Monomachine Complexity

Elektron Gear Monomachine
#1

I’ve been following some guys on instagram who are doing some amazing things with the monomachine. I asked them about some basics and they told me the patterns are just one 64 step sequence, they evolve and never seem to repeat. I am pretty sure it’s heavy use of trig conditions and LFOs but I can not figure out how to get this effect.

I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread with tips/videos on achieving complexity on a single pattern, video/audio would be great too. If I find things I will also post. Some of these could have applications to MD and other Elektron boxes but I am mainly interested in working with the limitations of the old elektron silver boxes.

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#2

whats the insta link?

#3

Both these guys are absolutely wicked.

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#4

There are no trig conditions on the Monomachine, but you can get some generative stuff out of it using the HOLD mode on the LFOs, and the SID mode on the arpeggiator coupled with random.

Reason for SID mode is because it only engages if there are multiple notes programmed on a step. Setting the arpeggiator to a low speed and on the random shape means that every time the trig plays, it’ll pick from the notes set on the trig at random.

edit: it’s probably mentioned in a more elegant way on this page:
http://tarekith.com/assets/monomachine_tipsandtricks.htm

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#5

There kind of are as you can disable/enable Amp/Filter/Envelope triggers.

The Takerith page is very useful but sometimes they are tricky to see how they are executing. For example I tried the fast arpeggiator trick on drums and it didn’t quite work as expected.

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#6

yeah akeyamasou uploaded this the other day, makes me smile, love his style

i’ll check out the others.
but i think @akeyamasou uses song mode a lot for his amazing structures on MD/MnM

as for an evolving sound out of 64 steps i’d suggest exploring the 3 LFOs speed and destinations in more detail.

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#7

I was trying to hack probability triggers using an inverted square lfo on volume, it should work in practice but it ends up sounding really rough.

#8

All sounds very Autechre circa 2008 … which isn’t a bad thing :slight_smile:

#9

A tip for evolving stuff on Monomachine is using the ARP. It is the best Arp ive ever seen on a synth. It can emulate probability if you want. And since it is programmable, you can make melodies that doesnt repeat at 16/32/48/64 steps. I remember putting a trig on step 17. Then after i hit play, i changed back to 16 steps, so it never restarted again.

Its been some years since i had a Monomachine now, but there was a lot of flexibility in the arp.

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#10

speaking of AE, i noticed in some of their sysex stuff that they used LFOs to change the intervals on the ensemble machines. if you can control the behaviour well that could be a simple method to create evolving sequences.

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#11

I don’t think it is possible to randomise the triggers with the Arp but certainly the melody line. The Sid Arp is really good on BBOX, you can have mental retrigger subpatterns. It seems the arp order is always sequential in terms of the rhythm grid. That is a shame because if that selection was also random you could execute per-trigger probability.

#12

you can also put in “dumb” triggers to the arp sequence, like:

  1. C3
  2. G3
  4. E3

if i remember the arp still reads the blank spot as a viable note so with random mode sometimes the note won’t trigger

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#13

Sid mode is one of the things that makes it awesome. Like having a regular sequence going, then have some chords in there at random. then it will “change” note on those steps.

I migth remember wrong about simulating probability. But i was certain i did something in those lines.

I had a lot of fun with BBox and Sid arp. Like faking polyphony with a super fast speed, and using an envelope to move the “sample start” position.

Starting to regret selling mine. I sold it when the price was at an all time low! I think i could have sold it for twice if i waited a year.

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#14

There’s a lot of interesting territory iin sequencing and chaining effects tracks. Once you start taking advantage of the fact that fx machines have the same amp, filter, delay, LFO, arp abilities as synthesis machines, you get into some really complex textual stuff.

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#15

Okay, I think I have sussed out pseudo-random/conditional triggers. Set volume to zero on any step needed to be randomised, then P-lock LFO depth to 64 (unity) with the LFO set to square wave and HOLD mode activated. You can make this like the ratio trigs on the newer machines by using synched speeds like 8, 16, 32 etc… or make the condition more off kilter by using arbitary values for speed. Of course you can modulate the rate and multipliers for the LFO or indeed P-lock different speeds. This has worked well today. I love this box, I’ve had it 15 years and still got loads to learn.

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#16

Wow, some really interesting sound design and programming on his page. Definitely things in common with Ae but some originality too.

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#17

big fan. love how he works at double tempo for all that mind melting intricate shit.

#18

He is superb, but Teruyuki Kurihara is just about his equal imho.

#19

This works ready well…thanks !

#20

Can anyone else demonstrate or explain the sample start trick? The takerith page says you can do this even with amp disabled in the arp page, I get nothing. I presumed that retrigs in the synth page needed to be activated.