Elektron-Users

give us some real details about their new UW machine. I want specs with pics and sounds. none of this he said she said bullshit.

I think elektron tease me more than most women I been with hahaha!!!!!

i too am hungry for details! :-D

Hey! We're at the show with an internet connection charged at 20 dollars an hour. So details will be posted to the site later, but it _is_ a new version of the Machinedrum, the SPS-1UW, UW for User Wave.

The current Machinedrum SPS-1 will still be marketed and sold. The two brothers will share the same OS, so future upgrades will benefit both.

Some SPS-1UW details:

The UW is not a "sampler". It's mainly designed for allowing the user to customise the MD with some favourite samples. And to capture realtime stuff, but this can't be saved, it's for realtime adventures. So, yes it uses sample technology, but it's not a sampler as you know it. The Machinedrum is still a drummachine, the UW model a little bit more customisable.

The UW offers 32 ROM machines that can accomodate samples downloadable by MIDI sample dump. They are stored in an internal flash memory and loaded to the DPS's on boot. The DSP's has been given a boost of memory to accomodate the samples. Having the samples in fast DSP RAM allows for effects known from the E12 such as retrig.

There are also two RAM machines which are supposed to be used for realtime sampling of the external inputs or resample what comes out of the main MD outputs. At the show we are using the inputs to connect to a turntable, lift beats from vinyl and mess them up with parameter locks, filters, change speed, add weird LFO settings to get a kind of messed up time-stretch/freeze sound.

The sample engine is 12-bit to offer a more interesting sound (and save DSP memory), but uses a dynamic compression to get rid of the problems normally associated with 12-bit such as distorting fade-outs.

For me this Machinedrum variant is exciting because
A) you can get samples inside the Machinedrum environment, which opens up the sound palette even more,
the Machinedrum has a certain sound which makes the samepls sound different. For me the samples get punchier and more distinct,
C) it allows for integrating external sound sources in a new way and do some MD internal resample stuff which we have not really had time to expore yet. But you should be able to use it for making strange delays etc.

...and I love the fact the memory is limited for ROM/flash so you need to think about what you put in there. No endless sample library to stop creativity. But finally you _can_ get those 909 hihats that we always refused to copy! What a shame.

We are developing a special MIDI (US interface for people who thinks downloading over normal MIDI takes too much time. This takes MIDI up to 10x the normal speed. This gem is not ready yet.

There will be an upgrade offer for existing SPS-1 users who like to take advantage of the UW features. Production is running. The plan is to offer upgrades and the new MD edition in May.

Hope this clears up a bit for the people craving for actual facts. It will take us a while to get the web updated and all the details on there. We don't expect everybody to love it or need it. Decide what Machinedrum flavour fits you best! We will stand behind both.

The SPS-1UW will be EUR 1590 / USD 1640. Euro price including sales tax.

Now I'm off to the show.

Best,

Daniel Hansson,
Elektron

PS. The Pacman stuff... That's for MD power up!

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!! THIS SOUNDS AWESOME!! THANX FOR THE SPECS!! :-D

What is exactly an "upgrade offer"? Is it like Bios update? Exchange of machines? Discount?

Please say little more about it...

Sounds great btw...but please do not add sps-uw-bass synth edition next year

After all this excitement I now need a cigarette!! hahaha :-D

"MD power up" - I love it! :-D

seriously, this sounds freaking awesome! it makes it even more possible for me to execute my dream of doing a live set with only a single MD! I like the idea of being able to resample and mangle the MD's output on the fly; the machine is very "live" as it is and this feature seems to encourage that even more. I also agree that limited sampling memory is pretty sweet; it will encourage one to be creative with the MD's potential, rather than with the samples themselves. I look forward to getting my hands on this bad boy!

The UserWave sounds pretty cool. It's good, that MD people have somekind of upgrade program (I also own a MD, my favourite). I too was wishing for something totally new (the elektrons are good at it), but this thing makes the MD complete. We have now Trx-style, Fm, Pi and finally the sample side as it should be; a sampleable. I give Elektron a credit for two things:

1. For making sample-engine that makes samples sound different. Very cool, most developers would not do that. This is an istrument and there is now need for objective sound (thats for the scientists). It also continues the sp12 tradition.

2. The limited samplesize. Very brave also, when we live in world of gigabytes. Just my thing. And I _do belive_ its more creative this way. Creative prosess is what elektron is good at, so I believe in this. Lets see how it works when we actually get the machines.

The Ram machines sounds interesting: something different. Future will tell what they can do. I hope there is some different kind of sample-machines. Like one with ability to do retrigs, and other ones with something else (loop point modulation please!!!).

As there is going to be an OS update for normal MD also, I hope for trigless paramater locks from MnM, if it's possible in the program structure. I also hope that elektron continues the synth side of MD also a bit (this would be just a thing for the old red one).

Very nice. :-D

Toni wrote:








I hope for trigless paramater locks from MnM, if it's possible in the program structure.

you can do trigless parameter locks in the MD now. you just have to dedicate one of the CTR machines to it. all you do is use a CTR-8 machine, assign the params to the machine you want trigless trigs for, place a trig on every step, hit record and tweak the params to your heart's content! true, you lost a track this way and it would be ideal if it worked like the MnM, but at least it's possible in *some* way. I don't know if the problem with incorporating it directly into the tracks is the OS; I believe that Daniel said on the Yahoo group that their reason for not doing it is that the LED's are all red - unlike the tri-color LED's of the MnM - so you have no quick way of knowing which steps have trigs and which are trigless.