A4 mkII ducking/sidechain compression trick

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

The A4mkII Control Inputs allow you to do a helpful ducking trick. This works by using an ENV on a CV track to fake the amplitude envelope of (for example) a kick drum, which is then used to lower the volume of all the other tracks. This is kind of like sidechain compression, but obviously there’s no real compression happening here.

Sample Recipe (adjust to taste)

On the CV track
Take CVA output and run it to a Control Input 1 with a cable.
Set CVA type to Linear and set the value to 0
On CV ENV page, set A: 0 D: 32 S: 0 R: 0, LEN: 0, DST: CVA Value, DEP: 64
Put trigs on 1/5/9/13

Global Settings
Select CONTROL INPUT 1
Set mode the CV

Kit Settings
Select CONTROL INPUT 1
Set the destination for each track (T1-T4) you want to effect to AMP: VOL and the amount to -128.
(you can adjust this to taste depending on how much you want to effect each track)

Now whenever the envelope on the CV track is triggered, it creates a positive voltage into Control Input 1, which is then applied as a negative value to the volume of the tracks you have defined by an amount determined on the Control Input 1 modulation setup page. This is just a sample setup and you can do a lot of exploration with the CV ENV.

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Analog Rytm MK II + Octatrack Sampling Sounddesign Experiences
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#2

now i would love to have CV Inputs on my A4 MK1. Great idea mate! Make a Video out of this! :smiley:

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#3

Thanks! But I spend my money on synths, not cameras… :panda:

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#4

Can you also trigger the envelop using an audio signal?

#5

You can only trigger the envelope with the sequencer, however it might be possible to plug audio directly into the Control Input instead of using this trick. I have not tried that, though.

#6

To me, this is the most impressive new ability of the mk2 version. It can be really difficult to incorporate sidechaining in a live setup. Using LFOs and P-locks isn’t ideal; I feel that you really need envelopes to get the proper sound.

The A4 mk2 is the only Elektron product that lets you do this trick with an envelope as opposed to an LFO. Also, the A4 mk2 has all the different envelope shapes, and the ability to route it to other things like HP filter cutoff maybe, to get interesting variations of the ducking effect.

It would be great if someone could post some examples of this. This ability really makes me want one bad.

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#7

demonstrated nicely here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWYNmh9hkY

i’ve almost got it going perfectly, but when i try to replicate what he does there, the meter on my Modulation Setup page jumps between values of 28 (default) and 46 (when the trigs from the CV track are trigged), and so the ducking is happening moderately to all the steps and then more distinctly on the steps where i laid trigs down on the CV track. does anyone know why the meter in my setup is offset +28 by default?

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#8

nice! I wonder if I can feed the kick directly from my Rytm?

#9

Okay, this works! Two cables from CV A + B into CONTROL 1 + 2, and C +D go into AR 1 + 2

Just sometimes it is buggy and doesn’t work anymore :frowning: Stopping now. But if this works properly this is the most awesome feature of the A4 which can be used on the AR as well!

Gotta watch that video above …totally forgot about that :slight_smile:

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#10

Thanks for bringing back this necrothread… might be really useful in the current setup.

#11

This is a great approach to add more modulation options. Obviously also works with the CV track’s LFOs.

The original post’s instructions worked best for me. The video is nice too, but I prefer the original post’s parameter values.

One other thing to note is that it’s possible to adjust CV MAX LEVEL in GLOBAL (settings) > CONTROL > CONTROL INPUT 1/2. I found that lowering it to 4,000 resulted in being able to get the full modulation range of 0 to 64 in CONTROL IN 1/2 MOD.

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#12

Hey, thats me !
Thanks for the post :slight_smile:

Glad you found this useful

#13

I tried this recently and couldn’t get it working. Did you succeed? Your next message reads like you ended up ducking the Rytm from the Four, rather than the Four from the Rytm.

#14

In theory it would work, unless the signal is too low. I will mess around with this when back off tour.

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