I make live techno with AnalogRytm, AnalogFour, and Roland TB-3. I believe that adding a third Elektron box will give more dimension and flexibility to my live setup. But I cannot decide between MD / Monomachine / Octatrack!
Choosing any of the 3 would suit my needs for dimension and flexibility, and also any of the 3 would add other specific capabilities.
I had Monomachine for 1 year, many years ago, and worked with a friends’ MD during the same time. We made several tracks and performances with them together, but he moved away and I had to sell Monomachine when I got sick to pay medical bills (yay USA, I have affordable insurance now though. Thanks Obama)
I’ve read through all of the manuals, and watched all of the dataline and cuckoo videos I can find on all the elektron boxes to get the best idea of their individual strengths, and I just cannot decide. Sadly, I can only afford to add one when the truth is I want them all!
-For MD, I feel like the used price is lowest, so it’s enticing because of the price. I see Mk1 non-UW for $700 sometimes. Maybe it fills the gaps, sonically for now, but only barely. But leaves room in the budget for a future 4th Elektron box.
-For Monomachine, I like the variety of synthesis features and the capabilities as sync’d FX box. It also seems to adequately fill all of the gaps for digital synthesis to add to the A4.
-For Octatrack, I like that the sequencer is updated like AR/A4 with polyrhythm capability. And the realtime slice/sampling mangling plus running long samples on static machines. I could have some pre-recorded Monomachine style pad sounds and atmospheres. As it is the only one I have no first hand experience with, I wonder how capable Octatrack is for synthesizing from waveform chains and the like.
Well put. With the OT, I could have the best of both (all) worlds, i reckon.
The steep cliff of learning makes me a bit nervous, though… My AR / A4 were so immediate in getting into creating patterns and kits within just the first few hours of ownership. That immediacy has made digging deeper into programming sounds more inviting, too.
I’ve watched two videos on “Crossfader Transition” tricks, and feel like I know even less about how to program that than before I watched them. I’m sure it gets easier hands on but the OT seems to be a clearly different beast from each and every other Elektron box. It’s a bit intimidating. But worth it I think if it can do so much at once.
So I have to ask:
Can the OT be set up to do all of these things at the same time?
-Run the AR & A4 through as inputs (A/B & CD) for FX.
-Live sample the AR & A4 independently for things like the Crossfader Transition Trick
-Mangle the looped recorded live inputs from AR & A4.
-Run Long atmospheric samples from Static Machines
-Play/stretch some pre-recorded MachineDrum & MonoMachine style loops
-Brew a solid cup of tea
That really helped me gel it all together recently.
Funny thing is with the OT I’ve started using the AR and A4 as sound sources, coming up with cool stuff, sampling them in OT, then just using the OT for composition. I’ve had tons of fun coming up with a good AR pattern and randomly slicing it up in OT live to keep it fresh.
The MD doesn’t add much on top of the AR I’d imagine. If you want additional drum sounds you can simply load samples in the AR tracks anyway. The recent Science Lab demonstrated how far the AR can go in that respect.
The OT is also great as a mixer for your two other machines. I’ve been considering using an external midi controller to control the mix levels live instead of having to dive into the mix menu but haven’t gotten there yet.
