Machinedrum tips and tricks

Me neither after 5 years using it !
OT is definitely a better sequencer / recorder. No doubt. Arranger / Song mode seems better too (I didn’t used it on the MD).
I’m not objective, I think I prefer everything on the OT, even drum synthesis from inputs noise.

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This is a great combo, 110%

Has anyone gotten a TM-1 to work successfully on any type of modern system?

What do you mean by “modern system”?

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TM-1 werks

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maybe you can share a more concrete example about the third lfo point ? :hap:


From 1:10 you can hear these chords. 1:50 is even more obvious.
But maybe you meant concrete as “parameters”? Then check the sysex of the track, it should still be available in the track description.

The idea is basically to set the LFO to control FILT WDTH parameter, and SPEED as the decay, nothing fancy :slight_smile:
Set to ONE to trig one LFO cycle.

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Oh yup ! Sounds really nice, thank you :smile_cat:

how did I not ever try this! The MD keeps on giving years later.

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Yeah, like the person in the video says, you can do this with all the non-UW machines, but the sample machines is where it gets really crazy.

Well if I dedicate M1-M4 to external midi control of the A4. I still have 12 tracks of drums, percussion and various skittering noises. If you can’t make decent music with 16 tracks of stuff happening, try reducing down to 8 and working your way back up!
My only complaint is that the A4 may soudn good and be a newer machine, but I find it very slow to spin up new sounds. Tedious even.
But then you can just use teh sound browser, pull up a preset and tweak to taste.
Where the MD lacks is that there isn’t the microtiming of the later Elektron boxes. But for most of us, solid 16th notes is an aesthetic choice anyway.

I’m curious why you feel that is?

Personally, I have a hard time working with the Elektron sequencer for the purpose of making melodic content. I feel very comfortable with it in terms of rhythms, but even with the Octatrack something about putting notes together takes me longer than usual to get down.

That said, as far as making sounds, I find it incredibly quick and easy, especially having spent plenty of time using older synths with jog wheels and other slower input methods. To me at least the A4 is as simple as can be for as complex a synth as it is.

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I suppose it is because on the Machinedrum you just keep pressing the ‘LFO’ button to toggle between 3 pages of parameters. On the A4 you have 6 groups of pages to access all the parameters of OSC, Amp and filter. It is a lot to keep track of. But admittedly there is a lot more params per voice. I do think it could be organized better.
Also there is the absence of the big knob, which makes hopping between the 16 tracks of the MD fast, as well as editing parameters like Tempo.
The A4 does have the 6 track buttons which is convenient. But I still find my left hand reflexively moving to that side.
What really annoys me is the way stuff like ‘Song’ and ‘Kit’ are buried in the mass of mini keyboard buttons. That really slows me down compared to how it works on the Machinedrum. Especially red on black paint! I simply can’t see it in my studio when the lights are down. Which they usually are when I am jamming.
I love both of them for their various strengths. but if you held a gun to my head and said pick one. I’d choose the Machinedrum.

That’s very interesting, different strokes I guess. On the Machinedrum I basically never use the jog wheel, it just doesn’t feel comfortable and a bit slow and clunky. Similarly I find having to scroll through parameter pages to get back very slow, whereas on the A4 I think it’s generally laid out pretty logically. That said I’m mainly speaking about the Mk2. The Mk1s are definitely a bit slower and less well organized.

I think func+track jumps between tracks.
Way faster than scrolling from BD to OH

[i think that’s the combo. I know there IS one :slight_smile: ]

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That’s correct. But I don’t use it because I 'm almost always in mute mode and then it does something else: cueing tracks from (un)muting.

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https://youtu.be/9czeA6ml8p8 a very cool video I found recently from a respected artist think its cool to check out its like a tutorial/jam

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This is great, thanks for sharing!

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So I have had my machine drum for almost a decade, and I just now realized that you can ‘play’ patterns. For a long time the MD was my clock/sequencer so it didn’t receive and Midi, but I’ve moved to the Octatrack being my sequencer for the last couple of years and had a eureka moment last week when looking through the midi spec for some other stuff. I have alwasy just done program changes to line up everything and holy shit this open doors.

figured I would post this here in hopes that I am not alone in my ignorance of the vast capabilities of this device.

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Can you elaborate on this? Is there something underneath?

Cause it seems obvious that you can « play » Patterns.