Elektron-Users

This may all be a bit sketchy as Im tired today after a long journey home yesterday but...

A combination of the Brian Eno app Bloom and Haiger got me thinking about different ways to seuence polyrhythms on the MNM and it got me thinking about using the MNM delays for this purpose. (Good company youre keeping their btw Haiger!).

Below is a table showing the relation of the MNM delay time parameter to beats/steps between hits:

Beats l DTIM
1 l 16
2 l 31
3 l 47
4 l 63
5 l 78
6 l 85
7 l 110
8 l 127

(these are more or less right... maybe a couple of errors and will update when Ive tried it out more)

By setting the DSND at +64 and DFB at 65/66 and playing the notes manually (ie not using the seq) you will get the same effect as having different pattern lengths. You could also use the internal sequencer (and arps if tempo dividing) and mute them before the sequence begins playing again.

The main problem with the MNM delay is that the maximum number of steps it will cycle is 8, however you can set the mono's tempo at a division of another machine to increase this.
Ive tried this morning with the MD doing a beat at 120 bpm, with the mono running at 30 bpm, meaning the max setting of 8 beats now runs over 32 steps (ie 2 bars of the MDs beat), while 7 beats repeat after 24 beats and so on enabling some (pretty basic) polyrhythmic action.

What I'm hoping is that with a bit more work I can figure out the vlaues for half/quarter speed clock divisions to enable the patterns to replay after all the steps from 1-32 at quarter speed and 1-16 t half speed, ebnabling to loop patterns over, for example, 15 steps.

eg: At 1/4 of clock speed (based on the earlier values):

Beats l DTIM
1 l
2 l
3 l
4 l 16
2 l
3 l
4 l
5 l
6 l
7 l
8 l 31
9 l
10 l
11 l
12 l 47
13 l
14 l
15 l
16 l 63
17 l
18 l
19 l
20 l 78

and so on... what I need to do now is try and work out iif there are values for all the steps left blank!


Other issues are that the MNM delay degrades the sound somewhat, though I think there might be a sweetspot of settings that will retain the quality of the audio... not played about with it too much yet.

Anyhow, might be useful, might not... need to try a bit more and will update any findings.
If nothing else I hope it makes sense!

omg your tired and you can still write/think this????

i've never taken it much out of the normal delay settings

interested to hear what your wanting to make.

^ Well I was able to write this but not get any further in testing out the values... round 2 tonight, hopefully be able to fill in some missing numbers

I´ll test that next weekend...love polyrythmic stuff...I was llistening to uusitalo´s albums and most of the perceived variations is just this kind of stuff

from my playing around one thing I will say is that the delays aren't clean sounding; the mnm delay colours and distorts them.

tbh I found the arpeggiator loads more useful for polyrhthmic stuff.

I use another technique, namely the fx machines. make a chord in one machine. then set up various fx machines, with short hold/dec/rel values. then place triggers where you want, I usually place them in interesting rythmic intervals, like every 2nd, 3rd, 5th etc step. then I set up a track delay that is of another value than the delay on the original pad sound. can be pretty damn stunning at times.

check the intro on "Squidstep", the MnM is making 4 chords with different sounds and settings, sent through a chorus machine set up at every second step (1,3,5,7 etc) and delay to taste

http://www.myspace.com/siestasubmarina

TrondC wrote:
I use another technique, namely the fx machines. make a chord in one machine. then set up various fx machines, with short hold/dec/rel values. then place triggers where you want, I usually place them in interesting rythmic intervals, like every 2nd, 3rd, 5th etc step. then I set up a track delay that is of another value than the delay on the original pad sound. can be pretty damn stunning at times.

check the intro on "Squidstep", the MnM is making 4 chords with different sounds and settings, sent through a chorus machine set up at every second step (1,3,5,7 etc) and delay to taste

http://www.myspace.com/siestasubmarina

yeah plenty to dig about using that tech

nice stuff

another approach for polyrhythms is by using tempo divisions ..

say if the Machinedrum is 120 bpm, and the Monomachine 96bpm .. this gives the melody a "4/5" polyrhythm (even though there is no such time signature).

conversely with the Machinedrum on 96bpm and the Monomachine tempo 120, the melody gives a 5/4 polyrhythm signature..

24*5= 120
24*4 = 96

@previewlounge: good point.
i've mostly used sync for stability between machines, but there is no specific reason to do this. i would imagine that because the engines are the same, the sync would remain stable at least over the course of a song.

tIB wrote:
from my playing around one thing I will say is that the delays aren't clean sounding; the mnm delay colours and distorts them.

This is one of the most annoying things in the MD. I personally don't find it to be as much of a problem with the MM, but that's probably just my personal preference and ability to let it go w/ a synth.

I really don't understand why they didn't leave smoothing out of the delay effect when the delay isn't modulated via MOD depth.