There are two ways of making and recording music: hardware and software.

“The sequencer looks pretty nice with the clip launching.

In the Box

Modern music software is an utter marvel.

A musician using the Roland Fantom 0.

Roland

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Hardware, on the other hand, is limited.

But the benefits are that it’s laser-focused on doing one thing well.

Andmost importantit has knobs.

The Phantom O from Roland.

Roland

Imagine driving and steering the car by moving a little on a screen with a mouse.

Braking might be available from a drop-down menu, and the gear shift is in the preferences panel.

That’s what it’s like to use Ableton or Logic to create music.

A closeup on some controls on the Fantom O by Roland.

Roland

Many musicians will plug in a MIDI keyboard or other controller to make the experience more physical.

This lets you record snippets of sound and launch them so that they play together in time.

And that’s not it.

So, you’re starting to see how capable this is.

It offers a range of software but puts it all together in a single box.

What you see is what you get, and that’s a very good feature.

And remember, it can work entirely without a computer or software, neither of which are cheap.