Model:Cycles Tips & Tricks Thread

Elektron Gear Model:Cycles
#64

This device is incredible. It’s my first elektron instrument and I just can’t get over how well it is designed - not just for sequencing, but also really for sound design. The diversity of sounds is striking and the machines are designed in a way that reveals their full expressivity slowly over time.

My tips are the following:

(1) Resist the temptation to set your LFOs to full modulation depth, particularly on chord machines. There are many MANY little edge cases at certain combinations of parameter settings; you will blow right by them if your LFOs are always cranked to maximum depth and/or frequency.

(2) somewhat overlapping with #1 , but… it’s really worth exploring setting LFO destinations on a per-trig basis, and this can shine in combination with excess reverb.

Hats off to elektron - this is my favorite music machine ever. It is really a treasure.

18 Likes
#65

Just discovered the LFO destination on a per trig basis. That’s amazing!!! You can basically parameter lock the entire LFO menu!!!

9 Likes
#66

Wow that’s awesome! Just Realized you can hit TRACK while pressing the stop button and it won’ affect the sequence. Then it play to restart when you’re ready!!!

3 Likes
#67

Lots of great performance and composition tricks here. Really loving the LFO menu parameter locks and the restart pattern feature. One thing that I’ve discovered is that on the scale menu when you hit PAGE it will increase the scale by 16 steps which i’m sure y’all all know but what i find fun is if you go from 64 to 16 steps on step 3 (or eighth note) then you can actually change the start of the track and in a since “shift the grid” of track. Really fun to do with a snare on 2 and 4 to get some variety. Then you can either reload pattern or try and time it back to get it on the grid.

4 Likes
#68

Mmmm
Does this work in M:S too?

1 Like
#69

Don’t see why it shouldn’t considering all the shared code.

#74

Hey! So this is probably in the manual, but I discovered it by trolling the M:S tips and tricks thread, and apologies if this was already covered, but if you are in grid mode you can hold down the TRACK button and use the data encoder to move your track left and right step by step! Pretty mind blowingly fun if you ask me. Apparently this is pretty standard on all Elektron devices. M:C my first.

18 Likes
#75

It exists for other devices (DN for example) but you use the left and right arrow buttons, if I remember it correctly. Spinning the data encoder is more fun, however, because it’s easier to do big jumps to see what happens :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#77

INDEED!!! Much easier to do big jumps 3, 4, or even 5 steps left and right with one motion rather than “typing” it out three or four times.

1 Like
#78

it sometimes happens to me that i start recording on page 3. so my first step is actually the 33rd step. by incident I found a way to change the position of all trigs of a track. by holding down [track] and turning the blue knob a trigs are changing position in the direction youre turning.

might be in the manual, but i didn’t read all of it and i thought it might help someone :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#79

Indeed! Also fun for managing a track up! But don’t forget you have to be in grid mode.

#80

This is so far the easiest way I’ve discovered to do glides on the Model:Cycles. Sorry if it’s been mentioned already.

The problem with using the LFO to create a glide is that most of the waveshapes push the pitch down immediately in the beginning of the LFO cycle. Therefore the start pitch has nothing to do with the note value in that step. The way around that is to use the LFO fade in and a square LFO with 0 speed.

  1. Record a sequence (or just enter some notes).
  2. Press down the step where you want the glide to happen.
  3. Set LFO SPEED to 0.
  4. Go to LFO page, set waveshape to square, DST to pitch and DEP to a value of your choice. DEP is now your glide amount setting. (A DEP setting of 1 seems to correspond to a whole tone, e.g. a glide from C to D.) Positive values create a glide up, negative values create a glide down.
  5. Go to LFO setup menu. Switch RST on so that the glide always happens on steps where the LFO is on. The FDE value now controls the speed of the glide. Set it to a negative amount, e.g. -27. (EDIT: The speed of the glide can’t unfortunately be different for different steps.)
  6. Release the step key. Your glide should be ready.
  7. For a more pronounced glide sound, turn sustain on and set a long note length for the glided step.

Instead of going through this procedure for every single step where you want to have a glide happen, it might be easier to just make a glide for one step and then copy that glide step and change the note value and other parameters to your liking.

22 Likes
#81

Am I right to think there’s no way to preview parameters locks like you can on the Digis?

#82

This is really basic, but my favorite way to make a deep but punchy 909-style kick, in case someone’s having trouble:

  1. Use the Kick machine’s default settings.
  2. Set PITCH to -12. (This is a good way to make any percussive sound darker and deeper.)
  3. Adjust the SWEEP value until the sound is punchy (somewhere between 30-100, there are many sweet spots to choose from)
  4. Set DIST to taste (usually between 80-115)
  5. Increase DECAY. EDIT: Recently I’ve started to favor short decay times to make more room for the bassline in the mix.

The idea here is that the SWEEP parameter tends to raise the initial pitch, so if you want deeper sound for e.g. a snare, lower the PITCH by an octave or two.

In general, if you think Model:Cycles is sounding too “digital”, the DIST is a great way to add warmth. Values between 80-100 don’t necessarily even sound like distortion, they just add warm saturation to the sound, especially to kicks and basses. EDIT: Remember to turn down the track level to prevent clipping.

6 Likes
#83

I like to Latch Mute track(s) by pressing and holding the Track(s) Pads and pressing the Pattern button. They will stay muted until you press those tracks pads again.
The mutes will also carry over in a pattern change. So if you mute this way, then change the pattern, your mutes will still be there until you press those track pads. I like this because you can mute things for a break down, change the pattern, and right as the pattern changes, press the muted track pads. This keeps me from wrestling with the Function button at the same time. A bit more comfortable

16 Likes
#84

didn’t even know this… thanks, if you’ve got some more tips please post them

#85

On the Cycles, there’s a CC for swing / microtiming.
I like to have 8 pair trigs activated on two tracks and send a LFO on microtiming for one of them.

—
Does someone know what the before last LFO destination does?

1 Like
#86

How do you LFO the microtiming? It is not in the destination

#87

I think it’s the third destination starting from the end, from memory.

#88

More LFO’s than whats Provided
I use an app on my iOS Called midiLFOs. it provides 4 customizable LFOs that you can send to any channel and any destination. So essentially, you could have 4 more LFOs for a track or spread them out among several tracks. I like to use an LFO for pitch and then have another sent to pan for a little stereo vibe. The only components you need besides the M:Cycles/Samples is a phone and lightning to usb adapter. This is usually called “Camera adapter”.
And to further spill information, I like to use my daw to do the same. I use Logic. Ill set up "external midi tracks with midi effects like a “Modulator” that have badass LFO modulating options. You can send so many additional LFOS this way. All these tricks work great for all the Elektron gear too.

10 Likes