Elektron-Users

I have lots of guitar amps (both tubes and SS), but still not pleased with my MD running through them.

I heard that keyboard oriented amps (e.g., Roland) do nicely with the MD. Any opinions and/or recommendations?



Thanks.

I currently have a Carr Rambler (1X12 tube); Victoria 45410 (4X10 tube); AER acoustic amp (SS) and Crate acoustic amp (SS). All of these are built for guitars

what are you going to be using this amp for?

amps suck - the real thing to do is get more of a bi-amped or more PA style speaker. I use the JBL Eon to monitor myself, its ok for a monitor, and cheap. The Roland amps are horrible - completely unusable in a professional setting. Sure, they have a lot of options and sound decent, but the direct output is useless and they shit the bed pretty easy - and to top it off, they cost a lot of money. Too much for what they are.

I need an amp primarily for my home studio where I use my MD as my "drummer" (I am a guitarist). I sample the MD with my Boomerang sampler and layer rythmn guitar on top of the MD, again with the Boomerang. Then I either play lead guitar or stack additional rythmns on top, again using the Boomerang.


My guitar amps are very high quality tube amps, but as expected I am not picking up all of the MD sonic nuances with guitar amps.

How about a pair of big/ loud active monitors?

Yes, leaning towards active monitors...

just out of curiosity - why are you looping the MD with the boomerang?

the MD a) can "loop" on its own using the sequencer and b) will get completely ruined by the low sample rate and inaccurate clocking that exists in the boomerang pedal.

the boomerang is fine for guitar, but to put the MD through it seems unnecessary to me. Then again, if you have only heard the MD come out of a guitar amp, you might not know what you are in for when you hook it up to some real biamped or crossed over speakers. Keep in mind that guitar amps have a really strange frequency response and an input impedance tailored for a guitar pickup - not a line level signal, and definitely not for something that can do 20-20k like the MD.

Just get a decent set of stereo speakers and a hifi amp for $100 from a used stereo shop - that will be enough to get you started until you want to make a large upgrade to real monitors. Its useless in my opinion to spend $300 on a set of monitors - save some cash, and when you grow out of that setup spend money on some really nice speakers that you can have forever.

Milk:

Again, thanks for input. I have posted several questions on this site and I appreciate your thorough responses. Time for me to register...

I have had my MD-UW for ~3 weeks and really dig it. ROM sampling is no problem. However, my RAM-based sampling to-date has not been fulfilling for the following reasons, which may be user issue (me not knowing how to do it) vs. MD lacking the functionality:

1. Not getting long enough guitar RAM samples, e.g., 10 to 20+ secs

2. Not spontaneous compared to the Boomerang

I could live with #2 if I figured out #1

Milk:

One more thing that perhaps I should have mentioned. The reason I am using the Boomerang is because trying to "sync" the MD to my guitar chord playing is impossible (agree with your point about the Boomerang clock). Given that there is not a midi interface with the Boomerang, you have to rely on trying to "stomp" at the right time. Even if you nail it, the 'Rang quickly drifts off beat from the MD

I see - what you really need to find is some looping device with midi sync, so that you do not have to drain the tone from the MD. Ableton Live maybe? Sounds like you are yet another candidate for using that wonderful program...

and register!

I could be wrong, but sounds like your looping problems could be solved by dumping all the samples that came with your UW, and using it for looping. If I understand correctly, this would open up much more ram time for live sampling, but keep in mind, not too much, the UW is pretty limited on space, but you should have enough for a couple 1 bar loops.