A pro tip for anyone seeking groove:
Try setting the amplifier attack a little higher on some sounds. When playing, alternate between sounds that have a slightly different attack.
I think this is how a lot of the 808’s perceived groove works, next to stuff like accent and whatnot.
Cool tip as it is really easy to replicate on the Elektron sequencer!
I’ll try to test it associated with trig accent and microtiming sloppiness, thanks !
Yeah, you can dig in and go p-lock. 
But how i meant it was more basic. Just using this trick as a timing difference between tracks.
Same goes for having a little bit of silence at the beginning of some samples. That’s also a common trick to induce some groove.
You can then also use the LFO to modulate either the attack or the sample start to move it around. I think it was mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread.
Ha ok.
When i hear a 808 in action it is pretty clear that 2 consecutive triggers of the same synth voice (lets say HH) do not sound exactly the same, which is part of its groove/personality.
Appart from obvious note velocity factor, what parameters would you guys modulate to replicate this behaviour?
Yeah I’m not sure where you pulled that from. I said the older MPCs were frequently said to be “tight”, and what I also said was “of course, their sequencers are among the lowest resolution, so by default they’re quantizing input”. Have a good live player record a rhythm with swing (not the effect/template, the groove of the actual performance) on a 960PPQN sequencer and compare that to them recording the same feel on a 96PPQN sequencer. There will be an audible difference and one will sound like a drummer while the other sounds like a drum machine. The 96PPQN sequencer can still groove but the captured live recording will be less honest than that of the higher resolution sequencer. Again, up above I said the 808 has tons of feel, in my opinion, and that’s with only 4PPQN.
Yeah, THAT can be very true.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t coax groove out of a 96ppqn sequencer, which is what you seemed to suggest when you wrote:
But yeah, if you need to have a pretty good reproduction of what was played in then you probably want a higher ppqn then 96. The question is, does your music really need this fidelity of input reproduction?
Perhaps you do not, I however prefer to have sequences sound more alive. Some of us don’t stick to step sequencing. Crazy, I know.
Does an 8khz piano sample sound as good as a 96khz piano sample? I’m sure I can find a piano player that would argue the low resolution is not as good as the higher resolution, whether it be timing or sample rate. That’s not to say that someone can’t write something interesting with the 8khz piano but it will not sound more authentic than the alternative.
this beat is straight 16th notes without any shuffle
as deee-lite says: ‘groove is in the heart’
Hmm, I always thought most kraftwerk tunes had hand-played synth drums? with sticks that is…
You sure this is programmed?
They use samplers, midi controllers and so on in their live shows now but Kraftwerk used the 808, Linndrum and Vox Percussion King as well as modular synths to make drum sounds on those records.
Bumping this since I have a 2000XL, Rytm and SP16. Love them all but 58% swing on the MPC has a bounce to it that the others at 58% do not. I suspect it has to be the older machine and little factors that we could debate all day. Yes, I have read the much shared article with Linn about this, but whatever it is, the MPC seems to have the best feel to it.
My question is if any of you all have really mastered the microtiming on the Rytm to mimic this MPC feel. Just putting the swing the same doesn’t do it for me. I was curious if anyone knew what one click of the microtiming equaled in terms of milliseconds. For whatever reason, the Elektrons are a little stiffer for me but I feel like fine tuning with the microtiming could possibly fix this.
Or another sick idea for Elektron would be to have different swing templates, kind of like Ableton’s grooves. I don’t know any hardware that does that, could be an awesome feature update.
I have tried and tried adding triplets using MIcrotiming but still doesn’t swing like the MPC. I would also love to know.
and to the OG poster, not even the MPC can compare to the 909 with swing. not sure what the 909 does with its shuffle but it is pure magic. I bought the Roland TR 909 plugin just so I can export the midi notes and bring them into the MPC and get that magic shuffle on my tops.
Yep, agree on the 909 swing. It’s so good.
I remember reading a paper on the 909 swing/shuffle and what makes it work, including time measurements.
There is the programmable one that you dial in, the next “feel” was electric. With more hits running and more electrical drain, tones shift as the machine tries to keep up with what it’s computer interface is telling it to play. Working it hard means more shift in feel.
I believe this is emulated by a mode on the TR-8. Not sure if it made it to the 8S
I will be real interested if d16s update of their 909 has this feel to it (whenever they release it). The behringer rd9 does a great job.
This may sound crazy but I have been using the Bitwig global shuffle bumped up to a little under 60% and am loving the shuffle it puts on my tracks. Much better than the sp16 or an Elektron box. OG 909 is still best in class but this works for me.
There’s a decent thread here, outlining (via previous discussion with Roger Linn) that the sloppy 909 clock and interrupts for the cpu caused by the trigger which have to be priorized, meaning that if a trigger has to be executed, everything else have to wait:
https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=135002
I got back on the Elektron train with a Digitakt and my next move will be to hand play a lot more drum parts. I think that will add more feel and is the fastest way to do it. If it is too lose, there is a quantize adjust function that lets you quantize to taste. I think this is the way with the DT at least.