Well said, the temptation is real. Working within the designed parameters, however limiting some may feel, obviously provides a device’s creativity identity. Sure, you can morph that and transmute it to your heart’s desire, but what are you left with? Cliche, but we do lose a commonality as performs “oh my Perkons doesn’t use vb4.1 are you kidding?”.
That said, I would like to see a few quirks fixed, mainly lockups when Decay is maxed - it’s quite reproduciable.
For me AI is offering a great opportunity to build supplementary utilities, like patch managers for synths connected to hybrid DAW set ups - these can be a great educational tool that help us retain our seat at the controls rather than losing ourselves in endless f/w upgrades… at the caprice of all things, a drummer’s mind lmao.
I dont know much about all this ai firmware stuff, but after spending a decent amount of time with perkons, I can’t figure out why they went for 2 kick voices, why not a tasty perc voice instead or perhaps a second hat voice
The wavetables are incredibly distinct and quite niche at the same time, there is no reason to have them duplicated across two channels. Apart from layering a drone thing I suppose.
The kicks on voice 1 and 2 are similar, they could’ve shared a voice.
Loads of voice modes don’t really do anything to justify having these mode 1, 2, 3 options (Karpluss strong, noise clap). In some cases it’s an illusion of options.
Absolutely great machine but it does need more range. Yes there are many ways to break out of this sound profile but the sound profile is definitely narrow. This is a fun challenge for a couple of years but starting ideas using those same wavetables again and again ultimately got the better of me.
Not throwing shade at all. One of the best things I’ve ever owned. But an expansion of its sonic range is the only thing I would say it really really needs.
I respect Erica Synth’s right to keep their cards close to their chests but…
A simple ‘coming soon !’ or ‘in the works’ social media post would go a long way.
But I’m not looking for a main drum machine, more for those interesting sounds that you wouldn’t normally classify as percussion? Sort of glitchy noises, crackles, “crunchy” percussive sounds (i.e. the sort of sounds a lot of people use modular for).
Is Perkons this kind of modular sound designer without the modular"environment"?
I do not know, if I would say that the Perkons give you the relatively unlimited pallette of a modular system - it does have a very defined range of sounds - but this is definitely how I use it. I am not too fond of the kicks, but as weird percussion to supplement a more straight beat, it is wonderful, providing you like it’s very specific sound, that is.
I think any synth/drum machine that has parameter locking/motion recording is open to making weird and crazy sounds. Just start twisting knobs and craziness will happen.
I would say this about the Perkons - as someone who has been through the honeymoon period…
It’s great fun used standalone when you want to smash out some techno, but personally I’ve found it’s so ‘Perkons’ it’s become hard to use it constructively alongside other kit as it envelopes the sound stage.
When you want those bass sounds there’s nothing better but personally I’ve found it rather tiring over the last year and it’s being used less and less
After a couple of years lusting after a Perkons and how cool it would look next to my Vermona Perfourmer I finally found a good price used one locally.
I’d be interested to hear how many of you are using it with the mono out (keeping the delay and compressor in play) and who’s splitting it out into four voices?
To me it feels a lot more fun and coherent in mono but not being able to put some reverb on the snare like sounds is killing me.
I did it all in mono and it’s awesome because the compressor makes a big difference . You can shorten the delay time to make it a reverb if you want. Pretty sure you can also send the snare into a reverb pedal and that should send out the main out.
Yes mono main out is where all the sauce is (that compressor).
Use the send/returns also and that effected sound also passes through that compressor, obviously. But that’s where it’s at!!
Also if you use individual outs, you lose parameter locks on the gain knob for each voice. Gain p-locks are a huge part of the sound, horrible to lose them!
Try p-locking a trigless step of gain to 0 after a step. It means you can open the decay and there is always steps there to pull it back down and keep the sound from going too crazy.
Do the above on your kick track, open the gain right up. Those silences and cuts create a rhythmic sub line alongside your kick.
Thanks, while that’s a little frustrating I do think there’s something to be said for just using a machine the way it’s designed/in its most simple form.
Ever since I got the outbox for my digitakt I’ve been spending more time thinking about routing configurations than making music, so a mono output is a good antidote to that.