Drum sound design with the MnM?

Hi,

I decided to go full hardware a few months ago and I’m now the happy owner of an Octatrack and an Analog Four.

I love the process of designing all of the sounds I’m using and I can already do A LOT with both machines but I’m still relaying a lot on external/pre-made samples when it comes to Drum Sounds and I also could definitely use some colder/metallic sounds (especially when it comes to Bass sounds).

So I thought of buying a Monomachine…

How much capabilities does the MnM has when it comes to Drum sound design ?
I’m mainly looking for electronic kind of drum sounds (so no real use for acoustic drum sounds). Could it do as much or close to the Machinedrum for those kind of sounds ?

If you guys, have good examples (YouTube videos or in your own tracks) of this kind of use of the MnM, please post them !

Thanks.

If you’re looking for drum sounds that are metallic, glitchy and non acoustic, the machinedrum UW is the way to go.

There are plenty of YT vids showing the MDUW in action. I had one and I had a MnM in the past so I would recommend the MDUW.

Others might disagree, but I didn’t find the MnM particularly suited for drums & percussion. Good kicks were particularly difficult/impossible to synthesize. Hats made out of white noise and some random bleeps are doable.

The A4 is MUCH better at drums imo. I’ve had it only for a week now and it’s already surpassing what I could come up with the MnM in the drum department.

So, I’d either focus on the A4 or buy a dedicated drum machine.

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Do not underestimate the MnM:FM machines for percussive sounds.
Also I love the beatbox machine. The individual sounds are ok at most, but the way they are layed up invites you to make strange percussive patterns.
In addition to this you still have the sin/noise for hats and base drums.
The dynamic FX machine is helpful for percussive boost. Even though I found the Elektron compressors hard to use with good results.
However, if you are after more conventional drum stuff the MnM might not be the best choice.

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yep, that would be a better solution. i’m not saying the MnM is not capable of making good drum/bass sounds, but it requires a bit more time to get what you want. a MD would definitively sort things out (unless you really fancy having a MnM)

reading through this, I just had the idea that it might be quite interesting to layer percussive sounds from A4 + MnM + MD, and sample them with the MDUW.

I haven’t even done this with the A4 & MD yet, but it sure will be fun.

anyway, conclusion: I want a Monomachine.

I think the MnM makes for some excellent drums but what’s annoying is that there’s no trig mutes so you have to be careful ‘playing’ the sequencer. The trig you remove quickly will not be the same note if you place it again.

A lot of different points of view here ! :joy:

If I had the budget for it, I would buy both the MD & MnM but I’ll have to choose (and buy it second hand too !)

desdinova: My idea, if I buy the MnM, is to create the drum sounds for a track and then sample and sequence them into the OT so that’s not a problem for me.
It makes me think that I could use several tracks on the MnM to create a single drum sound… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

void: Good idea ! It should sound awesome to mix the coldness and sharpness of the MnM or MD and the warmness of the A4.

And what about the other way around: Could I create bass sounds with a MD ?

My setup is based around the MNM and MD and I recommend them highly, but as an unconventional suggestion, have a look at the Kawai XD-5. What I like about using the Monomachine for in regards to drums is the sequencing and the arp, which are both much more powerful on the OT to my understanding. You can make some ridiculous sounds on it, drums, bass, cool fuzzy midrange stuff.

The biggest disadvantage is that it has virtually no CC implementation and you’d need to spend time with the front panel, but it is easy to program in sounds. I still say buy the MNM, but the Kawai would work well as a dedicated drum synth and should only set you back $100.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll have a look at the Kawai.

You really have to experience the MnM for yourself. No one can describe it to you because its a canvas of huge potential which does nothing if you don’t program it. I don’t think it is good for either drums or bass, personally. These tasks are just too mainstream for the MnM …

But if you hear demoes which tick your boxes, its a Pandora’s box of surprises.

B

I think the mnm does cool percussion. I’ve only had it a few weeks. The trick seems to be in the FX machines. And lots of them! So I find that a whole kit might only make a few sounds - but then with plocks you have quite a bit of flexibility to change this. I have a silly number of kits that only one track with a sine or noise machine…

Still, if you have the octa you should also be able to make some nice percussion with the filters, again you might have to devote a few tracks to making them for resampling and neighbors, but you can sample that and re use it.

Or make a kick on the a4 , sample n compress it on the octa, add a bit of grunge and run it back into the a4, but change your oscillator to an input machine.

But I like to use the machinedrum for drones, ambient and heavenly (n heavy) pads, so im weird.

use the sine wave
I am a big fan of this for bass and booming 808 deep kicks

How do you get around the varying attacks with the sine waves?
B

attack decay filter
I like the sense of instability as it sounds analog

Its sounds like a sine wave starting at random points. This produces uneven kick hits each time. That’s not analog, its just random.

808 kicks always start with the same initial spike. I can’t think of any drum synth sound which is a sine wave with highly variable click attack.

B

The A4 is a great drum machine!

@koyl

I think the MD would suit you better, as it’s not only made for percussion, it’s also more than possible to create good basslines in a number of ways. There was a discussion about that very recently, I forget whether here or at EU but you might look for it.

Re the MnM, have you had a listen to the examples Lem posted? He created a soundpack (available free from HQ) of patterns that include lots of drum tracks. Most of them are made with the BBox and FM machines IIRC. He also recorded a 15-min jam session where he demos the patterns. (IMHO nothing beats listenable examples when you’re deciding on an expensive piece of kit.)

Interesting… where can one find this?

^Download here, demo [url=“https://soundcloud.com/lemnic/mnm-demo-sound-bank-from-lem”]here.