The groovebox market

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

So I’ve been trying to take my time before buying my first hardware groovebox, and it’s got me thinking about the market. I can remember, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, there was definitely a bigger market for “pro” level grooveboxes. There were Korg, Roland, Elektron and other devices that had the ability to create electronic music in a self-contained way.

Right now, there seems to be a resurgence of hardware usage (burn-out from using computers maybe?) but it seems, to me at least, that there is a gap for pro-level grooveboxes. I understand that there are a number of entry-level devices live the Novation Circuit and the recent Electribes, Volcas etc but there seems to be a niche where the old Roland MC-909, Korg EMX-1, Monomachine or Machinedrum used to sit. I’m not trying to be rude about these cheaper devices but they have relatively limited feature sets and are clearly priced to target beginners or be very focused - not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’ve been considering buying a second-hand device and I’ve been watching, for example, some Machinedrum and Monomachine videos. These devices had a serious number of tracks, multiple sound engines and synthesis types etc and the video evidence (your honour) would suggest that they were/are very full-featured even by comparison with the current generation of Elektron machines. And there don’t seem to be any competitors unless I’m mistaken. Where is the pro-level Korg groovebox to replace the old EMX-1 or a new Roland groovebox to replace the MC-909?

Let’s take the Analog Rytm MK2 as an example - this is clearly a very capable drum machine and a popular self-contained techno box but aside from the drum engines it only has a relatively limited dual VCO engine to make synth sounds, and you can’t pick and choose the sound engines you want for each track. By comparison, the Machinedrum appears to have 100+ sound machines including ones for non-drum synthesis, 16 LFOs that can span across tracks, all the usual P-Lock goodness etc. The Monomachine also has 5 totally different sound engines and the videos I’m seeing make it look at least as versatile, if not more so, than any of the current Elektron devices.

To be clear - I’m not trying to be critical and I think the current generation Elektron machines look great but where is the next-gen all-in-one groovebox from Elektron, Korg or Roland? Is the market just not there to support it? The Digitone and Digitakt are clearly selling very well and getting almost universal praise, so surely it wouldn’t be a huge leap to make a digital box that had a handful of sound engines (for both percussive and non-percussive sounds), a handful of FX, ENVs and LFOs and 8 or 12 tracks. A bit of wavetable, a bit of subtractive VA, a bit of FM and you’re covering a huge amount of ground.

That thing would be a monster! Have I got this wrong? Is the market just very different now because of DAWs and software? Or is it simply better and more sustainable business to shift a larger number of smaller, cheaper, less featured devices?

Discuss!

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#2

AR (w/ DVCO)

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#3

Yes, but mostly because of the iPad.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even though those older boxes use to have more tracks and higher polyphony, they were also rather limited in terms of sound quality.

More recent hardware might seem more limited on paper in terms of these metrics, but they sound a hell of a lot better. :slight_smile:

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#4

absolutely right… just hear how flat a MC909 sounds compared to say, a digitakt.

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#5

@t and @acidhouseforall very good points. I certainly wasn’t trying to be disparaging about any particular devices, it was more a general observation that there used to be a lot more high-end grooveboxes compared to now. But of course it might just be that I’m wrong, plain and simple!

What strikes me most is that Elektron doesn’t seem to have any real competition. Where are the competitors for the DT, DN and A4? I can’t move for hardware mono synths but nothing in a groovebox format with multiple tracks and multi-timbral features.

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#6

Have you looked into the Deluge? It has FM and subtractive synths, samples/sampling and midi/cv sequencing.
Of the current offers it feels like the more “grooveboxy” of the current lot.

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#7

I’m not sure that the “groovebox” concept is even compatible with the “high-end” concept, but of course it’s all very subjective. What grooveboxes do you have in mind ? MC909, emu XL7, yamaha RS7000 ? It’s true that there is no such thing in terms of multi-timbrality or polyphony, but that’s about the only things we can regret from these days.

#8

My humble opinion is that the rytm mk II is a pretty comprehensive groovebox if you think about it. It offers VCO analog synthesis, analog drum synthesis, audio-rate modulations, fx, samples/sampling, analog filters and overdrive, even resampling. Now 64MB and 128 sample slots might not sound like much in 2018 but many grooveboxes of old coped with much less! And a few digital drum synthesis machines too. You can reconfigure the machine states and parameters on a per-step basis. Then there’s the performance aspects like perf macros etc. Balanced Individual outputs for all voices.

If you prefer doing everything digitally, there are things like deluge.

Therefore, I don’t really get your point…?

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#9

Interesting topic!
The iPad angle makes sense. It’s amazing the amount of seriously good apps for dirt cheap. I have a bunch of them, but for me the iPad was just a fussier DAW. I also never could finish a track. It was like a bunch of cool sketch pads. I ‘sorta’ finished a track in Beatmaker3 and the sound quality was shockingly good. I used to use a lot of IPad apps until I got my Digitakt (quickly followed by an OT). Haven’t touched the iPad for music since.

