First proper session on AK today. Blown away. People are kind of right to say you have to dig around to get where you want to go if you’re after specific vintage characters etc, but once it sinks in it and you get a feel for its idiosyncrasies it seems to cover most bases pretty much bang on. I’ve only ever used ms20 as far as real analog before. But I have diva and people seem to rate that as far as nailing the thicker old analog sound. I can pretty much nail all the sounds I love that I’ve programmed on ms20 and Diva inside Analog Keys… And much more besides. So nice to have it all in one box and be able to save the ms20 mimic patches! Psyched to start throwing stuff in the sequencer asap and sync with OT 
1 Like
I miss my A4 more than I miss my AK. Just an octave too short for me but looks wise it was the mutts nuts.
I’ve strangely gone off keys altogether over the past 4 or 5 months. Push 2 does everything for me now but I digress.
The A4/K is a cracking unit. I don’t think you have to dig too much to pull out some unique and brilliant sounds to be honest. And the number of presets you can have at your fingertips are an awesome starting point.
And you should be hyped about using with an OT - brilliant combo!!!
Could be my lack of programming chops, but I spent a bit of the morning trying to nail a Juno-ish bass sound in the A4. And failing. Not too far off, but there’s something about the filters that just isn’t working for me when it comes to simple vintage sounds.
Originally programmed the sound on Tal U-NO-LX and could reproduce it well on Diva and the Blofeld, but not the A4. Have yet to get a simple, punchy bass sound out of the A4 that I’m really happy with. Or leads for that matter. Pads and textures no problem. Also had a run through my third party presets library, and tbh for me there’s not much in there either that really nails bread and butter vintage type sounds either.
Very tempted to do a part exchange with the A4 on a Juno 106 … although reliability issues with voice chips mean that I’ll probably end up buying one of the Boutique Junos for now.
Definitely going to spend more time working with the A4, but unless something clicks soon, it’s looking more and more like it’s going to be sold to fund a P6.
Could be my lack of programming chops, but I spent a bit of the morning trying to nail a Juno-ish bass sound in the A4. And failing. Not too far off, but there’s something about the filters that just isn’t working for me when it comes to simple vintage sounds.
Originally programmed the sound on Tal U-NO-LX and could reproduce it well on Diva and the Blofeld, but not the A4. Have yet to get a simple, punchy bass sound out of the A4 that I’m really happy with. Or leads for that matter. Pads and textures no problem. Also had a run through my third party presets library, and tbh for me there’s not much in there either that really nails bread and butter vintage type sounds either.
Very tempted to do a part exchange with the A4 on a Juno 106 … although reliability issues with voice chips mean that I’ll probably end up buying one of the Boutique Junos for now.
Definitely going to spend more time working with the A4, but unless something clicks soon, it’s looking more and more like it’s going to be sold to fund a P6.[/quote]
I haven’t yet tried dialling in ‘classic’ stuff. Just some of my own go-to sounds that I’ve made on ms20 and diva. Which to be fair tend to lean toward midrange/lo-fi. Which AK seems to do great. A few times it was scary close to ms20.
Getting some of the thicker/bouncier/gloopy stuff was trickier. But some patches sounded huge on AK and others got close enough to generally be stoked on the AK’s diversity. It felt like it was probably doable to get closer tho and much quicker to dial stuff in when Im more familiar with it. I still have a lot to learn with synthesis and for me a lot is still trial + error guesswork tweaking stuff til it sounds right.
Sometimes felt like the oscillators would benefit from a little more intrinsic oomph or fizz to them, and I’d have loved to be able to move the overdrive around the routing chain, but seemed like workarounds did the trick on most things…
Didn’t like most of the presets I listened to, most seemed kind of polite with some sounding very ‘average VA’, but so far finding enough to not regret grabbing it…
Yeah psyched to connect AK + OT 
know what you mean about preferring the A4. Kinda wish I’d grabbed a4. Love the small footprint of OT. Same as you needing at least 2 octaves tho. And the separate outs + odds are handy.
Keen to try Push. Have a feeling I might end up selling a lot of gear afterwards… Looks like they nailed it.
