So I downloaded the files and uploaded the sysex for this piece on my (newly acquired) AR.
Wow. What a great piece of music, and amazing sound design! It’s really a treat to dive in and deconstruct the sounds as a means to learn about this machine’s sample manipulation capabilities. And the performance mode parameters are pretty killer too. I can sit here for hours just making that bass sound growl.
Awesome job man, you are seriously musical.
And…you’re more or less responsible for the fact that I have an AR now. I’m interested mostly creating melodic music for the electronic side of my writing. I have long loved my MD, but have also known for a while that it’s not the best tool for what I want to do. This science lab really pushed the issue to the forefront of my mind. Although I did bend the MD further than I previously had in terms of melodic composition - and to somewhat decent results IMO - the takeaway for me was…what a hassle! A hassle I enjoyed for the challenge, but not for everyday writing.
You can do some cool things with sample manipulation on the MD, but for me the loop, step tuning and fine tuning parameters on the AR trump anything the MD has to offer.
PS to Zillamatic (can’t remember if that’s your avatar here or not…) if you read this:
Do I presume correctly that you began your drums for this in a half-time feel as you have programmed in pattern A1? If so, was it just a random idea to try the 2x treatment? I love the way it sounds fast and I’m fascinated with cool, busyish breakbeats like that. Seems it’d be easier to write something like that at a slow speed and then try out double time.
Hello! Sorry for not seeing this earlier. Traded in my A4 recently so I don’t check out this subforum often.
Glad you liked the track. I’ve seen a few people say it’s really fun to play with the performance macros. I really enjoy messing with performance macros on any of my Elektron gear. I’m glad other people are having fun with my creation too.
To answer your question about the pattern on A1, no, this idea started as a drum n bass track the fast tempo like the finished track. But when I was composing the half breakdown in the middle, I wanted a guide to work off. So I just copied the pattern to a blank slot and it gave me a starting point to work on the half-time section.
You’ll also find other weird ‘orphaned’ patterns in the project. I originally started with a house track with a tempo around 125. You can find that on B02 and B03, to be chained together in a sequence. I liked the bass and synth sounds I was getting, but didn’t like the overall feel of the track, nor the melodies. So I scrapped it and did that drum n bass track instead.
C07 has a blank track where I was working out what plocks I needed for a cymbal sound, and C09 is pattern where I was mangling the voice sample to say what I wanted. I noted down the settings for these to bring them back into the main song.
So yeah thanks or digging into the project and having fun with it. And enjoy your AR!
Also, would a mod be able to move this to the AR subforum?
Can’t link to it on my phone (also can’t quote your post above ^^ for some reason), but it’s in the “files” sub forum, the top post of the 2nd page. I highly recommend uploading to your AR. In fact I’d love to get ahold of more Sussex/samples from other users. It’s a great way to learn!
