Monomachine vs digitone

Elektron Gear Monomachine
#89

Gonna revive this thread a bit. I currently have an A4, OT, and MM, along with a Virus C, 0Coast, and a Fatman (which really doesn’t get much use). I’ve been debating selling the A4 since I only really use it as a sound module 99% of the time as I could use more polyphony. However, I’ve also been debating trading the MM for a DO. The MM is really a toy for me, I don’t ever use it on tracks as it’s to digital for most of what we do and definitely more of an “electronic music” machine. The DO seems to have a wider pallet of usable sounds for my needs in terms of depth, bass, and warmth, but it’s hard to tell without really getting to try one out.

Those of you that have both, how would you compare them? If you had to label 3-4 artist who you could see using each one, who would they be? Maybe that will give me a better idea as to what kind of sounds I may be able to get out of the DO.

#90

Have a listen to a few of the Digitone soundpack demos, not a bad way to get a feel for the potential of the machine

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#92

Which machine would they be using? MM or DO

#93

Good idea!

#95

Monomachine does sound “old digital”, for better and worse. I dug mine out last night after spending some time focusing on the Digitone.

I love Monomachine for its alien strangeness - all of the things it offers that nothing else really does. But after spending a lot of time with Digitone and the Modor NF-1m lately, the Monomachine is back to sounding a bit “thin”. For me, that’s OK, I like it for its strangeness. It could also be sounding a bit strange since playing its triggers as keys is always a hit-and-miss kind of affair, and it’s prominently monophonic by default.

The FM sounds I’ve made on Monomachine I still don’t think I can do on Digitone, but the Monomachine FM sounds I love tend to be very deep into the “warped metallic alien long flexing percussion” range of sounds.

I think Digitone sounds really pretty. It’s hard to compare the boxes as they are so far apart from each other generationally - Digitone is closer in behavior to a stripped down Analog 4 than to Monomachine. Monomachine has the wide range of synth engines. Digitone (at present) has one really focused engine (which, nicely, is more than plain FM). I’m not sure if Digitone can really sound ‘warm’ (but that’s subjective to me), but its sound definitely feels richer and more vibrant than Monomachine, to me. And this is from someone who loves Monomachine and was very skeptical of the Digitone during my first few months of ownership.

Personally, I’m happy to have both, and I doubt they will overlap much in my personal usage. The DigiPRO and Sid and those weird FM machines of Monomachine are just too fun for me. But if they’re not working for you, I recommend the trade. I think Digitone is a nice little box.

I was thinking just this morning of doing a little comparison video, at least of the FM sounds I’ve made on both systems. This is prompting me to explore that idea further.

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#96

That would be great!

#97

It’s not about what another artist uses in the sense of “OH SNAP THIS GUY USES IT SO IT MUST BE DOPE!” but more of a “this guy uses it and makes music that I like the overall sound of, so perhaps it might be a good synth for me to try out.”

Does that make sense?

#98

Thanks for the write up! I bought the MM as my first Elektron box, sold it after a year, then bought another one about a month later. However, it’s never made it onto more than 1 song in my catalog, and even then, it was so subtle it could have been any other synth. I do enjoy playing with it sometimes, but it is def. to thin and digital for me. I also seem to struggle to be motivated by it, but that may just be me feeling stuck in a rut.

Even though I wish the A4 was more voices, I have used it a ton on my new album and think I should probably keep it. I think the A4 and DO would make a fantastic chillout/ambient duo. At first, I thought the DO was stupid what with only 8 voices, only send FX (damn, y’all, at least give us per-channel delay!), no MIDI arp, and no song mode, but the more I listen to demos, the more I think that having an 8 voice FM synth that can double as a sketch pad for traveling would be kind of nice.

I’ve got much to think about. The MM is in pretty much mint condition and I still have the box and manual, so I can probably get a nice chunk of change for it, which would get me a used DO and maybe something else (one of them Behringer monos, perhaps) so maybe I’ll look into it.

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#100

Haha. I just realized you posted painters. I’m a bit dense today. No worries!

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#101

I get the rut thing. I think I was initially down on the Digitone (see earlier in this thread) due to being in a big burnout at the beginning of the year. And now I don’t seem to be able to make the time to keep up with my ideas.

I sometimes feel like I have to fight for clarity in the Monomachine. As I start to revisit it, I’m going to play a bit more with how I mix inside the (elektron) box. But the Digitone has impressed me with how clear all of the different tracks sound. Bass sounds, especially, really shine through on the thing. It might be better for sizzling basses and bass drums than Analog 4 (there are some kick sounds on Digitone that are really deep and stand out in a mix without overpowering… I don’t know how it’s doing it).

