I think this box for me never got me excited in terms of sound. It’s a beast in terms of performance and modulation but at the core, the sound never did it for me.
Can you relate with this, with any piece of gear?
All I can say is every time I tell myself the A4 mk1 can’t do something in terms of sound, I either come here and look for tips or just separate it from my rig and spend an hour or two alone with it (portable style with talentcell battery) and I’ve always proven my former conclusions wrong.
It does have it’s own sound. I own Moogs, Korgs, Rolands, Yamahas, a Nord etc… and they definitely sound different in many ways but the A4 (due to the strengths you mentioned like seq, mod…) is one of my favourite synths of all time.
Bass was a struggle but tips like smart usage of high pass filters or the Feedback OSC took care of that for me.
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It’s got a thick outer layer before you can connect to its core. I felt that way initially and I’m battling through that right now as I get reacquainted with it.
It’s a tough cookie to get into, no doubt about that.
But if you work at it enough- then perception gets arranged and it just clicks and it’s a magical little box capable of making really special sounds. It can be quite romantic.
I get what you’re saying, absolutely, but I think you were just a touch away from really getting absorbed into it- which isn’t a problem is you feel you need something more immediate.
I suppose this comment might come off as “you just don’t get it”- which I don’t mean to come off as snobby- as I totally get what you’re saying- I’ve been there. I’ve just made some really special tracks with just that box alone it’s now a mandatory piece in my studio
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I love the small footprint and sequencer of the A4. It is not as dials and knobs analog feeling as the Moog Sub 37 but way lighter and easier to carry around.
I love mine, but it did take me a while to completely gel with it… Now it’s my go-to machine, I actually think its capable of almost any sound once you get your teeth into it…
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+1
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Coming back from the thin monophonic sounds of a modular back to the sweet thick polyphonic sounds of the A4, I can’t really relate. I think it sounds sweet as fuck! Absolutely love mine. I can relate to selling gear and not missing it though. 
it’s a good thing to let go sometimes, especially with excess gear.
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The A4 mk1 alone has travelled the last few weeks with me on the road. In that capacity it excelled at everything.
But, yeh, getting home next to the old classic synths, the A4 has to relinquish the heavy lifting and return to backup harmonies.
(Starting to feel the same way about the AK too.)
It is what it is, sounds great, does everything, but won’t damage internal organs or initiate orgasm like the meatier synths. But it belongs next to them for sure.
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I can totally relate. Sold the A4, bought a Dominion 1 and never looked back.
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The A4 Mk1 is the only one I feel completely comfortable with, both functionality and sound wise.
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I’ve had my share of synths in my time. Mostly vintage keyboardy-type of stuff, but also many more recent grooveboxes and synths and I have to say that when I got my AK, I felt that this is finally the perfect synth for me.
I migrated from vintage stuff and things like the Arturia Minibrutes and MPCs towards Elektron because I felt their stuff offered me most synth in the smallest possible footstep. My Monomachine only takes a small spot on my table but it is six monophonic voices of pure gold. Not forgetting the polyphonic possibilities. The same applies to the A4. My whole thing for the last couple of years has been cramming as many good quality synth voices in the smallest possible space, namely on top of an Ikea work table. For that you can’t really beat Elektron.
I used to have a roomful of vintage analogs and still I had probably less voices than I have on my tabletop now. For a polyphonic analog synth (for pads and chords) I’d probably pick something else than the A4. Something from DSI etc., but the ability to program three monophonic sequences, play them and still have one monosynth left for noodling on top of that is just too good to be true.
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I know what you mean. I’m still not in love with the sound of my AK, not when compared to my instinctive love of Moogy fatness. And it somehow lacks gloss to me. But I suspect that the more I record with it, the more I’ll find that it slots easily into a mix…
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I know this is blasphemy but I’m not so big on the Moog sound myself…it’s pleasing alright but they do sound somewhat cheesy to me
That said, I hear you re the Analog Four. I just got mine and still exploring it - so far I like what I can do with it, but def the sounds I’ve gotten haven’t been as instantly open and visceral as eg my Dreadboxes…
I’ll keep exploring though, obviously the possibilities are quite massive with this one.
share a bass patch brother?
