hi, first time posting here…I realize this has been asked before, and if I keep working on it I will get something going. But I was looking for a first post topic so here you go. I’m sure it has a lot to do with Punch and Gate playing a large part in the sound design process. Although this is my first Elektron machine, I have spent a lot of time with Teenage Engineering products (OP-1 & P.O, series) and now that I have something from Elektron there is definitely a distinct Swedish method to it. “Effects” are not an afterthought, they aren’t a seasoning or a decorative garnish that goes on last. Rather, in this case, effects are part of the building blocks, the base, the foundation of the sound. That’s how I see it. Like Punch on the OP-1 was sort of ambiguously defined. I always saw it as kind of a compressor/limiter, but Ive heard other people refer to it as a high pass filter.
Anyway, great forum, & loving the Model: Cycles
Layer it with a kick drum.
I find longer decay snares work better. Also lower the pitch and raise the distortion. I also really like the sound with shape really low. Like hitting a hollow log or something.
- use punch
- longer decay, but not too long
- add reverb, but not too much
- lower the volume from main knob on the top left but raise volume + dist over 100
- add other sounds step before and after and nudge them maximum to your snare position (that way you will have 3-layers of snare and you dont have to waste another track to beef it up)
My advice: don’t take the names of the machines as gospel. Some of my best snares have been made with the perc, tone or even chord machines.
Doesn’t really layer though, as it’s still monophonic per track. At best you could make a c64/chiptune style snare, which could sound pretty good depending on the context.
Hit the gate button and go to the trig menu (when you hold down the individual trig and you can make that partiuclar snare hit as long as you want. Making it a little longer than normal, lowering the pitch and adding some verb can go a long way. Also fwiw i’ve found the best snare sounds i get are with the stock snare machine and just twisting knobs until i get what i like.
I tend not to use punch too much if I want my sounds big and fat. I find that, although punch helps with making sounds impact a little harder, it does so at the cost of some of the depth of the sound, which doesn’t help if you want your snare sounding fat.
Reverb is absolutely your friend with big snares on the cycles. I go all in with it, hitting 127 on the send, with the reverb size about 100 and then mess about with the brightness of the reverb til you get what you want. It’s the reverb that helps to give you that spring on membrane snare sound and binds the tonal and noise elements of the sound together.
I like to set the volume as destination for the LFO set as ENV.
With high volume level (blue knob) for this track but lower volume (grey knob), this makes the attack bigger. Now just tweak until you get the body you want, but I’ve found this to be pretty effective.
I’ve had success using the kick machine to make thicker sounding snares
This thread has totally inspired me. Now I find a groove i like and then just move my snare track around to different machines and tweak until hear what i like. So far i’ve gotten a pretty decent white noisy type snare out of the tone machine. I got something I liked out of the kick machine as well. Still have yet to find a decent fat snare sound, the kind that’s more of a slap than a snare. Which may just not be able to be done on this thing.
Ok! So I’ve got some really good sounds out of putting an LFO on the snare with a square wave on the pitch, make it reset and crank that mult to x2000. Really good sounds. Use the LFO fade to taste.
Awesome! Things like that are why I think the M:C is a nod to the silver boxes, where the most exciting sounds come from doing things weirdly or taking things outside their “typical” uses.
It really is and that is a reason I think it’s their best box since MD/MM. Though it’s a little more work to get it to sound fat and deep it can be done and it’s full of secrets.
The extremely high LFO rates are super interesting to explore. I wish the MnM LFOs went that fast.
Indeed!!! Was totally inspired by your post (at least i think it was you) in another thread about using the LFO as another operator on the tone machine and then use the LFO fade as an envelope.