choosing b/w an A4 & MnM (although i’m certainly interested in the new mystery machine…)
i’m going “full hardware” and am using a Yamaha TX81Z, a Kawai K4, and a reverb/delay/looper pedal. this setup WILL be used for live purposes, and since i’m stuck b/w 2 very different machines the Q’s i must ask go as follows:
i hear that the A4 is “easier” to get started with AND to use live, but i can’t help to think that the MnM’s “crispness” would work better through PA speakers… like it would stand out better.
i also hear that the A4’s reverb is better (and “endless”?)…but it seems the MnM’s possesses a long decay time as well… anything very noticeable ?
whichever machine i choose will be the “brain” of my setup…i’ll rely on it for arps, drones, pads, and some degree of “beats”. i’m sure the A4 has punchier drum sounds, but of course the MnM can sequence external gear…
for those folks that own both - which would you take with you to a live show if you could ONLY take just one ?
btw not that it makes much difference i guess but my tastes revolve around a lot of The Knife, Fad Gadget, Liars, New Order, Tangerine Dream, and Boards of Canada…
Questions about the instruments’ sound always come down to personal taste. If you like the sounds of the two instruments equally, the only way to decide is to think about what functions you want your purchase to perform. How is your live set going to work? Are you going to be sequencing the other synths, or playing them from a keyboard?
If you plan to buy both then looking out for good deals on both is sensible.
But if you want one instrument to sequence the TX81Z then you need the MM, not the AF.
I don’t know what you mean about ease of transition from one song to another.
BoC and TD would be A4 all the way… no question… its almost designed specifically to generate berlin school stuff… not to mention thick chewy warbly reverby analog lines
fad gagdet and new order most likely as well
BoC and TD would be A4 all the way… no question… its almost designed specifically to generate berlin school stuff… not to mention thick chewy warbly reverby analog lines
fad gagdet and new order most likely as well[/quote]
And at the same time, didn’t The Knife primarily do all their music on the Monomachine (and Machinedrum, I believe)?
But the A4 would probably come closer to the sound of some of the other artists (only having had the Mono, I can’t say for sure).
The MNM is also probably the least performance friendly of all the Elektron boxes…which isn’t to say it isn’t great for live performance, just that it takes a bit more planning. Mapping it to a controller (with a joystick) really eliminates this issue and makes it into a performance-ready beast. And as others have said, you can’t sequence your other gear from the A4, and the MNM is a great midi sequencer for other gear.
One thing about Elektron gear is that it is very hard not to justify purchasing their other products once you get a taste for what they can do. So even if you do settle on one, you will probably start looking to buy the other sooner than you think.
BoC and TD would be A4 all the way… no question… its almost designed specifically to generate berlin school stuff… [/quote]
i find the arp and amp/filter/lfo tracks on the monomachine a bit more enjoyable to jam on and having a delay per track can make some cool rhythms. it’s great using the arp on the monomachine to sequence/process the a4 also with it’s arp on too. you can even do monomachine out to analog4 and analog4 back into monomachine!
dunno they’re both good, but pretty much the opposite of each other in terms of use.
am considering getting a monomachine for live / improvisational use. i’m curious in what ways the monomachine is less tweakable then other elektron kit ( currently have an octatrack ).[/quote]
one of the overarching reasons is the lack of ability to configure its controls in some convenient and accessible way.
on your octatrack, you can assign multiple parameters from various machines to the crossfader, and have variations among scenes to make all your tweaks easy. the machinedrum has control machines, and the a4 has performance macros. the monomachine doesn’t have anything comparable.
combine this with the (in many users’ opinion at least) relatively narrow sweet spots its filters have, plus the lack of a joystick on the tabletop models, and it’s just not as immediately tweakable.
btw none of this is insurmountable – a simple midi controller has solved most of these issues for me.
If you’re planning on sequencing MIDI gear, it’s MnM all the way since the A4 doesn’t. For your plan of using either as the heart of your setup, the A4 would be supplemental not central.
Dubathonic pretty much nailed it. But hook it up to a knobby midi controller and it becomes an entirely different synth. Now I can’t stop tweaking it and really playing it instead of only programming it, and it frees up my hands a lot more as I don’t need to flip through so many menus. I really can’t recommend doing this enough.
If I had to choose one to use for a live show, I’d choose the A4, just for the simplicity of having the performance macros (and track volumes) easily at hand. There’s nothing a little MIDI-controller and a bit of planning could do with the Mono in a live-situation though. But of the two, the A4 is probably more flexible for live-shows.