Hi Yall,
Complete newbie to analog gear, purchased Elektron trinity (Octatrack/Ryth/Four) and a Yamaha MG12XU Mixer. Want to know how to set up everything so i can start playing with these wonderful machines. Thanks in advance for your help and your patience. All this seems so complicated and intimidating. Scared to touch anything.
Depends how ypu want your workflow to go - i use the OT as master clock and AR and AK as slaves. AR is the easiest box to learn i would say so id start with that. Learn the sequencer and the project/kit/pattern relationship. Just play arpund with it for a while and watch vids and read some of the stuff on here and youll learn soon enough. Keep in mind that any one of these machines are enough to ply a live set with and also that the OT is a versatile beast and is differemnt to the other two to learn id say. Similar principles but a whole lot more.
Of you give people a bit more of an idea of what you hope to achieve then they can give you better and more specific advice 
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Hi Ianh54,
thanks for the advice and sorry i am not making it clear of my goals just understand this is all new. i agree with you and think its best i focus on one machine at a time. So for now i will get on the AR but once i understand that which other machine should i move on to next? My Goal isâŚif it makes senseâŚis to use all three boxes as one instrument.
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Hello @LK,
Welcome to the forum!
We could perhaps ask for some more information about your background and your request:
Are you asking about how to connect the audio cables between your Elektron gear and your mixer?
Or are you wanting to learn about how to synchronize the Elektron instruments via MIDI?
What other gear might you be using already?
My initial advice echoes that of @Ianh54: start with baby steps: the quick start guides in each of the manuals, one chapter of the manual at a time, search in the PDF manuals for specific terms that you want to learn about, search this forum for specific topics, and then come back to us with more specific questions if you canât find the answers elsewhere.
For example, if you search the forum for the exact title of your topic âConnecting Ekektron trinityâ, you will find a copious amount of knowledge and advice.
AR then AK then Octa maybe. Sitting down with one machine and headphones, first going through the demo patterns, and then working your way through the manual without rushing is what Iâd suggest, as Peter also said.
Often the process of becoming proficient with Elektron machines involves moments of realisation where you grasp the basics of how a feature works, and then your brain joins the dots and says âwhat if I use that other feature with this feature?â, and at some point the structure of how features are connected becomes clear and youâre able to imagine all sorts of things and ways to achieve them.
Take your time and donât get frustrated. There is a lot to learn, you can get good sounding results pretty quickly with any piece of Elektron gear but they all reward exploration and experimentation richly, and that just takes time.
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Agreed. AR, then A4, then OT. OT is very very deep and can be intimidating if youâre new to working with hardware. The AR is also deep, but has a very intuitive interface. You can get something workable with very little effort.
Once you get them all down, consider having the main outputs of AR and A4 go into the Octatrack AB and CD inputs, or having a bus from the mixer into the Octatrack. You can then manipulate/sample/mangle the sound from those in realtime. Thatâs how the Octatrack slowly became indispensable in my setup.
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Its fine im retty new to all it all aswell and done the same as you
On a personal level i pearnt the baaics of the AR from the manual and videos and asked questions on here - theres some amazingly knowledgeable and friendly people on here who are happy to help.
Have you any background/ experience in electronic music making, or any music making?
Do you have any experience with midi or synthesis? As PeterHaynes ( who is very k owledgeable ) says, a little background info goes along way to helping people advise you.
Also like he says, have you got it all set up? Audio and midi wise?
What Leo said.
I really need to get into this method of working.
Way i started on AR was to use the factory kits to learn the basics of the sequencer. I started using Plocks and learning the âtrigsâ system which is common to the trinity - trigless, one shot etc.
This really opens up a lot of doors.
The probability trigs are also well worth looking at after that - the fill option is a good first place to experiment, as its a good way to get fills without taking up a pattern space.
Fwiw i started really simply by a simple four on the floor bass drum and syncopated hat etc, then built it up pattern by pattern. On certain patterns add probablilty trigs ( triggers a sound with a set probablility ) and trigless trigs ( these dont trigger a sound but trigger parameter changes ) Try Plocking ( parameter locking) on them - something simple at first maybe, like increased reverb on the snare etc. Or a filter frequency/lfo change, bass drum decay or something.
Then try using a sample on its own - turn the âsynthâ page volume down and choose a sample - sine wave or similar.
