Is the AK/A4 the best CV controller on the market today?

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Just got a great deal on an ADDAC 111 and dinky’s taiko, and I’m looking into ways to control them. Doing the math, it seems to me that I should buy an A4 to complement my AK/Eurorack setup. But before I do, I’d like to ask you guys: is there any other piece of hardware that has the flexibility in CV control that elektron has brilliantly put into these boxes?

4 multiuse CV outputs (can be dividable clocks, envelopes, LFOs, Gates/trigs, V/Octave (or Hz/Ovtave)

P-Locks
Probability Trigs
FX ins

There’s nothing else out there that does this stuff, right?

Am I crazy for thinking that I should just pick up a used A4 instead of picking up a Rene or trigger riot or metropolis and a 4ms PEG?

#2

For more outputs and a different style of sequencer but no synthesis or sound processing capability, you might consider a Sequentix Cirklon with CVIO option.

#3

I think what makes the modular sequencers special is not the myriad ways you can arrange things, but rather how you can create chaos.

I mean, the a4 is a really efficient sequencer - but I imagine something like the Rene is much more geared towards stumbling upon happy accidents. It’s maybe less about creating traditional modal music and more about going nuts? That’s how I’ve understood it.

So different purposes. You won’t write a symphony on a Rene, but you don’t have a “snake mode” on the a4 :smiley:

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#4

now that’s a pricy meatball

2 Likes
#5

I totally agree that the most fun I have with modular is the crazy accident stuff, but for actual useful MUSICAL composition, I like to be reigned in a bit.

I can point to any number of performances wherein a guy with a rack spends twenty minutes droning on about nothing. Which is totally fine, if that’s the goal. I’m just not going for that. I’m always shocked by how few YouTube vids create anything (traditionally) musical with their modular, and i can only guess it’s because the means overtook the end.

It’s a dilemma, and I too have spent HOURS just listening to maths snap and swell on some filter/vca thing, the whole time thinking, “God I wish I still got high.” :grimacing:

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#6

A sequencer ? What for ?
:smile_cat:

#7

Haha, I hear you :smiley:

I have a small modular, but I’m not that heavily looking for that “I just lost 4 hours twiddling knobs and listening to bloops” meditation. It’s just a way of achieving new timbres, and I use them to make regular melodies for regular people. :slight_smile:

That being said, I could go for a bit of snake mode every now and then, if it was available. (sounds like a bad euphemism)

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#8

Audio Damage took the idea and repackaged it and was pretty much up front about it iirc … a boutique Behringer style strategy perhaps

hat may well have more going on now - but I don’t think the A4 is the last work in CV sequencing it’s just very well done and integrated into a whole - super deep and powerful, but it can sometimes be more fun with say a SQ1 imho

#9

The A4 is worth getting even without the CV capabilities.

Get the A4 and worry about the euro sequencers later

Also because of Overbridge your basically getting rock solid sync with your daw and modular. This usually requires an expert sleepers or innerclock solution

And it has inputs with filters and fx for running your modular through

If you have a bit of eurorack, the A4 is a no brainier actually.

There’s another massive thread on here about A4 CV and mostly eurorack