I keep coming back at the Model:Cycles regularly.
Its sound, ease of use and small footprint are ideal for live jams or bed noodling…
So inspiring, even if there is room for more (machines!)
Really fond of it!
3 Likes
I like to think I’m on the road towards becoming a connoisseur of the FM. I’ve already got a Digitone, am learning the true path on DX7 and regularly delight in Lyra’s analogue FM bloodbath.
I didn’t think the Cycles would be much more than a fun way to distract myself during naptime but it’s surprisingly deep when pushed to its limits. I never really got on with the distortion on the Digitone (personal taste rather than quality judgement) but the cycles drives and distorts in ways that I find very satisfying.
The 2op tone generator is a lot of fun and comes alive with the velocity mod. I’m gonna have a lot of fun trying to get it to acid.
That snare shouldn’t work, it’s just bloody odd. And yet I’m using it.
I think the greatest compliment I can give the cycles is that it’s the first drum machine I’ve had where I don’t spend the first hour trying to get it to sound like a 909, because it’ll never sound like a 909 and, for once, I’m fine with that.
I said a while ago that FM was the future, this is proving me right.
Haven’t even put it through my Heat yet…
4 Likes
Nicely put!
I also love the sound of the Cycles’ mixer gets overloaded / overdriven. Sometimes, I find myself cranking all the tracks to well over 100 on the Amp/Dist knob. Can you explain the velocity mod that you mention with respect to the tone generator? Or, give an example?
1 Like
So in the pad menu (func+back) I like to send the velocity to modulate one of the parameters in the destination list, then play about with the velocity of the notes in the sequencer until I get the effect I like.
I’ve not had mine long, but I find that the velocity mod gives that extra bit of spice to what on paper is a pretty simple 2op tone generator.
2 Likes
Fresh Sound KITs & Patterns!!
16 Kit
16 Demo Pattern
96 Sound
Techno / Electro / Minimal /
House / D&B / Berlin school
3 Likes
I love the model:Cycles. Its so immediate. i dont use the preset sound. just jamming and finding the sound with fits.
just thinking about buying a second one.
best piece of gear in an live-jam-situation!!!
i am hoping for an model:analog synth
2 Likes
Love it too. It’s sharp sound perfectly compliments the MC-101, imho.
Can’t wait for the Power Handle, for a battery-powered portable setup with MC-101, Zoom U44, and iPad.
1 Like
I haven’t even tried reassigning the pads like that. If I read that in the manual I forgot! Sounds like a rad way to get different expressions out of it.
I’m loving the Cycles a lot and it’s fun seeing all the cool little tricks. Lots to master.
1 Like
The Model:Cycles is the first piece of gear that I’ve truly fallen in love with. I’ve made techno and house music since the late 1990s as a hobby, on-and-off, but it took me this long to find a piece of gear that really made my productions better, and more importantly for me, made producing more fun. The only thing that’s come close to this is the Electribe ER-1.
My gateway to FM was the Yamaha DSR-500. It’s a preset-based FM keyboard with six editable parameters, and I was amazed at how good it sounded and how easy it was to program. I’d always thought of FM as way beyond my patience, and also as kind of cheesy-sounding, even though I also knew that FM synths were very important in techno and house. Liking the DSR-500 made me look for other FM preset synths. The Cycles had been released a few months previously, so I bought it.
Cycles is the first machine that has allowed me to get into a flow state – the level of difficulty is just right for me. It has enabled me to actually have a process for making music instead of just wandering around aimlessly. Whatever I do with it is a sketch. I don’t get hung up about one sketch if it doesn’t work. I can finish several sketches during a session, and then go back to the most promising ones some other day. The bad ones are either forgotten, or sometimes the patterns have a few nice sounds that can be used as a basis for something better. This, combined with using control-all, has allowed me to create far-out patterns that I’d never make if I’d just try to recreate what I hear inside my head. Instead of trying to control the machine and getting frustrated because it doesn’t do exactly what I want, I let it be in control.
There are still problems in my process, though. Something might sound completely finished on the Cycles, but when I record it to Ableton, track by track, it’s not nearly as good as the loop was. I’m now trying to find other instruments that can fill the gaps that Cycles can’t fill.
11 Likes
Depending on how much you crank the vol+dist on each track, there can be some interaction among the tracks as they overdrive the mixer. It’s a really nice effect.
2 Likes
Hmm…
You just reminded me of something. One thing I was working on recently I noticed my kick sounded different after muting a different track. I didn’t realize it until playing back the recording, but it was somewhat changed. It wasn’t bad, but noticeable.
Something in the way tracks are mixed before leaving the MC?
I would think it has to do with “overloading” the output bus. I think Ess talked about this after his liveset when cylces where launched. So you can bring some saturation by having all channels pretty loud.
2 Likes
That would make sense then I guess. I have been playing with distorting most of the tracks, and balancing them with the blue volume knob. I wonder if I can push that further then… 
1 Like
That’s a surprise feature I really like. Lots of machines do that but the way it works on the m:c is particularly good. You can get ducking and push/pull effects that sound great. I guess it’s just the way the machine compresses when you pass the headroom threshold. Love it.
1 Like
No, it’s not about the clipping in this case. I keep the track levels so low that there’s no clipping. The first track that I’m trying to make is a deep house track, so clipping doesn’t really suit the aesthetic.
It’s just that the track is not otherwise finished, even though the main loop works well. The arrangement, when which track comes in and so on, makes everything sound bland in the end.
I super love model cycles.
I have a midi drum pad from Keith McMillan that I bought for my son to practice drumming with, and it works pretty nicely with model:cycles
Also discovered I’m not good at drumming
3 Likes
Just wanted to say that i got a M:C for my bday in July and loved it. It was my first Elektron device and having known a guy who’s had them for years I was really excited to take the plunge. After a while i knew that i wanted my next purchase to be a Digitakt. But i didn’t want to get it right away because I thought that i would just put my M:C away and just play with the Digi. Well, pretty much the opposite has happened. Don’t get me wrong i love my Digitakt and play with it constantly but having it has given me a newfound appreciation for the M:C and the Model series as a whole.
5 Likes
Don’t mean to gripe, but I just bought your pack and discovered that you don’t include the sound files and it’s a whole bunch of individual sysex files. Obviously I can use it but it’s just a more awkward than it needs to be…
@Robert_Batta Can you help me with what’s happening here with the page/fill button please ?
It looks like the fill is actually soloing a track (or muting 5 tracks). I can see how you could do that with trig conditions like NEI and PRE, but it sounds like there would be a lot of editing of individual trigs to make that happen. Is there a shortcut to do something at the track level I haven’t found yet ? Or am misreading and this is something to do with ‘scale’ rather than ‘fill’ ?