Yeah, it really excels at the ruffer end of things, as well as percussion, but it can do nice classic-ish sounds as well, had a pretty productive evening just keeping things simple. Will have to admit that half my problem is getting carried away with its modulation capabilities and ending up completely destroying the sound … which is fun, but not really a natural fit for my style. Don’t think it’s any real coincidence that you see loads of peoples’ stuff on here tagged as “Dark ambient/techno/industrial/etc.”.
For straightforward classic sounds, it’s got a cleanness and poise to it that I find pretty appealing - just doesn’t imho quite have the balls and character of a vintage analogue, something like the P6, or even the Minilogue or soft synths like Diva and Monark on bread and butter patches. Tbf, suppose it’s pretty silly of me to expect the A4 to exactly impersonate a Juno, those filters are pretty unique. And the A4 has a lot of other tricks up its sleeve to recommend it … long story short, looks like I won’t be selling it after all.
Yeah, it really excels at the ruffer end of things, as well as percussion, but it can do nice classic-ish sounds as well, had a pretty productive evening just keeping things simple. Will have to admit that half my problem is getting carried away with its modulation capabilities and ending up completely destroying the sound … which is fun, but not really a natural fit for my style. Don’t think it’s any real coincidence that you see loads of peoples’ stuff on here tagged as “Dark ambient/techno/industrial/etc.”.
For straightforward classic sounds, it’s got a cleanness and poise to it that I find pretty appealing - just doesn’t imho quite have the balls and character of a vintage analogue, something like the P6, or even the Minilogue or soft synths like Diva and Monark on bread and butter patches. Tbf, suppose it’s pretty silly of me to expect the A4 to exactly impersonate a Juno, those filters are pretty unique. And the A4 has a lot of other tricks up its sleeve to recommend it … long story short, looks like I won’t be selling it after all.[/quote]
Yeh def great for gritty/dark/lofi/industrial. And yeah some of the biggest sounding/classic kind of patches I got today were based around keeping things simple here too. Monophonic, one osc. Got things sounding nice like that then switched to poly or layered other tracks’ sounds and had huge vintage sounding stuff out of the blue that trumped Diva. Then adding another osc + detuned or unison was even bigger.
I know what you’re saying about the juno sound probably not being fully obtainable in AK cos of the unique filter etc and guess that’s probably true and sadly goes for OB-X sounds too. But that’s the first classic synth that I don’t own that I’m gonna try and recreate some patches from. I never played a real one but always loved the Flash Gordon soundtrack and also love the soft synth version. Would love to grab the new OB-6 someday… Hoping can get somewhere near it on AK with some work though…
Yeah, while I’m learning and improving all the time, I can’t see that it’s ever going to be an OB/Prophet killer, at least in my hands … After around 6 months with the A4, the conclusion I’ve reached is that if I set out to get classic type sound I’ll inevitably be disappointed. But when I take the sounds I can get on their own terms and accept that the A4 has its own unique character and place in my productions, I love it.
The thing with the A4 is that while it can in theory do the Juno HP/LP setup, I way prefer filter 2’s LP most of the time, even using resonance boost on filter 1, so that setup isn’t really a runner … aside from the very distinct flavour of both Elektron filters. Anyway, tbh does the world really need any more Juno based house tracks (not that it’s going to stop me)?
I’ve read somewhere that the sound of the Juno is for a part influenced by it’s very typical chorus…
Can you show some specific audio examples of a juno sound you’re trying to approach? I may like to try imitating that on my A4.
Had some time today and out of curiosity I tried to imitate the init Jupiter 8 template sound from Diva and also that template sound with filter half shut and resonance right up with a little extra amp release. Not easy!
Can get roughly there with both sounds but takes hell of a lot of to and fro and tweaking and the process is far from duplicate in terms of what’s tweaked on each synth. Obviously it’s to be expected. But kinda drummed home how nice Diva sounds. That dude needs to make a hardware version!
Kinda bummed me out on AK in some ways. Really small sweet spots for big softer sounds. Tons of overdrive is a must on almost everything. The filter gets really lairy in the bottom end and/or easily whistles with feedback resonance. Spent a lot of time ‘taming’. Only had it a few days though and could just be me being shit 
probably workarounds/better techniques within the architecture for most of the problems I hit.
