How are people liking the Model: Samples?

Elektron Gear Model:Samples
#366

Had mine a couple of weeks now. Got a great deal off @og_tea_boi on here , thanks again mate.

Would recommend the Cuckoo mega tutorial highly as a quick introduction into getting going. Found it really intuitive and easy to learn, it’s my first proper Elektron sequencer device but I’m used to step sequencing on other machines.

It’s a lovely fun machine to use , so easy to get a loop going and tweak It to another level. The hands on tactility make this really enjoyable and I think gets you to more interesting places than just mousing a drum rack in Live for comparison.

I’m yet to explore it’s capabilities within a DAW but some great info on this thread here to work through .

My only wish would be some more fx. I’d really like some bit reduction but that’s my personal taste.

My main advice is get your own samples into it ASAP . Nothing wrong with the baked in ones but I think it comes alive with your own stuff.

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#367

No problem, glad you’re enjoying it.

Yeah it’s great, only sold it because I already have DT+MPC 2500. It was my test of Elektron gear and just 3/4 months later I’m deciding between trading in my DT for an AR or OT.

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#368

I’ve also owned mine for a few weeks, and while I’ve mostly just loaded in samples and “played around” with it, my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve been heavy into iOS music apps the past several years, so nothing about the M:S was earth-shattering in terms of its capabilities, nor does it necessarily do anything I couldn’t do before. But it’s a lot more FUN to do it on a piece of hardware like this versus a touchscreen (IMO), and it was just too much value to pass up for what it cost.

I will say that my use of the pads has gone better than expected, given that I’m not a drummer and don’t have particularly great rhythm. The Cuckoo video helps, and it does take a little bit of trial and error to understand the workflow. But once you get a little familiar with it, the M:S just seems to offer several different ways to program sequences. It accommodates finger drumming (with note quantization) just as well as it works as a x0x step sequencer.

There still are little nagging things that I screw up or can’t figure out - things like how program a pitched note on one of the trig keys, and then copy said note to other trig keys. Also, it drives me nuts when you load a sample on one pad, and then have back out of 10 file path steps to navigate to that same sample on a different pad. Part of this is user error, part of it purposeful design choices by Elektron, but I am still working out some of the tricks on being more efficient.

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#369

Couldn’t agree more about the menu diving for samples - it’s my ONE big gripe with the MS - I have a DT now and as others have posted the MS/MC are great tools to get to know the Elektron workflow - transitioning to the DT took very little time and it’s obviously a more ‘refined’ machine but I wouldn’t say it was more ‘fun’ - the MS could do with some more firmware updates for sure but it sounds fantastic and it really let my creativity flow… which can only be a good thing :slight_smile:

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#370

For £274, the MS is the best bargain I’ve picked up in years.

It strikes a near-perfect balance between cost and features for my purposes: I prefer sampling in my DAW; Sample Locking now greatly extends the six-track limit; and hands-on tweaking is my priority.

As with any gear that I take a shine to, I’ve found myself speculating about how it could be improved further. I think it’s fair to say that there are some elements of the design (awkward sample management, 9-character display, bizarre pattern-chaining procedure etc.) that seem inelegant in contrast to Elektron’s celebrated features.

My hope is that Elektron continue to chip away at the firmware until it’s as stable and streamlined as possible. More features are always welcome, but for me the question that tends to returns is, How productive can I be with this thing? A few productivity-oriented tweaks would make all the difference.

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s currently a nasty bug that could be a dealbreaker for some: the device regularly misses the first step of the pattern when slaved to an external clock. I think this might be a useful litmus test for whether I continue to invest in Elektron gear. If they can get it sorted soon, I might find room on my desk for the Model:Cycles.

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#371

It does strike me that a lot of the biggest complaints or suggested improvements about the Model:Samples seem like things that feasibly could be corrected. The pattern chaining issue is just sort of silly, and could be improved in any number of ways. The sample management thing is a little tricky - one of the reasons it is an issue on the M:S and not on, say, the Volca Sample, is that the M:S is capable of storing many times more samples. But I think we have the display, we have encoder knobs, buttons, and shift functions - it really should be possible to chip away at that problem with incremental improvements.

In my case, the way I have my samples stored means that I often want to load more than one from the same folder, but not ALL of them to 6 pads. There really is no way elegant way to do that. It seems like close to 10 button presses just to switch pads, back out of whatever folder that one happens to be in, and then use the orange knob to twist over to your sample. Like, could you long press the back button just to jump to “pool”? Little changes like that.

