What is your A4 workflow when building tracks?

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

I sold my OP-1 a few months back and took the dive into an Analog 4 MK2, as I was really craving something deeper and more substantive. The A4 hits those marks perfectly, although I’m finding that I’m unfocused and meandering when trying to build out tracks; I end up falling back on boring arpeggios or using simple minor pentatonic scales on the machine’s keypads and my tracks end up sounding the same.

I don’t think “lost” is the right word, but I lack a clear process when it comes to building up tracks that sound good. I’ve been watching some “Jamuary” tracks and can’t help but think “man, how did you get to THAT?”

So, what does your workflow look like? Do you use dedicated tracks for percussion, bass, pads and leads? Do you start with some chords? Do you loop the same track over and over again while adding individual steps and p-locking them with different sounds?

I appreciate this is a broad question, but I’d appreciate any tips, best practices or tutorials you’ve leveraged to get myself over this “hump” of aimless fiddling and falling back on.

It’s really an incredible and powerful device that I plan on keeping for years, but I could definitely use a bit of rigour and direction in my approach to this machine.

Thanks!

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#2

Like on Digitone and MC101, I usually have one track for drums (all soundlocked to one track), one for a pad sound (usually monophonic with one osc set to an interval), one for lead and one for bass.
I then live record it into ableton by muting, unmuting stuff.
I rarely use multiple patterns and kits (probably I should), neither do I use song mode. Probably out of laziness. I prefer muting/unmuting, fading in etc…

On the A4 for me it’s the hardest of my 4 track devices to build tracks, because of the limited polyphony. Digitone is much easier to handle, MC101 is really great with only 4 tracks, because even though you have only one drum track, each drum sound has its own sequencer you can edit.

Anyway. Depending on the music you do, the A4 can be quite a challenge with its 4 tracks. But doable of course, which many great demos on youtube show

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#3

I can highly suggest the Analog 4 Tutorial videos of Gary P Hayes. They are not normal tutorials (especially not for beginners), but jam sessions starting from init patches with some text overlays explaining his workflow in rough strokes.

Just an example (there are much more):

These videos shows clearly how he got there using nothing else than the A4. Just wonderful and inspiring …

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Just found out you can't play polyphonic on all four tracks
#4

This is fantastic — thanks for sharing. Just watching the process experienced users leverage is super helpful on the order of operations used.

#5

  1. Save everything every thirty seconds in the hopes of never having my patches disappear at a show again

  2. try to get that reverb just right

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#6

Bass on track one, and or
Lead on track two,
Sometimes percs on track three,
Sometimes pads on track four.

For me it’s always been an additional box to a drum machine and or OT. So my workflow focuses more on keeping a clear overview on what sound is where; then needing to maximize what I can get out of the one box.

The Digitone indeed feels more inclined to do full jams within one box. But I really love the A4.

I make techno kind of stuff. So mostly looping sequences based stuff, often fading in (and out) some more elements as I go. So that’s how I write the tracks; a layer at a time; and then figure out what to bring in one after the other. So no real traditional songwriting that I do. Only thing that I sometimes do is create an alternate pattern like a bridge / B section. With some melodic variation, and some drums deleted / changed. And then back to the main pattern. Simple but works for me!

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#7

For me the trick is to have the individual track sounds be as massive sounding as possible, and use lots of random LFO and parameter locks/conditionals to make evolve evolve over time. Sometimes you only need 2-3 tracks really. YMMV.

A lot can be gleaned by reverse engineering other’s complex patches… the Richard Devine soundset was super illuminating for me.

One really simple drum pattern technique to use along with sound locks is to parameter lock the delay send (often dotted 8th ping-pong with a lot of feedback) on certain steps (hats, percs) and not others (kick)… throw in a few reverb sends here and there and it sounds like you’re using a lot more than one track. Any spare 16th note in a beat I’ll throw in another trigger with low probability to add a bit of variation. Using the Fill functionality on top adds another level of complexity.

Also standard polymeter stuff like having one track loop at a standard 4/4 playing against another rhythmic track repeating at say 5/4 or 13/8 adds a lot of variation as well.

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