MCL with a MK1 MD

Elektron Gear Machinedrum
#1

Howdy! I’m a relative newbie round these parts, and I’m loving the community here.

I thought about bunging this question in the big thread for MCL 4.20, but creating a separate topic seems to make sense.

Anyway, I recently got a MK1 Machinedrum, non-UW version, and I love it! I’m looking at getting an MCL to pimp this bad boi up even more. I know that it wouldn’t be able to use some of the X0.7 firmware’s features, but using the MCL would increase the MK1 to 64 step patterns, correct?

If so, how does one edit the second half of the pattern on a Mk1? Through the MCL itself? Does anyone have experience with this setup?

Thanks in advance for any insights, and enjoy the gear that you have! :slight_smile:

#2

I have a MK1 non-UW MD, you need the MegaCMD as this runs the MCL sequencer (the MD sequencer still runs in the background and this needs to be empty as it is not fully disabled). When the MegaCMD is powered up and attached to MD, it does a short Peering process to control the MD sequencer

The MCL sequencer runs in Enhanced mode, when both Classic and Extended led’s are lit. This mode disables access to the MD’s internal sequencer.

Copied from the MCL 4.2.0 documentation.

Each track consists of 4 pages of 16 steps, for a total of 64 steps per track.

Rotate the visible track page by pressing the Load button. (on the MegaCMD)

The MD’s [Scale] button can also be used to rotate the visible track page.

So you can use a bit of both MD buttons and the buttons on MegaCMD for the same action and this is how I have ended up using it.

Hope that helps.

#3

Coolio, thanks for the reply!

Yeah, by ‘MCL’ I think I meant ‘MegaCMD’. In my head I conflate the two, but I know that the MCL is the software and the MegaCMD is the hardware.

So I guess to edit steps 33-64, you just page across using buttons on either device, then using the MD’s trig buttons to add/remove trigs, and p-locks, right?

I suppose you can also do live recording, then go back in grid/step mode and tweak them from there?

So to summarise, you’re using the MD or the MegaCMD’s buttons, but using the MegaCMD’s screen, to see the extra steps, right?

Thanks for the help. I just read through most of the manual, and it didn’t explicitly mention this scenario of using a Mk1, so thank you for the heads up. Now I just gotta wait for this guy to get back to me who’s gonna make me a MegaCMD :crossed_fingers: :slight_smile:

#4

The trig lights are paged through on the MD and mirrored on the MegaCMD screen at the same time, so for 64 steps there will 4 pages of 16 steps.

Some extra functionality is accessed via the MegaCMD encoders: conditional trigs, micro timing and track length.

Each track can have a different length, this length is shown on the MegaCMD screen and you can also use the Function - Scale Setup on the MD to scroll through the individual track lengths per track.

This sounds more laboured in explanation than it is to do. The integration between the MD and MegaCMD is very slick.

I am not aware that any previous step sequencer functionality has been lost, so your pre-upgrade ways of operating the MD should still apply.

There are loads of new features compared to the original, I’m still exploring and keep finding new things on it.