Also, maybe I just don’t understand finger drumming or MPC’s, but it amazes me how hard you have to smack these things to get velocity in the 100-127 range. Arturia’s pads are similar out of the box, but they offer velocity curves at least, which I know has been discussed.

1 Like
#372

I like the MS very much! It’s nice machine with very quick and easy workflow. But I found that sometimes when it plays many different samples assigned to a different pads (sample lock) - it’s breaking. It looks like processor power is not enough to handle bunch of samples to play, so the sound is not even and is clipping sometimes (metronome is turned off). Do you experience things like this?

#373

The M:S is monophonic per track and can play six samples at a time of spread across all six tracks. Possibly trying to exceed these parameters is giving you unexpected results?

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#374

Same here… I like how the M:S distorts much better than the DT.

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#375

Oh no! I forgot! It is 6 sounds kinda polyphony! The longer sample is broken by the next as voice limitation is reached. I haven’t expected I can reach this limit so easy - never thought about it and now I remember posting comments on you tube about firmware update that support sample locks and I was mentioning that there is a limitation anyways so the feature is kinda limited! :smiley:

#376

I think you’re absolutely right that the relatively large storage space creates its own challenges. That’s why I’m surprised that they opted for a non-scrolling, non-adjustable, 9-character readout within the SAMPLE ASSIGN menu. It’s cool that I don’t have to wear my glasses and all … but I’ve had to use the most generic names for my samples to make browsing workable.

The feature request thread does seem to be full of low-hanging fruit (e.g. unused sample purging, custom default templates, UI font adjustment, more parameter value-jumping). As you say, it should be possible to make some incremental improvements.

By the way, you might find these tips helpful:

  1. You can long press [BACK] to return to the root directory. I use this shortcut a lot.

  2. To speed up browsing samples, try copying Track A to Track B. This way, when you open the SAMPLE ASSIGN menu on Track B, you’ll be browsing the directory of the selected sample on Track A.

  3. Also, toggle the SAMPLE ASSIGN button to return to the directory with the selected sample in it. This is handy when you’ve browsed away from the directory with the selected sampled in it and need to find your way back.

  4. The pads really do lack sensitivity. I haven’t had mine long enough to tell you whether they’ll break in or not. For now, I’m reducing the velocity depth to around 80 in the PAD SETTINGS menu to adjust for this.

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#377

I think M:S is a clipper and DT is overdrive.

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#378

Those are some GREAT suggestions. In fact, your post needs to be read in concert with mine, since it sounds like some of my “suggestions” either already were features, or similar workarounds exist to get you close to what I was looking for. The track copy idea is particularly smart and useful. The issue I have is that while I have read the manual, and watched probably hours of demo/tutorial videos, I struggle with or forget how to do simple things when using the actual device.

For example, I know and see that there are copy/paste buttons, but that could be copy pattern, copy track, copy trig/step, copy bank, copy session, etc. It’s not automatically clear to me, and I sometimes mess it up. I will learn how to do that, though, as I would probably use that one a lot.

#379

Just practise, it’ll maybe take a little while but you’ll be doing these things without thinking soon enough.

If record is active you’re in track mode and will copy the track, if record is off you’re in global mode and it will copy the whole pattern.

#380

The bug you mention is very annoying - the DT is so tight with Ableton it’s great - the MS really needs this fixing - I agree with the rest of what you said too :slight_smile:

#381

There are also some undocumented shortcuts, believe it or not. If you can arrange to have that document beside you while you work, I’m sure it will pay off in the long run.

Conceding that my memory is limited, I tend to compile digital notebooks for any relatively sophisticated music technology that I own; these contain extracts from the manual, tips from forums and my own discoveries. That might seem like overkill, but the last thing I want is to squander a session spinning my wheels!

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#382

Is there a short cut for resetting all parameters to zero?

Spent the evening creating lots of mini folders of 6 sample kits on an external drive dedicated for the MS. The auto kit load feature is great for this to refine a palette of sounds itb then wack it across to the MS for jamming ideas out. Processing samples with some fx and tweaks in Live. Such a cool productive little machine.

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#383

I’m not aware of any method to reset all parameters in a very convenient way.

If you want to retain your sequence data while resetting most parameters, you could clear the track by pressing [Track] + [Play].

More info here:

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#384

Thanks , really appreciate the reply. I’ve probably created a bit of a cack handed workflow . I don’t save anything as a project , just load up the samples , tweak a jam and record it out as sections to my DAW .

This will work well for clearing the last jams plocks etc

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#385

when they make it possible to just save a kit on the Model Samples itself omg it’s going to make life much easier!!!