a gentle breeze blows amongst the trees, i embark at last upon the play/record machines of the Machinedrum … and have said 'Yes" to the smooth transition technique … with a two-track mixer nearby with the sole purpose of powering an additional Output E as the prEview line feed when required, matrix switching via global slots.
inspired by something you wrote, five years ago perhaps, how the four record/play machines are more than capable of sketching out entire songs 
If I had to get rid of EVERYTHING (hopefully it’ll never happen), the Octatrack+OP1 would be my last essential combo. The couple sets I’ve done with that pair or just the OT have been rewarding and there is tons of potential there.
the original promo for the OT was a sunrise (or sunset) poster with a magnificent sun
… later on, the next promotional item was a video, super bizarre and incredibly cool with a DJ playing/improvising tweaking tech.
always thought it would be cool to do so.
but i dropped Liptons Iced Tea on mine so i turned it into an artwork and sold the device.
my first love was Machinedrum and so there i have returned.
working with 4 Record Machines and 4 Play Machines takes out 8 Trig Slots to begin with.
then 1 Midi Machine for the Prophecy
and 1 Ctrl-8P for realtime mixing of the 4 Play Machines and also realtime filtering of each one in some fashion.
What is left is a sextet of Trig Machines. A 6-Track drum sequencer. With a very cool looper scenario and the sequencing of a monosynth. I think this is going to be the live performance template and studio realtime recording template, all-in-one.
The cool thing is, that means there will be 6 LFO’s essentially not being used (for example the Record machines do not need it) … and the Machinedrum Random Probability Trig/No-Trig Technique requires 2 LFO’s per drum it is achieved with, very cool.
shhhh, don’t drop too much knowledge! 
this may seem ridiculous, but i’ve been inspired to include a Lenovo Think Pad running Caustic 3.2. The device was a gift, i’ve never used it and yet, somehow tonight, the size of it and the haptic response all make it seem kind of cool. If only to play samples directly into a Record Machine while monitoring that channel via the mixer and headphones…
essentially a manual sample library storage and synth bundle via Caustic, then sequencing the inputted samples with the Play machines…
suddenly 2.4mb of memory seems quite adequate.
hilarious re/ song mode … yes, i think the opportunity for setting odd meters is very much an abstract technique. with realtime linking of Patterns, it is tempting to forget the pleasures of Song Mode. I’m just in Pattern Mode at the moment.
if the Machinedrum is essentially being a drum kit, and Song Mode is utilised to insert a fill every 8, 12, or 16 bars, that is still very much a Pattern oriented use of Song Mode. Then if another Elektron unit were to be used, it wouldn’t matter so much if they were in Song or Pattern Mode.
talking of housey stuff, early italian dance music scenes had players on the keys playing directly those timeless house riffs. are you ever tempted to play realtime and record that, perhaps then resequencing certain elements of a 2 bar improv/chord-skank?
yes, i could imagine for the Monomachine in particular, the progressive Pattern buildup would be an immaculate selection.
very, very keen to start using a ctrl-8P with the Play machines.
I must be Davy Crockett because I been on standalone hardware since 1995 
very cool … today i fashioned a passable poor-man’s Oberheim signature sound with the Perc. Organ from a Casio 3200 going through a Multiplexing Octave pedal, a Blackstar tube overdrive, and the Machinedrum’s FA Filter Envelope Follower. 
do you ever find yourself drawn to the idea of finding the perfect drum machine - synth combo?
ditto, just spent the last year working inside Max with most of that time taken up learning the code, have now gone back to hardware using a ‘TX18Z’ and ‘DT’ when its shipped.
save up for a Cwejman i reckon that would look amazing at a gig, visually, even if it was just used for sampling
TR-808 + Jupiter-8 look perfect together even sharing the same knobs and buttons, and i love to trigger the JP8 arp with the 808. The VP-330 mk II vocoder also has those buttons - i would love one.
next level
Everyday and perhaps why I buy and sell gear constantly just to find that zen. So far, my MPC500 and Monotribe has been my ectasy daydream station. I can sit there for hours…and always forget to record it.
a match made in cloud nine, very daydream-optimised
if it was an mpc5000 the combo may have seemed slightly awkward
(like a reconnaissance plane and a battle-cruiser)
Hey guys!
I finished a vid of a jam I’ve been working on. It’s all hardware. The gear list is in the video 
It was so much fun creating this! Any feedback welcome. I did add some final mastering plugins to push the sound a bit https://youtu.be/RMpcr3U9zm8
[quote=“friedcircuit, post:54, topic:36493, full:true”]
Does anyone else think the Dark Trinity is an overpowered setup? I have OT+AR+A4+AH and this setup is too much for me to handle! [/quote]
I think this is just a right setup, but I don’t have AR and AH.
I already have trouble keeping track of what’s going on inside just my OT after leaving it for a few days, can’t even fathom the mental effort of keeping a project in sync across 5 machines. Props to you guys!
The longer I don’t turn on the studio, the longer it takes to get back in the zone again… If the OTs not on for a month it could take a couple days… It’s like I know what I was up to but my multitasking synapses need to reconnect. Usually after a few days everything’s easy again…
Solution: Don’t go to long between playing music… Reminding myself as well…