They are called Biopads Vol. 1 and 2, on the Elektron web site.
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Patching this guy for 9 years now and still like the sound a lot!
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The first Biopads is free and is a standout offering
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imho its a chameleon, you can make it sound however you want if you put in time with it, i recently thought i wanted to sell it because it wasnt getting much use but that same day i fired it up and dug deep for a few hours and now i cant imagine selling it, fits great in a mix with my digitone and digitakt too! love what comes out each time i turn it on and if you spend some time setting up the pattern/kit relationship it helps immensely (i spent about an hr linking and naming kits in correlation to patterns the other night)
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I still like mine after several years. Solid gear.
Those are great sound packs! Really enjoy these on my A4.
The filter is so musical. All of that finely controlled modulation combined with the way the resonance works is magical.
I’ve been exploring quite a bit sound design with it lately and really enjoy the way it can do so many insane sounds and sound so unique. Some small improvements to the arp and note length for a mod destination and it would be perfect.
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I’ve had my Analog Four MkII for a year now, and I’ve absolutely loved it from day one. As for “the sound”, I really wasn’t sure what to expect, based on all the opinions I read. But my immediate opinion was, it sounds incredible!
My previous hardware synthesizers were Serge modular, Waldorf Blofeld, and Digitone. So clearly my preference is for deeply programmable synths. But with even minimal programming, I think the sound of the A4 can be incredibly rich. That sonic power combined with SUPER fast, detailed digital control is… mental.
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Does an eiectric guitar sound incredible simply recorded as is? No, you run it through pedals and an amp to make enhance the signal. It’s similar with the A4 except there are many features to make the source sound better.
I like this characterisation, and I’m in the market for an A4 — but someone told me my music sounded like demo scene music and this is precisely what I’m trying to get away from!
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But this is analog demo scene. Totally different. 
In all seriousness, a unique layer the A4 lets you put on top of this is the macro/performance control. Getting some sequences into song mode then playing back while riding macros live can result in motion and expressiveness that’s hard to get out of LSDJ. @Eaves’s A4 tracks are a wonderful example of this.
But yeah. If you’re predisposed to go certain places with four voices and per-step sequencer FX, the A4 is definitely going to encourage those habits, for good and ill.
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@Eaves’s A4 tracks are a wonderful example of this .
Literally just listening to these (again) earlier. So many lacklustre demos (I am on page 8 or so of a YouTube search, every link visited so far), and only a few can make it sing.
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I like my A4, but my adoration is almost entirely for the sequencer alone. I find the sound fairly unremarkable.
A few years back my low opinion bubbled up on social media, and somebody swaggered in with the opinion I should educate myself on what a talented sound designer could squeeze from the box. His recommendation? Adam Jay’s album off Detroit Underground, Maxia Zeta. That really is a solid example of talented sound designing with an A4, true… but the grand irony is my A4 is literally the very same one used on that album — I bought it off Adam shortly after he completed it (he upgraded). Adam left the patches on.
I’ve been privately producing since the 90s - I released off Adam’s label before he really started producing. I’ve owned a lot of synths. The A4’s sound is fairly unremarkable.
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I used to think so.
When I had the mk1 I used to believe I could not get big sounds, or some that feel really alive…
Now that I’ve spent years on the Mk2, I know how to get it growl, and found some beauty trying to replicate the simple architecture of a S-1.
Granted, it doesn’t sound like a SH101. But I managed to get such beautiful sounds out of it, loooot of sweet spots!
Unremarkable is most definitely not a word I would use for qualifying A4 sound. Quite the opposite.
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The sequencer is great. My DPO eats the sound of any oscillator the A4 could muster.
Is it unfair to compare the sound of the A4 to modular, or original vintage boxes? Perhaps, but we’re talking pure sound quality here. DPO is literally 1/3rd the cost of the A4, so it isn’t surprising it poops all over this box, but that doesn’t invalidate the fact it makes the A4 seem unremarkable by comparison.
p.s. Not saying you can’t find decent sounds. It is the sound quality that I’m talking about. Lay down sustained basic unfiltered waveforms, and many other things in my studio sound lusher, more full bodied and impactful.
As has been discussed on this forum over and over again, that’s beside the point. A4 is meant to modulate the shit out of these waves with a gazillion of sources and destinations. It makes sense that the basic waveforms sound pretty bland, that helps them not getting in the way with some character that’s hard to get past. Nobody criticizes that DN initial sine waves sound lame.
But yes, A4 isn’t a phat synth that you might look for in an analog synth. I also missed that when I bought it the first time and was kinda disappointed. It’s not really instant either, so I don’t grab it too often tbh because I prefer more instantly gratifying synths.
That being said, I think the filters with the various flavors of overdrive are pretty characteristic and it’s easy to make a patch sing by just using a basic waveform with some filter envelope and LFO modulation.
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The sounds will be as great as your programming skills. It has an amazing bunch of parameter to tweak that should be a dream for any sound designer, and also a great sequencer and effects.
I love its sound, and I prefer the sound of the MK1 over MK2.
This synth is a beast.
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Quite possible… but will those things still sound good with four examples overlaid atop one another?
I absolutely love the Minitaur, but there’s only room for one voice of it at a time in a track. Something with the surgical precision of the A4 has it’s place.
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Also proven and shown a lot of times by a lot of people with a lot of sonic variety in here:
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I started that thread for a reason
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