Elektron-Users

The MD UW is probably my favorite piece of gear and I've become quite familiar with it. Now that I have a good overview of the features I noticed there are a few I never use:

- Amplitude modulation track FX. Never could make good use of this and wonder why they didn't use the DSP power and the two knobs for something else.

- Classic mode. Why disable plocks?

- Accent track - Plocking the volume seems so much easier

- GND-IM machine. The SN/NS ones are very useful, I even found a use for GND--- in triggering the LFO and modulating another track with it, but I never found a use for the IM one

- Swing tracks, except for enabling/disabling swing for an entire track.

- Scale setups besides 1,2 & 4 bar loops, never anything odd like a 17 step pattern etc.

I'd be very curious if other forum users here have found good use for these features, I hope I'm missing something

I've played around with loading kits with nothing but GND-IM, GND-SN, and GND-NS machines to do really minimalist clicky drum sounds. Ryoji Ikeda style.

Using Amplitude Modulation on a machine by machine basis doesn't really do much for me, but for some reason I ended up using it via a CTR-AL and liked the results.

Amp mod was discussed in a separate thread a few weeks ago. It's potentially tedious and difficult to set up, but definitely the most useable and flexible track effect after filtering imho.

I posted a couple of examples of AM in use in the files section, called "MD ... w AM". (I was going to upload syx files for these patterns this weekend, but didn't get around to it - sorry Najati!)

Isn't the GND-IM machine designed for (accurate, tuneable) triggers to external gear? It can do a couple of interesting sounds, especially with reverb and "flanged" echo.

As for MD features I never use; master EQ, accent track, song mode.

i don't use
Song mode
midi machines
crtp-8
PI machine
impulses
Srr
distortion
amp mod
compressor gets little use

AN1 wrote:
The MD UW is probably my favorite piece of gear and I've become quite familiar with it. Now that I have a good overview of the features I noticed there are a few I never use:

- Amplitude modulation track FX. Never could make good use of this and wonder why they didn't use the DSP power and the two knobs for something else.

- Classic mode. Why disable plocks?

- Accent track - Plocking the volume seems so much easier

- GND-IM machine. The SN/NS ones are very useful, I even found a use for GND--- in triggering the LFO and modulating another track with it, but I never found a use for the IM one

- Swing tracks, except for enabling/disabling swing for an entire track.

- Scale setups besides 1,2 & 4 bar loops, never anything odd like a 17 step pattern etc.

I'd be very curious if other forum users here have found good use for these features, I hope I'm missing something

Amplitude modulation is great on external sources I used it on trumpet as an fx sounds amazing. Very useful with combination of RAM/ROM machines as well.

Classic mode is fantastic for live play, try switching between modes it creates 2 patterns out of one and you just press one button. I use it in combination with 'reload kit'.

You don't have to waste plocks on volume, just use accent instead. Having said that I don't use it myself

As for IM i used it for minimal stuff as well. Tried to sequence Korg Monopoly but it didn't work for me...

Swing tracks are cool for adding a loose feel for a pattern, hi-hats, snares.

Recently I found that switching between scale setups is really cool depends on the type of music you make I suppose. I like to change the amount of steps live as well.

I don't use CTRL machines besides CTRL-ALL
Song mode - hardly ever
MIDI machines since I have Monomachine and don't use other synths
Accents

It feels like its loads to explore in there though even if I have my MD for more then a year.

I'm shocked that people don't use songmode! When I make a pattern, I'll always make a different version of it in the songmode. Here is a small tip how to get something good from songmode:

1. Make some sort of breatbeat with 32 steps (or take something you have created already).
2. When you're done and everything sounds cool go so songmode
3. slice the pattern in equal lenghts like this:

row lenght offset
01 04 00
02 04 04
03 04 08
04 04 12
05 04 16
06 04 20
07 04 24
08 04 28
goto row 01

With eight slice you now have your original pattern sounding as it should

4. Hit play and start trying out different offsets. You'll be playing parts of your pattern in different orders and getting new breaks you never thought of!
5. When you have mastered technique described here, try out different lengths. For example, instead of slicing you pattern into fours, try slicing it so that every row contains 6 steps and play with offsets again.

Believe me, you'll love it.

Thats some complex programming Toni. Do you use that as a nested loop within a longer song?

LIVESEQ wrote:
Thats some complex programming Toni. Do you use that as a nested loop within a longer song?
Not really, I tend to make loops and then I just record them to comp and arrange there (if I ever get to that point...)

OH MAN! YOU DON'T USE GND-IMP?!?!

That's probably my fave machine - bung that through some heavy P-Locked filtering and you've got pure awesomeness.

@KOSHIMAZAKI

triggering a mono/pol with GND_IMP Machine works nice here. I just assigned the output to F and plugged a cable from there into the arp triggerinput of the mono/poly.

It´s pure fun, don´t miss it, cool part is that you can use this in polymode with the unison fx, just switch to unison fx and back to poly once.

i couldn´t get the normal trigger input to work this way.

cheers,
yourmama