Bad Gear - Kindergarten Engineering

Become a Patron and get access to music clips from the show, additional content, Bad Gear samples and even more AudioPilz madness

Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world's most-hated audio tools. It's Kindergarten Engineering !!! I’m still coping with NAMM 2024 PTSD and I wasn’t even there. Korg released the successor to a synth the world forgot, Uli is getting really good at selling faster horses and Moog decided to save the important announcements for a much bigger show.

Yamaha - on the other hand - returned from a groovebox hiatus of over two decades only to release a display-less Lego cigarette trying hard to catch up on a trend based on a device that was announced at Messe 2009. Yamaha - It’s good to have you back.

Teenage Engineering

Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
00:55 Overview Yamaha Seqtrak
01:42 Drums
02:10 AWM Synth Engines
02:36 Yamaha DX FM Synth Engine
02:52 Scale-based "Keyboard", Chromatic Keyboard
03:08 Arpeggiator, Chords
03:19 Sample Player, Sampling, Microphone
03:31 Sequencer, Parameter Locks
04:00 Pattern Selection
04:09 Mixer Mode, Send FX
04:18 More FX
04:25 Software Editor, Visualizer
04:59 Midi, USB, Speaker, Build Quality
05:38 Hate
06:03 Jam 1 (House)
06:51 Jam 2 (Downtempo)
07:52 Finale (Drum'n'Bass - ROMpler Edition)
08:23 Verdict

[DouglasRosser]

"That's what you get when you order an OP-1 from Temu" - thanks mate, I am dead

[risbaw]

''displayless lego cigarette'' LoL

[papertarrasque]

Dunks mercilessly on the gear but still makes bangers. This is why Bad Gear is #1!

[soundwithoutsoundbutwithso]

Mozart and Beethoven didn't need screens. And they made the best post-trance retro-wave dark-ambient dub-techno the world has ever heard.

[baxthered]

There should be a logo for "direct to bad gear"

[lairdkilbarchan]

Flimsy keys ✔️
Gaudy colour scheme✔️
Almost affordable ✔️
Totally surplus to requirements ✔️

I just don't know why I haven't got one yet. 😂

[MauricioVives]

Hard to deny this: 4:26 "This overwhelming feature set is barely controllable using the physical UI of the instrument."

[FunkyHP]

Mr. Florian, I enjoy your show since the YouTube algorithm had recommended it for me in September 2020 (good old days😄). And as a big fan, I really enjoy the fact that the show become more and more recognised among the hardware manufacturers and this particular episode is the finest example of it. No kidding! Yamaha music division bosses finally decided to put an end on Roland’s new “direct to Bad Gear” line success story and make the competitive product themselves. Well, they certainly succeeded😆

[jamesm]

I poked at one of these at my local music store and accidentally turned on the sequencer, resulting in a tepid fart-like anti-melody coming from the built in speaker and me desperately hitting every button on the thing to try to turn it off. Took me way too long to notice the 'play' button was on the side. Brilliant user interface design.

[duketranslucentrd]

OK that mad-as-a-box-of-frogs music video at 7:53 has just made my day. Florian, I hope you take a lot of pride in the joy you bring to people. Much love.

[jasperketone]

Some products take 20 years to make it onto Bad Gear, others take 20 days 😂

[mhxv]

Bad build aside… getting a drum machine, a real Yamaha fm synth and their awm2 engine with over 2000 sounds with quality multi samples and more sounds incoming, for the price is great. I use it with my Novation mk3 and have a workstationesque experience. One of the great features is I can make music without relaying on a screen for basic operations but have the option to go deep with a screen if I want.

[maxpowers]

I'm not even OCD, but that tag sends me up a wall.

[RobertFisher]

The Seqtrak progression: (1) That looks like an interesting groovebox. (2) Using my phone, which I always have with me anyway, as a better screen than it would have otherwise is brilliant. (3) Wait…I could just do all this on my phone alone, right?

[boodleboy]

Maybe I wasn't the most informed customer when I bought my CS1X over 20 years ago, not being aware of the very distinct plasticy and bumpy sound of Yamaha rompling, but after having played if for all this time, I am now as close to an expert of instant Yamaha-sound recognition as one can be. And those are some prime example Yamaha sounding tunes in here. Very nice.

[alexwestconsulting]

Damn, you were savage on this one. I'm still getting one: my OP-Z needs a new buddy. I think this is going to be a big hit for Yamaha. They pulled a Behringer, moving in on someone else's market, but without actually resorting to just copying. Kudos to Yamaha on it.

[BrancoArgenta]

This is my favourite piece of Bad gear I've ever owned!

[DanChippendaleMusic]

Jam at 7:07 takes me back to GoldenEye on the N64 big time!

[YannisAggelakos]

The way I look at it (my 50 cents):

- It's a groovebox-workstation
- It is made by Yamaha, so it will probably work fine in 2064
- It has a built-in AWM2 rompler AND a 4 operators FM synthesizer
- The Maximum Polyphony is AWM2: 128, FM: 8
- It has 11 tracks for sequencing
- Some very interesting realtime tweaking options
- It is a multitimbral synthesizer to use with a MIDI controller for everything live
- It has a Sh1!tload of sounds
- It is a tiny, portable, hardware unit that you can carry everywhere and won't take more space than a book
- It has a visualizer (Jeebus!!! Incredibly useful)
- It has it's own software
- It costs WAY LESS than many VST or AU units with similar specs.

I wonder what they could add in version 2.0
I also wonder if Yamaha can keeep up with demand (which I assume is going to be huge? )

[user]

I'm glad we didn't have to wait for this one.