so, i need help creating that short rubbery pluck in the first song of this set by SOPHIE and Jimmy Edgar. heres the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81PemvUjbG8. i saw that the monomachine has no resonance filter. i may be wrong though, i just got my monomachine a few weeks ago so im still very new to all the features on it. thanks. -motherland 
xoxo
2 Likes
Sure it has, check page 28 in the manual, filter settings. You got to fiddle with the controls a bit to make it resonate, is all.
MM can resonate like a b*tch if you will it to. It´s not analogue though and so need a bit coaxing.
4 Likes
Start with the filter width turned down low. Assign an LFO to the filter width, set to exponential (the one where it starts high, curves down quickly and ends low) & trig type “ONE”. Turn the LPQ (low pass Q) up to get the resonance and adjust the LFO speed and depth to get the sweep right.
Watch your speakers/ears with the LPQ, it can definitely get loud.
3 Likes
Don’t forget to turn off filter tracking in the assign menu. Although you could make this sound without, it really helps open up the filter.
1 Like
thank u!
1 Like
An exponential LFO is one way to do it, or you could us the WOFS on the filter page. Either way: You’re treating the filter with what is essentially an envelope.
The sound in the video sounds like some FM to me, too. Try any of the FM machines.
Further, after getting my MnM, I went searching high and low all over the Internet for how Sophie got her sounds on that thing. No interview got me anywhere close. Every post I could find was basically people saying “Sophie’s sound design is insanely good and she is clearly a master” without any indication at all how to make her whacky sounds.
Even the innocuous enough fizzes and bubbles from the first record–which I thought would just be a resonant filter with some LFOs sent to different parameters, maybe some creative use of the arpeggiator–also turned out to be elusive.
I spent a good two or three hours–I know, not really much time–with a good set of headphones going back and forth between a Sophie track and my MnM. The closest I got was a kick that sounded super effed up by putting the arp on the fastest possible setting, and a metallic FM lead that actually sounded quite good (make use of “bad” ratios…I’m sure P-locking them wouldn’t hurt either, now that I think about it).
Inspiring stuff though, for sure.
If you want more great-sounding, hard-to-replicate stuff, listen to Avey Tare’s Down There. He’s gone on record to say most of the sounds on that album are MnM.
I’m 90% sure that drum part was made on a MnM, but again I couldn’t get anywhere close. Not to mention the fact that the song is in 6/4 time, with each quarter note broken up into triplets. You try programming that damned pattern on ANY groovebox!
Here’s another video of him. You can clearly see when he presses play on the MnM the drum beat happens. I see an Octatrack…but I don’t think it’s in charge of the sound.
ANYWAY! I got way off topic. Thought I’d just show you a guy who used the MnM as extensively as Sophie. It’s a really powerful box 
Oh and if you wanna cheat splice has a Sophie soundpack. I’ve got it downloaded to my computer, but it just kind of ruins the fun for me, ha! If you’ve got an Octatrack or something, I’m sure uploading a few of those drum hits to there may tickle your fancy.
4 Likes
thanks so much! 
your awesome.
Yep, you can use the filter envelope for sure, but I tend to skip that for snappy stuff like this and just use an LFO as I find I can fine tune the depth and the rate of the sweep more easily that way.
Not everything is MM in SOPHIE’s music remember, she does use software. The bubbles in Lemonade being a case in point, they don’t sound like MM to me (though I’d be happy to be proven wrong). There are some recognisable tricks in a lot of it though, things like very short delay times, using parameter slides, layering sounds with neighbour trigging, etc. And of course loads of FM+ machines.
I saw SOPHIE play London last year and it was one of the best shows I’ve been at. One of my favourite artists.
2 Likes
Can you explain layering sounds with neighbor trigging to me? I haven’t wrapped my head around that one yet.
Very short delays make EVERYTHING sound super metallic…I also like sending an LFO to the delay time with a depth of 1 or 2 to really make it modulate.
2 Likes
In the kit menu > Trig > Trig position setting, the track number is the track that the trigs will be forwarded on to. So if you start on track 1, set the trig position to track 2, then go to track 2 and set its trig position to track 3, then you have all three tracks trigging from track 1.
It just makes it easier to build up a layered sound and trig it with one trig. The big fierce kick/hit sounds SOPHIE uses often sound like they might be a few layered FM machines and/or square waves, with a low bass element, a distorted element, and a high metallic element. I’ve not made a concerted effort to try but I might have a go.
Another tip I heard about specifically regarding the metallic sounds SOPHIE makes is using a flanger FX machine and modulating the time parameter.
5 Likes
ooh!
Welcome aboard bub. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you with that MnM!
3 Likes
Yeah it’s definitely an FM machine, Start of with a short plucky sound, add a lot of res and bring down the cutoff, add a Lfo (the one where it quickly goes up then down on the mnm) to the filter cutoff & pitch, and maybe add a short delay or some reverb. Have fun experimenting!
MnM could be master, though^^
1 Like
What kind of monster would do such a thing?
I’ve checked the beginning of the video again, the moment he hits play on the MnM you see the chaselight on the OT. So apparently OT is indeed slaved to MnM, doesn’t mean OT does the drums, though ofc.
The audio quality is pretty ear piercing, so I’m not gonna watch the whole thing through. 
Btw, that’s a pretty cool track! Have to check the album.
1 Like