I guess I may not want a DAW in a box after all. A DAW AND some boxes suits me just fine :slight_smile:

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#10

Not sure how you have determined that an MC909 sounds flat compared to a digitakt.

The 909 can record 16 bit 44.1 kHz samples in either mono or stereo. It also has both coaxial and optical digital outputs so can sound great when the digital output is fed into a good audio interface.

#11

Never used its digital i/o. Of course if you use converters from another gear it’s another story.

#12

That all sounds very sensible. I guess it appears, to me, that there are many high-end devices that CAN be used as self-contained grooveboxes like AR and A4 but few that were designed with that purpose specifically in mind. The AR was designed for drums, the A4 for mono synth lines etc. It looks to me like the last Elektron device designed to be a total all-in-one groovebox was the Monomachine. But, again, that’s just my interpretation. That might not be true, but maybe just the users just embraced it in that way.

I actually think the AR looks like an amazing bit of kit and probably the closest to what I’m talking about.

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#13

MPCs would qualify as all-in-one. Latest models have their limits though…

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#14

I don’t think the AR was ever intended as a groove box. You can kind of tell by the feature set, and the design. Pain in the arse to navigate in my experience.
I have had several EMX and ESX electribes. Those things are still awesome! They require work though to dig deep enough to learn how to get the best out of them. Great fun to play, and build better than most gear today. And I never used song mode. Never have, never will. on anything.
I think maybe the reason for the change in the market is the change in the consumer. Seems like not many people want to actually learn an instrument these days, they just want to watch a tutorial and repeat a process…

I am only 3 years in to the octatrack and feel like I am only scratching the surface sometimes, though people tell me I do impressive stuff with it.

Possibly might have hit the nail on the head with the business model angle, and the Ipad angle. I dont own an ipad or tablet or whatever they are called, no knobs!

#15

I see this a bit differently myself. Elektron is notorious for making synths that are killer drum machines and drum machines that are decent synths. Their DNA has always been somewhat andromorphic in that way, to me.

But I guess typical marketing conventions and expectations enforce a certain “it does thing X” bias/angle to music equipment. It’s not very easy to sell something like an OT by answering “what it do?” with “it does so many things…” Therefore, its a “sampler”

Also a question of its own is the whole notion of what constitutes a “groovebox”. I am growing very much into the idea that a groovebox is a device where rhythm & melody meet and intertvine between each other, and for this, I find the elektron paradigms of per-step transmutation a very good fit.

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#16

Depends on how you define “groovebox” en how you define “high-end”. :wink:

There are hell of a lot more high-quality hardware boxes with built-in sequencers available at a lot more reasonable prices than ever before in the history of electronic music.

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#17

Of course, it’s subjective around quality. But regarding your point on hardware with sequencing - it looks to me like there’s a lot of devices like mono synths with a sequencer (Minibrute, Circuit Monostation, many others) but these aren’t grooveboxes with multiple tracks, multitimbral etc. Don’t get me wrong - I agree that there are so many options available, but perhaps not in the niche that I’m talking about?

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#18

I think there’s also more people to buy gears with Live Performance in Mind… and people like Mr G to perform with a one solution device are rare… (just type Boiler Room Live and you will see most, plenty of gears connected) Also, we have the criticism of the laptop live where people think it’s just you type on play and if there’s no manipulations of any sort it’s just not a live performance… (like Paul Kalkbrenner…) Maybe one device make them think that way too even if it’s a groovebox.

(But as people will see a name only (for many) it’s also an thesis anti-thesis I’m doing here) :rofl::joy:

From a technical point of view i really like to have one box : one purpose, it make sense for me in Live to have a Drum machine, a Synth, a Sampler/Looper (as the foundations… it can be more or doubled devices purpose…)

I think people need to see performing gesture, sweat… Even if i really think Live Performance with mapped controllers and a laptop can represent the same amount of work upstream and during the live as well as a machine/gears Live Performance…

I think it’s a lot of a show story and for musicians a matter of personal preference

Just some thoughts … it’s not all points arguments or truth just my feelings about this subject

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#19

I agree to some of your points. If the “legitest” EM rig a musician can has is a modular system, a single box on stage comes off as… uninspiring?

To a dgree I’ve always felt this way… prople dragging thrift store looking stuff on stage with spaghetti of cables oozing everywhere, compared to my black box stuffed in a backpack? The other one, “untalented dork with too much dough” vs “legit artist living his artist lyfes”

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#20

I think it is a shame that Roland abandoned the groovebox market. The MC909 was a very powerful and great sounding unit with a good feature set (synth, sampler, drum machine, individual and digital outs, high polyphony, etc).

I believe an updated version would be very popular (the 808 was more a sideways step). I think that a lot of the modern hardware has been pared down feature wise in comparison to some of the older gear. I suppose it must be the ITB alternative which deters manufacturers from producing more feature rich devices.

Often wish I never sold my 909, particularly listening to something like:

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