This is some raw stuff from a project I’m working on. This is just the Digitone. Recorded through the analog heat, (but this is the untreated signal). It’s some ‘end-of-song’ droney bits with some bass and percussive sounds. I think at points I’m using all four tracks and almost all voices and they never muddy up. I never get mixes this good directly from my other Elektrons. Hell, I’m having a hard time getting separately recorded (and heat-processed) Machinedrum to mix with this track. It sounded better when I ran the Machinedrum through Digitone and just recorded them that way!

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#102

I’d go with early David Hockney on DN

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#103

Might I suggest it’s possible you’ve just gotten better at mixing/arrangement in general? It’s very easy for things to get muddy/“lost in the mix” when you’ve got frequencies overlapping. I’ve been experimenting more and more with having only three or four parts and having very specific frequencies carved out. Bass, low mids, high mids, highs. I try not to have the kick and bass fight, etc.

For the longest time my mixes and arrangements were just mud mud mud. Density was my problem. Now I’ve been trying to do just one bass part, chords, and one higher melody part and everything sounds so clear and open. The track you linked sounds like it fits into this box.

But yes, I always make sure my mix sounds good inside of the MnM (and MD) box themselves. There’s no “fix it in post” for me. I kind of just treat them like two boxes with stereo out each. I don’t take advantage of individual outs atm, which is a good limitation, I think.

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#105

I do think I’ve gotten better at mixing. I think I do things almost subconsciously with the Digitone to help things mix. That secondary “base-width” filter seems to help a lot. But still - I’m really captivated by the Digitone’s sound. I noticed it on a track I did earlier this year. I recorded Digitone and Machinedrum together and even was adding an extra kick sound on the Digitone. I noticed that the Digitone’s kick always punched through, very clearly; and then all the other bell-ish FM sounds weren’t competing in any way with the Machinedrum. And when mixed together with a bunch more FM madness from BEAP/Max, the Digitone elements still sounded very clear. And like you, I tend to basically record stereo out of the boxes. I do very little multi-tracking in the computer.

That was when I realized the Digitone actually had a place in my setup.

But based on this conversation, tonight I went back to a big Monomachine-only song I did last year that I’m prepping to perform this weekend. It was already mixed pretty well in the Monomachine. 11 minute song, basically with two kits. My favorite sound never quite seemed to fit right and tonight I went back and adjusted the LPF/HPF tracking on it (a very physical-modeling metallic sound) and adjusted its level and tweaked some of the other tracks level/volume/distortion settings, and bam: even more clear! Especially some of the higher harmonics on that phys-mod sound that were getting lost due to the keyboard filter tracking. One of these years, I’ll have good instinct for that setting.

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#106

I personally always disable the key tracking and use the filters to carve out the frequencies I want. There’s a Good simple explanation of key tracking floating around on the board somewhere. After I read the explanation I decidied to always turn it off. It immediately eliminated for me the idea that the mnm is thin sounding as well.

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#107

I always turn off the hpf key tracking, but not the lpf. This is how it is on most synths by default, right? The higher you go up the more the lpf opens to simulate “brass” or whatever? That is if you have keyboard level on, which I usually do…

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#108

Most subtractive synths have some level of control over LP filter pitch tracking, whether that’s just an on/off switch, a full/half/off switch, or a continuous control for it on a dedicated knob. It would be quite a limitation not to have any control over that at all.

#109

I say this all the time, but I keep HPF tracking on for most melodic sounds, especially bass, as when the BASE parameter is set to 8 and HPQ around halfway, it acts as a boost to the fundamental frequency so can actually add a lot of body to the sound.

Of course, for the effect machines and drum sounds, it makes almost no sense to keep filter tracking on.

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#110

How about…

MNM + DN!

wonderful

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#111

No they must fight in a 1 vs 1 pit patch for musical superiority… that is the way of are people.

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#112

Although I don’t have a Digitone to compare to, I’ve been using my MnM on a live-in-the-studio type project recently and it’s the first time in a couple of years I’ve used it and, in contrast to others in this thread recently, it was the first time where I’ve really made use of the multiple out’s going into Live separately for post-processing. And I have to say it was like falling in love again… and I was able to get quite far from the typical cold and digital stuff it’s famed for (although I did plenty of that too). For example, the swave machines through a chain which included some nice channel strip plugins, a bit of character compression and then Valhalla Room or Dubmachines on the sends and it was lovely sounding. Which then made working with plocks and all the general sequencing/tweaking feel really satisfying…

I’m not sure this ramble has helped clear anything up… maybe just follow the advice from @phaelam !!!

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