Today I finally got my hands on a machinedrum, and I can immediately see why people say everything awesome that they do about it!
I haven’t felt like a piece of gear has clicked so instantly with my brain in quite a while, manage to get this arranged within a few hours of turning it on for the first time:
Thought I’d say hi on here after lurking for far too long, and maybe see if anyone has tips on the few things I’ve not fully wrapping my head around yet.
Are control-all tracks meant to revert track params back to original values when their values are returned to the middle? It seems like some parameters work that way but pitches of some tracks get all whacky after only temporarily using control all on the tuning…
Also, I’ve been using “overlapping” neighbouring conditional and fully micro-timed trigs on my A4 to simulate longer sequences within 16 steps, and am noticing I can’t replicate that on the MD without trig conditions. Any advice for breaking out of 1 page pattern length anxiety? Maybe I’m too used to 16 steps + per track time scaling?
Can’t wait to learn everything about this box, it’s so awesome
Congrats, sounds great! I just got my hands on the MD+MnM Combo 2 weeks ago, and feel the same. It definitely forces you to think in new ways with it’s limitations - in a good way
Congrats! You probably got the best drum machine ever made!
Use ctrl-all and go crazy!
Press [FUNCTION] + [CLASSIC/EXTENDED] simultaneously and you get back your original kit!
Typically, I chain different patterns of 64 steps to get out of repetition.
LFOs (destination volume / square wave) can be used to fake trig conditions (as the step isn’t audible each time).
Use p-locks A LOT! (I never did in the beginning - but this already breaks repetition significantly).
As you even have an UW-model: use internal re-sampling and p-lock your RAM-play machine.
If the stuff above is not enough for you - get an MCL, which gives your all modern Elektron sequencer features (but also adds complexity ).
@acidk offered a lot of good tips to get variation.
I would also add for a newbie something I didn’t really understand until much later, which is that p-locks stay in place even when you do FUNC + PARAM tweaking, which helps a lot in keeping things where you want them and interesting where you want to be surprised.
I think being so used to the [func]+[yes] [func]+[no] style of instant save/recall from the newer boxes totally made me miss the [func]+[classic/extended] combo in the manual oops
That being said though, I’ve now re-double-triple checked that section of the manual, and can’t seem to find a [func]+[yes] equivalent mentioned anywhere. Is there a quick kit-save combo I’m missing or is the strat to just to press [kit][up][right][yes][yes][yes] very fast to speed thru the saving menus?
Also wow yeah, p-locking ram machines has quelled the octatrack thirst for a while I think!
Not to my knowledge - but all MD veterans please have a look.
Have fun with your machine. I like the aspect of somewhat simpler live sampling compared to the OT. If you are planning to work with sample a lot DT, OT or Tonverk might be worth to have a look
The [FUNCTION] + [CLASSIC/EXTENDED] combo is the way as said before.
As far as I remember, here is how works the CTR-ALL machine.
Let’s assume the following settings
Track 1: CTR-ALL knob A set at 64
Track 2: some machine knob A set to 100
Track 3: some machine knob A set to 30
If you turn the CTR-ALL knob A clockwise by 10 steps, you will end in the following situation on tracks 2 & 3:
T2 param A: 110
T3 param A: 40
Turn CTR-ALL knob A counter-clockwise by 10, and you back to the initial situation.
Now, turn the CTR-ALL knob A clockwise by 40 steps, and here’s where you end:
T2 param A: maxed at 128
T3 param A: 40.
If you turn the CTR-ALL knob A counter-clockwise by 40, you won’t get back to the initial situation:
T2 param A will start derease right away and end at 128-40 = 88 (vs 100 initially).
T3 param A: 30, ok.
This has the same effect when trying to go down beyond 0, no need to say.
In other words, as long as the CTR-ALL move does not max/min out any of the other track settings, you’re safe as far as coming back to the initial values on each track.
).
