M:C with/without keyboard

Elektron Gear Model:Cycles
#1

I’m finding I get more out of my M:C with a keyboard added. (QuNexus in my case).

But it’s only been a week, so far :slight_smile:

I honestly thought, that having played bass for more time than I want to think about right now, that I’d adapt to the M:C with its trigs laid out exactly as the ‘E’ string on a bass. But what I’m finding is I feel stuck when confronted by the trigs, and have a much clearer visualisation of what I’m doing using a keyboard, and my experiments are more … fruitful.

I’m sure I’ll adapt. But I am considering either buying one of those overlays that has a keyboard layout round the trigs, or else marking it up myself with the dots of a regular guitar/bass fingerboard.

What do other people find ?

#2

100%… i use a keystep. I can’t be bothered trying to program anything melodic on the 16 trig buttons.

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#3

I cut up some of the stickers it came with and dropped them on the sharp notes, they are semi transparent so it does mess with usability, it looks pretty nice too imo. You can adjust the starting note if you want to though. In some ways it is a bit easier to work with a controller, but I just like the idea of it as a little standalone box more. The kind of odd interface brings me to different places than my more traditional keys options.

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#4

I’m pretty sure you can change the first key to any note you want.

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#5

Yeah, sure. Not sure what it is that’s making the difference to me, but I definitely feel freer, less constrained with a traditional keyboard of two octaves in front of me, versus an octave + minor third laid out chromatically. But the 16-trigs as notes thing is still very new to me.

I am doing both … but I know which is more productive for me right now. I’ll probably adapt more to the raw M:C as I live with it more.

#6

Yeah one “trick” I enjoy is to set the pad to play a single note out of the octave you are using on the trig buttons, that octave + custom note can be pretty fun. I find it tends to lead you to play some interesting slightly more minimal melodies. You can always go in and do note changes after playing in a basic idea as well.

#7

That’s the worst bit of doing it keyboardless :smiley: When I’m in C minor and I know I want to move a C to a minor 3rd above and the M:C insists on calling it a ‘D#4’ rather than Eb. … Yeah I know … the M:C would have to know the concept of the key I’m in for that to work … It’s just easier with a keyboard.

#8

I saw that somewhere else on this forum (maybe it was you). Must try that out.

#9

I found it weird at first as well, coming from a bass/guitar background and having gotten used to playing around C. It’s nice to have those few extra trigs compared to the usual 12.

That’s a cool idea. You can get some cool things go with the pad and velocity mod settings.

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