Microtuning individual notes on A4

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
1

hi all

just doing some research to check if the A4 suits my needs before i buy it.

its probably a dumb question but ive scanned the manual and the forum and still cant see an obvious answer.

i want to know if i can fine-tune/micro-tune the pitch of each note in a scale?

or otherwise treat each note individually as an individual sound (without being limited to scales), and fine-tune each voice individually?

i know the A4 is super deep, so surely there must be detailed control over the pitch of each sound?

thanks for your time and headspace,

2

In a way, yes. You can use Parameter-Locks on each individual Trig, incl. Oscillator Tuning (and that is true for all Elektron Devices iirc).

However, you can’t (to my Knowledge) define a custom Scale (11 Tet, etc.). You would have to manually adjust each Note that differs from 12-Tet and then copy&paste it.

Which Synths did you find in your Research that allow for User-defined Scales?

3

there’s maybe some scope within the MultiMap mode - in essence you can have something very different happen on each key - best review the pdf for examples

it’s not trivial to configure, but it’s conceptually very powerful - more-so on the analog keys because of its simpler access, but also doable with the A4 directly and fully doable using an external keyboard

never tried what you are suggesting, but in terms of flexibility it might be an option

you might be able to do it with twelve custom sounds and then apply those sounds transposed through teh octaves

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4

Let’s hope for a microtuning update one day, that would be awesome.

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5

Yes, its possible but unless you’re really into meticulously editing every trig on your sequences elektron-way (some people are, most are not) I highly recommend a Korg minilogue instead - entirely different instrument, but let’s not fool anyone on this: microtuning was never implemented on elektron instruments.

yes, this is also possible. Challenging, but very good.

Edit: I’ve read your other topic which includes details about your band’s setup and I really think you don’t want the complexity of A4 multimap in there. Go for Minilogue and enjoy music instead of programming.

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6

ok thanks so much for your input everyone.

yes using 12 custom pre-made sounds is certainly an option. it can be rewarding to get really deatailed in soundcrafting each sound independently, and having a limitation of 12 could be ok for me. i will definitely consider this as a viable option.

i will look into the multi-mapping thing too, and the analogue keys; thanks for that.

the idea of perameter locking every single note would just be so gruelling and limiting though. not fun.

the korg minilogue xd is the only one i know of. i bet there are more though; thats the next research project🫥

7

The bass station 2 and the prologue are also worth looking at for micro tuning capabilities depending on how many voices you need. I like my prologue 16 a lot.

8

Didn’t someone post microtonal music done with A4? :thinking:

Digitone II can be microtonal with the Keytracking paramter, which can be applied to OSC pitches, Filter Filter frequency, Comb Filter frequency and so forth.

9

Also Korg Monologue and, with the firmware update, original Minilogue. And Novation Peak/Summit, and Erica DB-01. Those are probably most of the currently/recently in-production ones that allow you to program full-range microtunings on-device (except Bass Station: MTS only. Also DB-01 range might be limited, not sure.)

If you’re ok with only importing tunings via MTS, then you can go with most DSI/Sequential stuff, or Hydrasynth. If you only need ≤12-note/octave-repeating, there’s some other options too like a few grooveboxes and Roland synths (Dirtywave M8, OP-XY, MPC 4000, MC-707, MC-307, Jupiter-X, Jupiter-Xm…), although check the available range of retuning on these since that can vary and prevent even some ≤12-note/octave-repeating scales.

Also, you can find a big list of older synths with various microtuning capabilities up through around the year 2000 at http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/

Probably some good info at Hardware Synths - Xenharmonic Wiki too, but not a very long list there.

10

ok thanks so much. loads to explore