i’m going to make a thread about tiny compact audio hardwares now, because i’m in deep hyperfocus mode and very excited about them. First off, this tiny Mosky Spring Reverb has a great sound, was only like 20 bucks, and is about 1/2 as wide and 2/3 as long as a conventional pedal

so small that i just put an adhesive velcro strip on its underside & stuck it right onto the side of my Volca rack, since thats the machine ill be using it the most with. I wanna accumulate more tiny pedals & use velcro like this to max my deskspace while maintaining swapability

I’m also extremely interested in exploring jump-wire modular, which works similarly to traditional modular synthesis, except you patch with little tiny breadboard cables instead of regular 1/4in amp cables (1st ref pic shows 1/4in cable patching, 2nd pic shows jump-wire patching)

few commercially available synths use jump-wire, the two most affordable (& conveniently, some of the smallest) being the Korg Volca Modular & the Bastl Kastle, both capable of an enormous spectrum of sonic possibilities which only quadrupole when you start cross-patching the two

I’ll be getting my paws on a Volca Modular very soon! it retails around $200 but i was SUPER lucky to find a used one with an extremely affordable rent-to-own plan on Reverb ($15/month for 1 year holy shit!!). i’m already studying the manual & taking notes in preparation

So what if i want to play my Volca Drum, Volca Modular, Korg EA-1 + my Critter & Guitari Pocket Piano, all at the same time while recording or jamming live? How will I manage all these rascally mono signals?? i hope to eventually answer this question with “the Bastl Dude mixer”.

The mixer which is specifically designed to mix the Volca Drum & Volca Modular is called the Volca Mix. But the Bastl Dude is less than half the size, $50 cheaper, colors the sound subjectively better & has two more input channels than the Volca Mix. So, there’s really no contest

The Korg Volca series has this convenient “sync” feature that lets you synchronize the clock/BPM of multiple Volcas using aux cables. This feature is also cross-compatible with Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operator series, which are insanely powerful tiny tools in their own right

there are many types of pocket operators that do many different types of things, from blaring chiptune sequencing, to subbass synthesis, to vocoding, but the one ive got my eye on is the PO-33; possibly the world’s most conveniently portable & versatile sampler+sequencer

i shit you not, you can take this thing to the mall with you, record 16 samples with its shockingly high quality built-in mic, trim/pitch-bend/edit those samples in several different ways, and sequence those sounds into a full-length track. and that’s with NO COMPUTER. like DAMN!

while all these things are highest on my hit list, there’s a bunch of other tiny treasures that i’d love to mess with, like the Bastl Bitranger and Softpop, the Korg NuTek, Mini Kaoss Pad 2 and Monotron Delay... some type of tiny multipedal would be awesome too...*dreamy sigh*

can you BELIEVE that all of the things i’ve mentioned in this thread CAN ALL FIT ON A 2’x3’ DESK? AT THE SAME TIME??? ISNT THAT INSANE