Getting around Syntakt's lack of "kits"

Elektron Gear Syntakt
#1

I am mostly loving my Syntakt, but the thing I’m having the hardest time with is that every tweak I make to any sound is constrained to the pattern in which I’m making it. Even very simple mixing adjustments like levels or panning (e.g. “I’d like the bass to be a little louder on this song”) don’t propagate to any other instances of the same sound on other patterns. This makes it hard to compose/mix full tracks in the box on the Syntakt.

The only way I’ve found to keep my sounds consistent (when I want them to be (which is: most of the time)) is to copy/paste any sound I modify in any pattern to every other pattern. This is a real flow-killer, and also provides a lot of opportunity to slip up and make simple but catastrophic copy/paste mistakes.

Do y’all have any alternate ways you’ve developed to get around this issue, in cases when you want to keep a consistent sound for the bulk of a particular arrangement? Do you do all your sound design first and then arrange? Have you come up with a clever way to get saved sounds, or the sound pool, to propagate throughout a project?

Or is it really just a matter of crossing fingers and toes for a firmware update that provides some easier way to achieve sound consistency from pattern to pattern within a project (I have some ideas…)?

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[ Definitive list ] Syntakt Sound Packs, Tutorials & more
#2

Found this video with a workaround recently (timestamp 42s) - made me reconsider getting a syntakt.

EDIT: Video’s creator is on here as @jcd

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#3

For me it’s also a big flowkiller but quite a few people prefer it without kits. It has been a discussed topic since the Digitakt came out. I don’t think Elektron will suddenly change it.

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#4

This has been discussed a lot in regards to the Digitakt as well and the lack of kits is what ultimately made me move from the Digi pair to an MC-707. There are a few workarounds on the Digitakt that I’m not sure will work on the Syntakt but I agree that it’s highly doubtful Elektron will implement kits on the Digitakt / Syntakt.

I agree that it’s a huge workflow killer. I like to experiment with multiple pattern ideas all at once and the endless copying ultimately made these boxes much less fun than I wanted them to be.

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#5

I was thinking there might be ways to address this that might not require changing the architecture of the device and introducing true “kits”, e.g.:

  1. Allow a user to designate a sound as “global” in a project, meaning it’ll occupy the same channel in every pattern, and that any change to it in any pattern (besides locks) will propagate through to the other patterns. This function would be something you could enable or disable (like global tempo vs. per-pattern tempo) so it wouldn’t change the way the Syntakt works for anybody who prefers how sounds currently work.

  2. Allow a user to hold a button down while adjusting a parameter (or engage some kind of “global parameter adjust” lock) to automatically propagate any change made in that state to all other instances of that sound within the project. In this case, every instance would still be its own unique instance, like they are now, but you’d have the option of making any individual change apply globally.

Either of these would still require a firmware update but maybe not a super complex one…

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#6

Analog Four has Kits, and it drives me crazy :stuck_out_tongue:

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#7

I think Elektron’s stigma with kits is that the idea is great but their implementation is not. As a consequence, they’ve wrongfully assumed the complexity of the idea is the problem, when it’s in fact their actual execution that’s at fault.

Somehow, the OT got this right with parts. As usual, some of Elektron’s best work still resides in the OT.

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#8

What about it drives you crazy @Jeanne?

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#9

I’d love to know too! I’ve heard a lot of frustration with how kits are handled but I don’t have any kit-using Elektron boxes myself so i don’t know their downsides - just that not having the concept of shared sounds across a project often makes for a messy arranging/mixing process for me.

#10

With four tracks, another pattern will have variations of the sounds anyway, so I sometimes lose sound settings because I forgot to save it to a kit (especially after I haven’t touched the A4 for a while).

On Syntakt and Digitone I just make my track based around one pattern and have it to be almost done. Then, when I add more patterns and THEN change something that is valid for all patterns, it’s almost nothing and can easily be copied. And more often than not, at least one track will have a completely different sound, thus making the Kit useless like on the A4.

The global FX/MIX are much more welcome to me :wink:

(Had a long day today, so some sentences might be a bit gibberishy :wink: )

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#11

These can be considered a half-way step to kits, imo

#12

… Kits would start to become useful [for my workflow] if there were a flag for tracks to have them unaffacted …

#13

I see - so you basically make a single pattern with all your primary sound design elements, balanced how you want them, and then expand the arrangement from there, tweaking the sounds pretty minimally (or via locks) from that point on?

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#14

I struggled so much with this on M:C, DN and DT. Now, my thinking is ya just gotta embrace the non-linear slant of the sequencer. On Syntakt, you got a few more tracks than usual so you can do more on one pattern. If something doesn’t fit in a pattern, maybe perform it live or if you have a sampler make it into a sample. Also there’s track scale, though that’s less useful on the Digi series since micro-timing doesn’t scale like it does on Models.

It’s also not the end of the world to sequence in Ableton. I kinda have plans to get into that workflow if I ever have the need … but I just haven’t yet, probably because I look at Elektron gear as primarily for beats and the average length of my tracks is getting shorter and shorter.

Another thing you can do is sequence a second box, or a synth (possibly multitimbral) to use as a sound module whose sounds don’t reset on pattern switch.

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#15

This is what I do as well. I get the main idea down in the first pattern and then all of my tweaks occur after that on other patterns. I might have some radically different sounds in some patterns, but by the time I get to that point I’m usually close to finishing the skeleton of the track.

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#16

Appreciate folks sharing their approaches!

I think I’ll experiment with the tip from the Captain Pikant video linked above, too… still copy/pasting across patterns, but at least a more efficient version of that…

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