Unfortunately I can’t relate & I say it’s unfortunate because gear keeps stacking up & nothing gets sold. I realized thru my journey that even though I’ll play with anything, there are still things I would PREFER to play with. So I decided to sell a few things that way I can put the money towards something I would prefer. It’s just hard. For example, I bought a Roland Tr-8 due to it being soo cheap (right when the Tr-8s came out). I like it, but I just prefer to play with other things. So I decided to sell it, but before I sell it of course I want to get everything I can out of it, sample it, make some music with it, ect. So I got it out, hooked it up, started jamming with it, ran it thru Analog Heat & a few guitar pedals, sampled a bunch of sounds… I had a lot of fun & also got some great samples out of it. Now I don’t want to sell it anymore. Argh.
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hey everyone, I’m glad this has not turned into a A4 bash fest, I was afraid of that and definitely not my intention. My story with the A4 goes back a long way, it was one of the earlier models so we’ve gone through unleashing the drive, getting polyphony and more recently the FM abilities.
At the end of the day I realized I was the happiest using it as a poly-synth. I did get some nice patches made on it, don’t get me wrong. I just felt in terms of raw tone, it was missing a bit of something. I really could never get satisfying bass sounds out of it (likely needed to know it better) especially compared to my minitaur and I had high hopes when the FM abilities appeared. That didn’t help as the FM was limited due to the (lack of ) resolution of the digital LFOs… so my dream of analog FM in a box with 4 voices did not come true.
I still think that if you’re out there gigging this is a MONSTER. Playing through the demo program to make sure everything was perfect reminded me of that. At the end of the day, I’m currently only dong stuff in my studio so not the useful to me in that regard. Also if you’re happy with the poly-sounds, the modulation abilities are unsurpassable, not many modulation sources and destination, incredible modulation matrix under the hood. This was very satisfying for a while playing it with the continuum. Then again, it didn’t help elektron didn’t care about fixing the midi pitch bend bug when using my minibrute.
I can see myself getting one again eventually when they release mkIII or IV 
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Big fan of the A4 mk1 but it is new to me still… Sometimes price/expectations can sour something a bit I think, like my expectations for 500$ were completely blown out of the water. I feel like coming to a synth with too many expectations more often than not ends up with getting rid of gear or getting frustrated. For me it was the Monolog for some reason I just was expecting to be able to pull so much more out of it than realistically possible and wasn’t sad at all to see it go.
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I’m sorry, I read this then forgot. I’ll share some when I’m able. I also intend to finally put some music up very soon.
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Hi TrabanT,
very sorry this took me so long. I was “cast away” in some work and finally got to a place I could share that patch.
I’m about to release a full length album and although it mainly features my Moog Minitaur on bass I used these A4 bass patches on one tune and I think it brought nearly if not the same “balls” as the MT. I read a great tip on here somewhere about using the Highpass filter with medium to high resonance focused in the lower range to beef up the low end and it’s honestly my go to trick to get big low end out of the A4.
Here is a little snippet of the tune I’m using it in.
This is a unmixed, non-eq’d cut so it’s far from done. In reality I’ll probably end up rolling off quite a bit of the A4 bass’s lows below the 75hz area to make room for the (soon to come, better sounding) kick drum from the RYTM. FreeBot G-Day Bass 4.syx (415 Bytes)
FreeBot G-Day Bass 2.syx (415 Bytes)
FreeBot G-Day Bass 3.syx (415 Bytes)
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Can understand why
I had an AK and only really used it for CV control from my daw to my modular gear.
Wasn’t a fan of the sound.
Felt like it needed a bypass option on its filters
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