Tips for using A4 as drummachine in a liveset

Yeah. Very nice. Going to grab that set.
Have not used multimap yet so don’t even know what it is. Will crack that manual this weekend.

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my setup:

  • I always use one project/live-set
  • I have an empty/init kit in slot1, the one which I clone but never change, this contains my settings for the performance pots. if I need a new kit, I clone from that one. so basically I have 6 pots that always do the same no matter what (fx dry/wet, filter cuts with negative volume cuts, simple fades)
  • I usually set simple constrains for myself avoiding complexity (like one track is 8 patterns and no more).
  • Multimap is set for singleshots for the quick bank
  • Im rarely using extra patches in plock (I lost track 10 minutes later)
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Interesting. Could you give more details about this ?
What is your gear? AK or A4 + external midi ?

So u have all performance macros assigned to track one? When u say negative volume cuts u refer to keeping the volume consistent when you sweep the filter? What do you fade?

I’m always curious to see how people set up performance macros

F1 freq - F1 res - F1 Env - EnvF dec - DEL send
F2 freq - F2 res - F2 Env - Overdrive - REV send

Sometimes I use these settings, for T1-T4 tracks.
TB303 control like for all tracks.
I modify it after.

  • ‘So u have all performance macros assigned to track one?’ almost… they cover all 4 tracks with different channel groupings (e.g. sometimes just 3 tracks and on is for solo). I also have global dry wet for delay and reverb
  • ‘When u say negative volume cuts u refer to keeping the volume consistent when you sweep the filter’ yepp… if I open the filter I have to cut the volume as well.

apart from the macros I can vary this setup but the point is that I always have some rules in place to restrict myself…

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nice, i usually keep the knobs in track order though (following the mixer layout): a and f are for track 1, b and g are for track 2 and so on… usually the top one for filter, volume adjustment and maybe something else and the bottom one for amp modification,…and then e as a master delay and j as master reverb… when i use 2 voices for one pad i usually have that on 3 and then the i have 2 extra knobs…

thanks, and yeah, i have some rules but i really should be more strict about them. it would be great to reach for a knob at any point within a set and know exactly what is going to happen without thinking/second guessing…

on kick patches…
I havent heard a single one that came anywhere near to my tanzbar, but I found a few really good ones in the last free pack from elektron:
https://www.elektron.se/soundpacks/paleofuturist/

also I just found some really promising stuff on kimura taro’s soundcloud account:

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I tried ot sequencing a4 multimap after reading a post from @sezare56 some weeks ago. Easy to set up, perfect for idm stuff. Especially with modulating midi ccs for performance macros

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I listened to many kick patches in context of my tracks yesterday. My favourites were in @darenager ‘s druma and especially in the drum enthusiast pack (i believe at least it was that).
Tanzbär kicks sound amazing I can imagine :upside_down_face:

I don‘t want to make it too complicated. I know that the a4 could go crazy complex,which i usually appreciate, but for this performance I‘d rather need a slightly pimped TR style thing…
Never owned a classic style drummachine. I used to chop breakbeats :slightly_smiling_face:

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The most important thing is that you make sure that you tune your instrument to 432 kHz.

If you need any help, ask @avantronica. He’s a pro at it and he’s always going on about how his music’s better after tuning it that way.

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I wish i could improvise only live. But you have to be very good at that, otherwise i can be a disaster quickly :joy:

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I have a free tanzbar pack in case u missed that… but if you want simple than just use the 4 tracks as is. for me the AK is the master, so all my other stuff is in ‘free run’ mode. the tanzbar has patterns and plocks as well but Im using it on a single pattern only most of the time. but I play techno… so it might be different for you

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btw… this liveset helped me immensely last year when I was struggling to come up with a flow that I like. if you listen to it/swipe through you can here how few sounds are used overall yet it somehow stay versatile enough through the whole hour.

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Be aware that when you change a pattern on the fly on the A4, switch to another pattern and back again, you cannot reload the original pattern (without reloading the complete project).

Save/Reload Pattern doesn’t work with the +drive, but operates in a kind of clipboard way (just in RAM) and switching to another pattern overwrites the state of the clipboard with the actual pattern state.

Either reload the pattern before switching to another one (not always a practical way) or make a temporary copy of the pattern and modify just the copy.

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IIRC there is a setting for kit change behavior when you change to a pattern with same kit :
Last state or save state or something like that.
No sure if it helps.

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My biggest tip for using A4 as a drum machine live is use a compressor! Those kicks are super dynamic and need to be tamed for amplification.

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Thanks. I read about that in a separate thread. Quite strange design choice…

For kits you can configure the change behavior and this works great. But for the pattern data itself there is sorrily no such option (but you can work around it with a temporary copy of the pattern).

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