Future machines

The AR has different types of analog circuits for each track (6 different circuit types).
My guess is, to space and cost, they only included 2 of these types. One type on tracks 9-11 that can make wide range of sounds (similar to track 1&2 on AR), and one that is geared towards cymbals on track 12 (something that combines 9/10 and 11/12 on AR). The circuits the AR uses for Toms doesn’t seem to be included.

Is strange that they didn’t include digital toms.

What is the ‘PC Carbon’ machine? And for anyone struggling with toms on a real level, it’s just a kick tuned to a higher pitch. Try it.

2 Likes

The toms circuits on AR is single oscillator, vs dual oscillator on the other circuits. So maybe the toms circuits were just a cost-saving exercise on AR. Like others have said, the BD machines should make toms just fine.

Not a good tom lol - toms have quite specific character to them other than the pitch, the resonances and (forgive my lack of proper terminology) rattly sounds - be as well tuning a snare to a lower pitch haha

Edit: I’m mucking about in Ableton and I tell you what I’m liking what happens when I try and create a kick from a Tom though, getting into crunchy bitratereduction territory… brb making noises

it’s defaulting as a tommachine of sorts (and is shown graphically as kinda tomlike), but it is rather easily taken to other places with a few tweaks - so in a control all setting it can morph

better consistent tom type sounds are probably elsewhere by adapting more constrained machines

either way - it does some of those crude toms that I like and that’s before exploring all the modulations and filters etc

My personal reason is because control all over machines is much more useful than control all over a wide synth architecture. You might have drums on the digitone but once you control all they stop being drums pretty quick, for better or worse. On the Cycles control all is really nice because the bass drums stay bass drum sounds (roughly) and also all the parameters have somewhat similar flavor as they move. Also I personally like the middle ground of thinking a bit about synthesis, but also letting a smart person guide the way a bit.

2 Likes

I have heard people say that the Bass Tom circuit on AR makes a mean kick.

i thinks it’s whole point of such devices to have preconfigured limited possibilities. It leads faster to quality results. With the cost of flexibility.
But i totally get what you saying. For myself i got a mixture of more straightforward devices and complex ones (modular stuff). So i have the best of both worlds at hand. For example, sometimes its just great to have something ready to be used for a quick - let’s say - Kick-sequence and don’t have to think and patch a sequencer and several modules .
I think elektron has always been great in doing exactly that, making complex synthesis more easy useable.

1 Like

Completely agree. The balance is good, somewhere between a drum machine like 909 and completely synthesizing from scratch using say modular.
It makes for a very fast workflow that is important when staying in a creative flow.

2 Likes

Between PC Carbon, Dual VCO, and even some of the analog BDs (bandpass filter does wonders here, and they track pitch well, just turn off the pitch sweep for a more convincing tom sound), toms are well covered.

And there are a good amount of tom sounds in the factory sound library to get you started if you don’t want to roll your own.

9 Likes

Good sounding kicks can be made from the dual VCO. But that is not a reason to not have a few dedicated kick machines.

To me this is like criticizing a fender Stratocaster for not being a bass guitar

4 Likes

well, the DVCO was spawned from the kick circuits

it doesn’t have a tom only or centric machine

having listened to some of the library toms, they’re not on my axis - the default PC carbon sound is pretty serviceable

debating this here seems a bit futile, it may get a tom centric machine eventually, it doesn’t have one now and the interest will surely have been noted

looking at a device less than a day old and scrutinising what it isn’t is arguably missing the point, an interesting idea for sure, but nothing to spend all day typing about

the bottom line is it is what it is - see what it can do, start from there - if samples or/and toms are key, it’s maybe not for you

it’s a device with a certain flavour - it won’t be equally strong in all areas, it isn’t doing a west-coast bongo centric machine, but there’s gold in them there hills if you look for what’s there and not what isn’t - i do think that a tom sound is approximately what you get from PC Carbon and there are good toms in and around its settings, it just is a simple fact it’s designed to be very flexible for other timbres and the in-between morphing of parameters is on occasionally very non-tom like - this, as I explain above, may well be a constraint of the basis upon which voices are constructed - it maybe doesn’t lend itself to being called a tom machine, thus PerCussion Carbon

No need to justify a reasonable wish, just be sure to log it in the feature request topic, but judge it based on trying before dismissing, I always agree with the aphorism that expectation is a prison … take it for what it is, not what you expect, it’s not what I expected, but it’s brilliant nonetheless for what I see was its intended brief

a carbon mk2 machine may come or who knows ?

3 Likes

I believe dual VCO (with addition of dedicated mods and noise) was always there as the back engine for Kicks and other machines. Then later they decided to unlock the engine to give us access to it. So I think kick is actually based on DVCO not the other way round.

Also, as I said in my first post that I am not complaining. I am buying the machine and I love what it is about. Can’t wait to play with it.

I am not saying that it can not make toms sounds.
I am not asking for advice on how to make tom sounds.
I am stating that to have dedicated machines named after each drum type and not include tom in this list is a little odd, that’s all.
I’m not angry about it, just find it interesting to talk about.

4 Likes

The guy who made the thread is me. Are you making these points to me?

I think you misunderstood me a little. I already know how to synthesize drums. It is actually my full-time job. I also know a lot about this instrument (I read the manual now 3 times! haha)
looking forward to getting my hands on it to start sound design.

I’m not sure if I read your post wrong, but it seems as though you are a bit stressed about it. I hope not. I just wanted this to be a friendly chat.

2 Likes

Don’t get me wrong I love sound design, and if people are into it they should do it, but it feels like gate-keeping to me to suggest that if someone wants to make a Tom sound on a groovebox that they should have to learn how to do it from scratch. That’s absolutely not what synthesis is for most people - they just want to make cool sounds, especially when they’re buying an opinionated device with dedicated instrument presets (sort of).

But nobody’s complaining - this is a discussion and requests/suggestions, it’s all gravy.

4 Likes

More like “I want to buy a bands worth of instruments in one box” rather than “I only want to buy a stratocaster”

Which is not a criticism of the “stratocaster” of course

1 Like

With the way that my brain is structured, sometimes. But that is me, i put it away and then approach it differently, and don’t pivot forever from one shiny to the next.

“Boring” is the use, not the device necessarily. Inspiration and creativity is the key…

1 Like

I can assure you it was drum driven and the icing on the cake was the ability to latterly coax a nice synth sound from within its core, whether by a small degree of pre-planning or not - it was led by the voice core kick/snare/etc requirements - I was involved in the beta to bring the DVCO from within and as I recall it, this was not some late reveal, it had a eureka vibe to it ‘look what we can also do’ - the voice circuits are being repurposed, but obviously use the same circuits - I’m still satisfied fwiw that the design was purely scoped to be capable for the launch drum voices alone and that a wicked synth voice wasn’t augmented to make it drum friendly … it’s academic, but I’m offering my insights from close to the coal face so to speak

5 Likes

It’s learning how to play your instrument, not gatekeeping. If you don’t want to buy patches or learn sound design, should you buy a new instrument for every sound that you can create yourself but do not currently have a patch for?

Presets and preset instruments are fine but this isn’t a set of samples, it’s meant to be tweaked.

2 Likes