Vintage classic sounds aren’t really what I bought it for or expected it to be able to do though so I’m not complaining, just a bit of an eye-opening session. Good news is that it can approx 95% duplicate those classic synths in individual patches, bad news is it isn’t easy! Jupiter seems to have this slight integral phase/flange thing going on even when dry and some harmonics that are tricky to pin down/replicate. Guess the slight phase/flange thing I hear is maybe diva mimicking osc drift? Maybe I’m missing something but I can barely hear the osc drift when it’s switched on on AK. Wish they would add a more pronounced option setting… Oh well. Made a bunch of nice ‘non-replication’ patches as well so all good
[quote=““Burn Cycle””]
Can you show some specific audio examples of a juno sound you’re trying to approach? I may like to try imitating that on my A4.
[/quote]
Cheers, that’d be great. Actually, your vintage preset pack is one of the ones I don’t have, had been meaning to buy it, definitely sounds from the youtube clips that it’s one of the most authentic ones.
Anyway, it’s really simple stuff, along the lines of the first bass sound here (although I also had a crack at the second) - would’ve thought it’d be easily within the A4’s range:
Also played around with the bass sound from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpeZehATH4 - in each instance I can get in the general vicinity, but it always very clearly sounds like Elektron doing Roland (matron) rather than anything that could be mistaken for the real deal … not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Results using Tal U-NO-LX and Diva are closer to my ears - this is without using chorus on any of them … not sure the A4’s chorus will get into Juno territory in any case.
Actually, Can You Feel It is kinda cheating, because I’m pretty sure it’s a Jupiter 8 with detuned unison rather than a Juno - speaking of which, setting the kits to 3 or 4 unison voices and detuning to taste helps a lot imho, kinda smudges up the Elektron’s precision. Also, I’ve taken to sending lfos to the oscillator detune, just setting and forgetting doesn’t seem to do much to my ears.
Basically trying to convince myself to not interrupt my saving for a P6 by picking up a JU-06, so any input would be much appreciated…
The A4/K can drift all over the place. Does vintage and beyond because it has so many ways to modulate parameters. The trick is to ‘Use Track Sounds’ - Same patch copy/paste but different settings for each voice.
Get the osc shape and pitch moving around.
PMW speed and depth on the OSC1 page.
Vibrato speed & depth (mild settings) OSC2 page. Already into vintage territory there and not even used the LFO yet.
My favourite is using LFO set to HOLD and Random to OSC pitch. Different amounts for each voice. Very mild depth replicates random osc pitch drift for every note.
3 Likes
Nice tips I’ve never tried the ‘use track sounds’ option in the way you describe. Will have a go later today. Thanks
Even just the PMW alone loosens things up enough. LFO to detune could be good too. It was one of things I loved about the JX-3P. But then I realised I could make the AK drift in the same way but control it and take it further.
Overbridge is useful to quickly set up performance macros to control all voices simultaneously.
2 Likes
Going to try to find some time to check out overbridge this week. Been avoiding it cos I hear of so many problems and right now I could do without any hassles in that area. Does seem really useful for programming AK tho. Not a huge fan of the AK hardware UI for sound design. Will give it a go one night this week. Thanks.
I only program my AK with overbridge.
So much easier seeing all parameters on a big screen
2 Likes
I guess that’s one massive benefit of the A4 over the AK. With a desktop unit, you’re naturally going to be closer to the unit. I hadn’t thought about that massive distance per screen of the AK, and the awkwardness of the face to the keyboard notion.
That makes 2 out of two awesome keyboards Elektron has made with one terrible design flaw 
1 Like
It’s not really a problem depending where you place the unit. The actual hardware UI is almost identical in spacing/layout I think? A4 Def a lot more convenient in small spaces tho and for transport obvs. Often wish I’d grabbed the A4 instead. Shame Elektron didn’t throw a few more knobs on the AK to really make the most of the the difference in size.
Edit - or made the AK a tiny bit bigger specifically to have enough space to put an OT on top 
3 Likes