A quiet revelation about hardware and the Elektron workflow as it pertains to life outside of music production

Elektron Gear
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I recently upgraded the memory card on my mobile and I’m finding that I’ve become much more lax in the keeping of files I would normally delete and I’m not thinking about the device’s performance as much in terms of ram allocation and apps opened etc. In fact it’s getting a bit out of control, I found that it is a lot less organized and harder to navigate than it was before the upgrade.

This brought to mind the trope (which is beginning to now appear to me as more a philosophy verging on a reality) that creativity is bred of less options, or that it is easier to work within certain limitations. I used to sort of be on the fence about this, I don’t like feeling like my hands are tied. I also feel like sometimes people who don’t even believe this statement to be true rely on the philos to justify certain gear purchases (not just musical).

On some musical (and not musical) devices the menu diving is tiring and leads to premature brain death so you don’t feel like being creative for long periods of time due to repetitive input method, especially coupled with the tiring effects of using your most precise listening abilities trying to sort out what you are hearing you are also engaging in a battle with the hardware itself to get through the UI. So even if you know where it is that you want to go, it is arduous to get there. While specific, I don’t really find any unnecessary action within Elektron UI and often there is actually a second or even third way to preform an action which may give legacy users an alternative to something which has been streamlined but is not yet comforable to them, it’s a very ergocentric way of looking at UI design and thus doesn’t worry about how attractive the input looks as much as it does create a manageable flow to that input.

I find the Elektron workflow is not adjacent to that feeling of input diving nausea I got on, for example, older Yamaha gear (not to name names). I also find that there are common misunderstandings about Elektron users or why they promote these devices which to those who are raised on the daw, seem distinctly limited - in “the daw” limitation is a very dirty word and is a synonym for inferior.

If you ask someone “do you press caps lock when you capitalize your name?” They will look at you like you’re a mug and say “No, why would I do that when I can press shift?”. The Elektron workflow, in regard to the interface with the hardware, is actually something ingrained into most people born after 1960 and certainly people born after 1980 from almost the day they were born. It borrows heavily from the way we interact, as almost a second nature, with computers and other everyday machines. This occurred to me the other day when I randomly made a ctrl alt del joke, but it stuck with me that I thought about a completely unrelated situation as being a “ctl alt del” situation.

I’m not trying to create an “Oh Elektron is the best” thread, but like with my memory card experience, where having less limitation made my “workflow” more cluttered, or the intuitive nature of using Elektron’s func key to access a secondary functionality (much like the shift or alt key on your keyboard), can anyone else relate at all to this from a standpoint of “My (blank in everyday life) is like my Elektron workflow in this specific (blank) way”? Or even if not anecdotal, just other relationships between the way the gear flows and your life flows?

I’m just curious of Elektronaut’s specific thoughts on this point because I can’t think of anyone more qualified for the task, and I feel it might help me or others further connect with their devices.

Sorry for the long starting post but I hope someone finds this train of thought engaging.

:alien:

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It tried. It doesn’t all fit on a mug.

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:wink:

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I cant use a DAW either I get the “too many options paralysis” syndrome.

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I find different things are good for different reasons. I agree that Elektron devices are very intuitive and well laid out, but they’re also stubborn in their own ways. I find them particularly obnoxious for melodic/harmonic stuff compared to a plain old piano roll or even a more traditional tracker. I make music very quickly on my Elektron boxes and they’re amazing for quickly locking a sound and vibe in and getting sonic ideas down, but I absolutely do not write my “best” music on them. To me that feels like their biggest limitation in general. Adding a midi keyboard helps but frankly I find a DAW 100x better for more traditional “songwriter-y” tasks.

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I think it relates back to the tracker origins of Elektron. Trackers are not intuitive at all - they have no knobs, they use hex, you have to understand arcane abbreviations… But once you have muscle memory for keyboard shortcuts and understand the commands, they are fast to use. That’s exactly the Elektron experience for me. They’re designed according to a functional logic rather than trying to make it easy to approach for the first time. The effort has to come from the user, to learn the logic and learn the shortcuts. It’s a leap of faith that it will pay off in the end, with muscle memory working in place of obvious visual cues. I think it’s easier to make that leap of faith if you’ve had the experience of it working in software, the experience of becoming lightning-fast using shortcuts that aren’t even conscious anymore. I do wonder if that will be lost with newer generations more used to touchscreens and instant visual feedback.

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I think it’s interesting that the first points to come up highlight availability of features as a hindrance to songwriting, songwriting as a selling point against limited note entry, and efficiency of structure or format as structure being a way to make more intuitive decisions within that form factor.

Really helps to cement the fact that the creative process is different for so many people, and perhaps that’s what leads to such diversity in creation. thanks all.

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I think the Synthstrom Deluge is the ultimate expression of this for creating melodies and arrangements. It’s speed of thought once you’re in. Elektron boxes maybe for non melodic things, p locks especially (Deluge can do p lock but the parameters are not visible on a screen so sucks a bit).

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I do find I like to change devices and workflow mindset regularly between opz. M8, deluge and octatrack.

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I used to be a big subscriber to the idea of (the right) limitations encouraging creativity.

But just lately I’ve gone the other way and I’m now arse deep in the world of unlimited possibilities.

Luckily, my lack of both talent and imagination has ensured that I don’t get too bogged down in possibilities.

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Sometimes I wish my life would overwrite or “forget to save the pattern before switching” as well as an Elektron does.

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lol I’ll function yes that

I wouldn’t be too sure, your talent and imagination are not lacking. thanks for the feedback. Options are fun, I think I start to get hung up on how a sound sounds before I move forwards with how a composition sounds very easily if I’m not careful.

I was really interested in a deluge but it was kinda too expensive for me to jump into without the right motivation. I liked how it could do so much with one box, and was interested how a lot of people said it’s easy to sketch out complete ideas, but I was dissuaded by a lot of arguments about how it’s not good for sound design (not that I’m some great sound designer), and that while it’s great for sketches and songwriting it lacks in the polishing department. I’d like (ideally) to play with one for a couple weeks before being able to commit to something like that. Thanks for the feedback.