A general impression when reading through threads is that many solutions sound quite complicated. I also contributed some very complicated ideas to this and the E-U forum. Elektron machines are complex and seem to attract people who like to keep thinking, but my main insight of the last months is: Keep it simple, very simple.
Midi sync? You can wire cables and here and there and through boxes for several devices, I don’t get your clock etc. You know what? Remove the Midi cables and practice to hit start in time. Keyboard players or guitarists in a band also don’t have Midi sync.
Loading new projects? Especially on the OT, things are often spread over projects. But also on the MD, Rytm, MnM, it’s easy to create a lot of projects with different styles but then the problem arises how to combine them in a live set. In my current case, with the MPC, it’s not even possible to load a new sample while the sequencer is running. You know what? Press stop. Load. Press play in sync. There are other machines that can fill the gap. In my case just a TR-8 atm, but that’s fine!
Etc. pp.
It’s so easy. Plug the DC cable in, plug the audio cable into a mixer, press play.
I disagree - a little - with your opinion about the midi sync. Why?
I meet with friends to make music live regularily and we are syncing all the time - only by heart - and not exactly to the millisecond, but we keep the groove going. I don’t know any machine, which could do it like this.
My experience with sequencing and use of pattern is, if there is no good syncronisation cross the entire setup that sooner or later the pattern will mismatch and the groove is killed. Well, there might be some experimental and beautiful moments if you let it go, but most of the time it just doesn’t sound well.
I think to have some knowledge and experience about stable and tight syncing is useful and it can be achieved quite “simple”, if you keep it simple … as you said …
Other point.
Some people try to use outboard gear like the software they are using. Those have a tendency to ask for complicated setups. Sometimes I ask myself, why don’t they take the hardware “as is” and make music and don’t see that most of the ITB-flexibility is just not needed all the time …
truly is a fascinating thing, the adventure from complex to simple.
and then, discovery of a territory leads to the search for new boundaries.
but the search necessarily will swing from complex to simple
but then maybe it is easier to double the complexity, if a musician is back to one box or something. One more device doubles the landscape of gear, whereas if there are five pieces of music gear in a studio or booth… one more device is only twenty percent addition to the numerical side of things anyway.
personally i am just focusing on the Octatrack for performance. One DC lead. One Headphones socket.
yes Animoog with the Richard Devine sound bank, yes electric bass through an Overdrive pedal. but nothing more.
actually maybe an OP-1, the new tape echo pedal with real tape, and an Analog Rytm.
apart from that though, no more sequencers except for maybe the CV sequencer pedal from EHX, just to do trills and fills on the AR.
but yes it is fantastic to trigger just the Machinedrum and say the Monomachine individually. This totally works and if the BPM is a number without any decimal points, they stay in time for at least 9 minutes. rock solid.
lots of ways exist to keep it simple. however you do it, i find it’s good advice generally.
the more gear i bring to a gig or incorporate into my setup, the more can break down at the wrong moment, the more i have to find room for, and the more i get sidetracked from actually making music. simplicity brings focus.
i find the temptation to get another instrument is usually my own disguised need to learn what i have more effectively.
