MnM forever home

Elektron Gear Monomachine
#6

To be honest I am surprised how easy it is to coax usable sounds out of it. It sounds better than I expected. Truly digital and full of way more possibilities than I had expected.

Something that I think is understated is how even the smallest adjustment to a single parameter can have a huge impact on the sound. Unlike the MD which has quite a few “sweet spots” this has (from what I have seen so far) exponentially more. That’s even without mentioning all of the additional modulation options it has over the MD.

I can see myself investing a lot of time into this machine and still making discoveries.

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#7

Gotta say… that looks mint!! Enjoy your new toy… :+1:

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#8

It’s pretty damn close to mint. The encoders are hard plastic compared to the rubber ones on the MD so I have no idea if the should feel a bit “stiff” compared to the MD or not. I might try some detox on them at some point. Otherwise physically it’s in top notch condition. I can’t find a single scratch or ding on it.

Came with the manual and the original box. The manual has what looks like a red ink stain (very faint) across one of the pages and the covers have a few nicks in it. The original box is almost near mint (had the foam inserts, and plastic bag for the MnM too).

I upgraded the OS to the latest after running the self tests (which it passed easily), and found that there was only 2 user kits created and 5 user patterns. The previous owner knew what they were doing (patterns used p-locks on some steps for instance, and the kits contain machines with LFOs being applied thoughtfully), but I get the impression this unit didn’t see a lot of use at all.

#9

Brushed aluminium/stainless steel face plates sucker me in every time… I’ve got all 3 Digiboxes in black, love them all but man… those e25 versions look soooo nice… Cannot justify it in the slightest though so I’ll have to be strong. Good for the character right?

#10

Absolutely!

I consider myself very fortunate to be in a position where I could find this unit at a semi-reasonable price and in such good condition. I figured tomorrow isn’t always going to come, so it was time to take the plunge. No regrets!

#11

swiss army knife of synths <3

it was the first proper piece of music gear i bought (sans bongos and a couple of midi controllers) back in 2007, and has been a staple of my music ever since.

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#12

Congrats!!! :slight_smile:

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#13

I’m still just blown away by all of the instantly usable sounds this thing is capable of. Yes, a lot of the raw sounds need tweaking, but it doesn’t take much to get something that makes me (at least) think “wow, that was much easier than it should have been”.

And I will be perfectly honest, I haven’t even gotten all the way through all of the machines and I’m nowhere near the point of saying “Well I have tried it all, and I’m running out of ideas”. Quite the opposite actually. I can’t stop trying out new things and exploring. Hard to focus with so many options, but I’m absolutely loving it!

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#14

Congrats!
It’s good to read your enthusiasm :slight_smile:

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#15

The arp is well worth a mention.
Very deep compared to the other boxes.
Super fun with the BBox.

Also in the assign menu you have two destinations for the pitch data with attenuverters, possibly the most unique thing about the MNM IMO.

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#16

Thanks! It’s hard to contain my excitement with this new (to me) machine. So many possibilities.

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#17

Indeed! It’s one of the reasons why I have wanted the MnM for so long. Just the routing to Filter and LFO alone for the ARP makes it unique, not to mention all of the other options it has too.

Absolutely! Underscores some of the feelings of the MnM being “modular” for sure.

Still exploring, and trying things out. Trying to build a sense for “what is possible”. So far I feel like I’ve barely begun that journey and it’s going to be a very long time before I find myself running out of new things to try and experiment with.

That said, I appreciate your input about the routings from the assign menu (even if I was already aware of them from previous posts). Why? It’s not readily apparent unless you pay close attention in the manual, or pick up the few posts that mention it.

It’s little nuggets like this that I really appreciate seeing on this forum. The community here is amazing and I appreciate all that I’ve been able to pick up so far. So keep them coming!

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#18

Also as far as making your patterns sound more organic and less like loops try staggering lfo spds with some using 4/4 time - 8 16 32 64 etc with 3/4 - 12 24 48 60 (especially filter, and amp page, effects). Also you can set an lfo to FREE and set to any value but to keep it in line you can plock the first TRIG to “One” Half" or “Trig” and it will reset.

I also use a lot of FREE lfos, so my patterns are always different but still resonant, i think some people don’t like this but if you think of music as relationships between time and frequency ratios it feels more natural to me.

Also unlike lots of synths the monosynths are essentially tone generators when decay or rel are set to 127. So i like to ignore the sequencer often and just let the frequencies do the sequencing, especially in terms of FM. You can make really complex sounds with just one FM. I have so techno patterns that are just one fm and reverb and they sound like theres alot more going on.

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#19

along with, my fave, MdM…beautifully design machine.

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#20

just the sin machine alone, volume up, can create such full heavy rolling sine bass, and so easily can be a kick drum as well with a exponential LFO controlling pitch… That’s my foundation of countless mnm patterns it’s unreal.

I just stopped playing my last live set and started a monomachine-only live set in order to really force me to use the 6 tracks to their fullest, and force me to write my songs “horizontally” (changing patterns and ideas) instead of “vertically” (just adding or removing another layer)

#21

Excellent tip! I hadn’t thought about being able to wrangle the LFO back into sync like that! Thank you for that one.

I’d like to thing of it as a “drone generator” at that point. Same idea.

Sounds like I’m going to have to spend a lot more time playing around in the FM and stepping up my FM game. Thanks for the tip, can’t wait to see what I can discover.

#22

Easily my “I’m in a hurry” go-to way of making a quick kick on the MD too.

That’s really awesome! I’m nowhere nearly talented and creative enough to do a live set. Glad you had one of those moments where new things opened up to you. That’s super exciting!

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#23

Monomachine or not, I’m super envious of just the thought of spending 12 hours on music in the same day!

Enjoy! The MnM is pretty magical

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#24

Well to be fair, I did take breaks and take care of “adult” stuff like chores. Ears need rest with the abuse I was giving them.

Absolutely enjoying this magical journey. Words fail me in describing how unique and fickle (in a good way) this machine is. It’s as far from your “bread and butter” synth as you could get, and I am really getting the distinct impression that the more you can spend time with it and discover all the unique spots and relationships within it the more you’ll be rewarded with sounds that otherwise would be (at least) difficult if not impossible to replicate on other synths.

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#25

Absolutely. I find it to a pretty similar experience with the A4. Actually, I think they’re pretty similar instruments, in a few ways. Lately, I’ve spent very little time with the A4 and the MnM, because I’ve been more into playing guitar and using samplers — if I boot up the synth and spend like half an hour with it, I don’t get as much “MnM magic” as when I would spend several hours in a row. You really get what you put into it! At least I do.

To balance out all the effusive Monomachine love, I would probably point out that I find it takes more effort to make it sound like it’s not a Monomachine, if that makes any sense. I try to use sampling techniques and layering with other sounds to sneak the MnM into jams, without it being obviously a a MnM, and that takes a bit more work. I don’t dislike its sound, but I hear a lot of MnM tracks/jams out there that have a lot of similarities, at least in timbre and also structure (arp tricks, for example).

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