Then on that track enable chromatic mode and âlive recordâ a melody. Then just twiddle knobs and experiment.
By doing these simple things youve already leant a lot of easy to remember basics.
Learn how to assign factory sounds to tracks ( pads as i call em!! ) and samples. Its pretty simple if i can do it anyone can!! And then just go into the synth edit page and twiddle k lbs and experiment.
in fairness im far from the best person to advise you on this but im sure some people who really know their stuff will chip in.
The AR alone is an amazing instrument and i say instrument not machine because elektron boxes i feel are more instruments than lock it and leave it machines. The OT especially.
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Sounds to me like you just spent about 3K for the pleasure of a headache. @Peter_Hanes is on the right track here. If your goal is to get all three machines playing nice together you need to get your MIDI Sync sorted and then of course get your audio routed to the mixer. Getting the audio routed shouldnât be any sweat. MIDI sync will, perhaps, be more complicated. I suggest you start with the MIDI section of each of the manuals. Basically you have to choose one machine to be the âmasterâ and the other two will be âslaves.â
Not knowing your experience level its hard to know how to direct you. Youâll need at least three five pin MIDI cables to get these three all synced up. As for hooking up instruments to the mixer, again, the manual should go into some basics on how to handle this. Though Iâd say that is probably the most straight forward task you have in front of you.
Cuckoo has some excellent video tutorials on the A4 and the Octa too (I think). Personally for the depth they offer, Iâve always found Elektron extremely straightforward to use and the workflow of the menu system and the button combinations has never detured my creativity. As for which machine to pick to learn first, Iâd say have a crack at any of them. I find I learn a new synth/drum machine best by trying to make a whole song with the one device a couple times. This is very possible with all three of the Elektron machines youâve got.
There does seem to be a consensus that the Octa is the odd duck out when it comes to difficulty level, however, some close friends who have owned the Octa have said they never found it particularly difficult to learn.
Make sure you set whatever machine you use as the master midi to send Clock and Transport, then make sure the other machines are set to recieve clock and transport. Also read the manual and go into midi setttings on the master and make sure the notes and/or pads are not sending midi externally. This way for example if your A4 is the master, when you play a key on its mini keyboard, you wont sending âplayâ note values to the AR or the OT. You basically want to keep only the clock and transport going out from the main master machine.
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Iâve had all 3 of these boxes for a few years now, and Iâm just now feeling really comfortable with how it all works.
Thereâs still plenty to try with the OT too.
Iâd tag this on to what others have said.
Dont worry about getting them all up and running together just yet, because you gonna change your mind about how you want all of it to work over and over before you get it right.
Sit down with each one individually, dont worry about screwing anything up, and just start going for it.
Get your muscle memory down for saving kits, songs, sounds, samples.
Make a song on each box by itself, make a lot of mistakes and keep moving forward.
Eventually youâre mind will start to formulate how you like to use each one, and how you want to connect them.
Once they are all hooked up, I find that I use each box a little less, or each one is reduced in itâs duties.
For example, I might only have 2 tracks going on the A4, bass line on the AR, and using the OT just as an effects box.
The A4 makes killer drums using one track, maybe youâll get into that, and do lots of live sampling using the OT.
Thereâs SO MANY ways, so its important to kind of figure out what you like about each one, otherwise itâs gonna feel over whelming.
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Hi People, thank you all for the friendly advice not sure i can answer all of you, but you have all pointed me in the right direction. Thank You so much:grin:
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Looks like youâve got lots of fun ahead of you combined with lots of learning. If you really are fresh to all of this well itâs sorta like youâve just bought a whole science lab. The things that these machine are capable of and the underlying structures they work with(synthesis,midi,cv,etcâŚ) can take years to grasp, and then many more years to master⌠I would just start slow and have fun with no real expectations for a bit, for every one thing you begin to understand, it opens the door for a few more things to soon be understood⌠There are many ways to do things, so simply asking how to do x, can get you multiple different answers which could be helpful or confusing. As time goes by things just start to click, and you start answering your own questionsâŚ
Your question of how to set up a trinity is kind of loaded and can get you hundreds of different answers ranging from âplug in these cablesâ to what could amount to several pages of settings and techniques. And even if you got the several page response it would push you into a corner that another user sits in, when there is a whole room full of seatsâŚ
If I were you Iâd sit back, relax, get my lab coat on, and get ready for the rest of my sonic life!
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