Elektron Machinedrum: One Voice, 16 LFOs

[@medardfischer]

So great! No one goes as deep into the MD’s capabilities as you have. Every video is super inspiring!

[@maxmarco]

thank you! always something new to try with Machinedrum :D

[@adroc9101]

Agreed, and ends up being a kick-ass tutorial. Thank you Max!

[@deviceology9251]

As i have just procured a MD, I find this most helpful

[@nickschirripa2202]

Your videos on MD have helped me sooo much. Thank you!!

[@auxorion]

Your videos just convinced me to keep my Machinedrum.

[@otisobl]

Damn. This was awesome. Will have to return to my MD once more.

[@sammyboy123321]

favourite youtuber at the moment! Stuck between this and the Rytm mk2, want the sound design capabilities that resampling opens up but the flexibility and generous feature-set of this machine's causing strife in the decision-making process...

[@areasecure1238]

Uw+ has resampling.

[@sammyboy123321]

@@areasecure1238 thanks for the info, do you know if it is as easy and intuitive as the AR MK2? (ARs sampler is equivalent to Digitakt) FYI - Pulled the trigger on the AR but find its synth architecture needlessly restrictive. It's nowhere near as inspiring or flexible as my A4, but the sampling is v fast, though rudimentary

[@areasecure1238]

@@sammyboy123321 sampling on the MD is very cumbersome, it requires 2 machines, one to record one to playback. once you’ve sampled something the sample exists in ram memory until you save it to rom. once you do decide to save it rom it will delete the sample in the ram machines which you used to record the sample. This means you need to save before getting creative and sequencing your sample, otherwise you’ll be starting from scratch with all your p-locks. There is limited amount of space to save your samples in each scene too, so it requires you to think ahead and plan more. Ive never used the AR or Digi but they come across as less punishing.

[@sammyboy123321]

@@areasecure1238 that is v punishing....thanks so much for taking the time to describe that process though. I appreciate the time and effort!

[@thebadterrorists5323]

Very good, one has to pay close attention here, obviously a slower bpm would make the lfo's actions more apparent, maybe haha. Thanks for an interesting journey.

[@plusaura3047]

great videos!! I spent time off from using my MD and your videos are very inspiring.Keep it up - cheers

[@cold_fashioned]

Another gold nugget! Bravo

[@krozjacob9029]

Awesom my friend . Thanks !!

[@SyncdAlien]

Awesome!

[@BrunoWiebelt]

a good exercise session ... yeah jazz it up

[@MoeFarms]

The MD is more than worth its weight in Eurocrack modules

[@maxmarco]

16 LFOs with sample and hold and 16 trigger sequencers don't come cheap in eurorack, that's for sure! :D

[@Buildingempires101]

Thanks, great video

[@killahkay2112]

DEEEEEEPPPPP !!!!! The Power of the MD never sizes to amaze me . I wonder if you could go as deep as this with the digitone .?

[@maxmarco]

unfortunately Digitone can't route LFOs to other tracks, and although you can squeeze a bit more modulation out of Digitone using MIDI loopback it's not a clean solution

[@killahkay2112]

@@maxmarco thanx man . glad you cleared this up... now I need both :( Now witch machine drum is good for me is the real question.

[@maxmarco]

as much as I enjoy the Machinedrum's unique personality and features I'm not sure I'd be looking to buy one at this time considering some of the prices I've seen recently. Although there are still some reasonably priced ones every now and then you will have stalk listings for a while and be patient. I'm actually hoping Elektron releases some sort of Machinedrum and/or Monomachine successor soon simply so that the secondhand market for the silver boxes settles down a bit

[@killahkay2112]

@@maxmarco haha one can only hope .

[@Cepheid-IDM]

Gonna try this now, thanks for the idea

[@maxmarco]

my pleasure! I found this exercise to be very useful for gaining a deeper understanding of the possibilities of a single sound engine while also encouraging more creative applications of the LFOs

[@patrizio7]

Thank you sifu

[@maxmarco]

🙇

[@_panSlonik_]

How about a variation where you have a single LFO affecting voice params, and all other 15 LFOs changing its LFO attributes or even modifying each other?

[@maxmarco]

simple answer - unlike the Monomachine you cannot modulate the destination of an LFO on Machinedrum and it's much more difficult to get musically interesting results if you're only modulating a single parameter of a sound source, even if the modulation is very complex. The most useful destinations that come to my mind for such a complex modulation would be pitch, or sample start/end, to produce long and evolving sequences, but most parameters aren't going to offer particularly interesting results

[@Honeysmack]

amazing

[@sensemusicofficial]

is there any known way to REMOVE just the locks on a track ? as you can on monomachine ? i havent found any information on this ..

[@LUCIDLINES_MIXED_MEDIA]

Heh we still need more LFO's on the MD!!! :)!!!

[@soupforare]

When loading new machines you can also FUNC+YES and it'll retain at least the FX, if desired. This retains routing too, not important in this method necessarily.

[@maxmarco]

awesome, thank you! I'll definitely be using that one pretty often - I always want to try different machines with already existing kits without blowing out all the settings

[@soupforare]

@@maxmarco No, thank you! I've had the silver boxes forever and I still find things I've forgotten or never knew. Love to see other people's usages and workflows on them. There's surprisingly little good synth content on youtube that isn't eurorack.

[@weepwow]

Great presentation. Im at the crossroads.. ready to get a drum box alongside my Analog Four MK1. Do you suggest Rytm mkII or Machinedrum? Also, what version of Machinedrum do you suggest looking into? Thinking also about getting an Octatrack mk2, I have Digitakt, but might sell for an Octatrack. suggestions? Thanks.

[@maxmarco]

I always say to buy whatever you think looks the coolest :) Machinedrum prices are a bit high at this point imo, not sure what I'd be willing to pay, but it is very awesome. OT does everything DT can do and then some but it's a completely different machine made for very different purposes. Using OT MIDI to control A4 with multimap seems pretty cool. One bonus of the mk2 Rytm is that it has CV inputs that you can send modulation to from the A4 CV outs. No wrong choices!

[@soupforare]

Love it! Your LCD screen zoom is so clear, could you describe the method?

[@maxmarco]

thank you! I'm only using one camera for these kinds of videos so I'm always experimenting with different combinations of lighting and camera settings to strike a decent balance, and then I process the two layers separately. The biggest challenges are avoiding reflections on the screen and maintaining consistent lighting conditions - I don't have a good way to properly block my workspace windows so if possible I prefer to shoot this kind of footage at night

[@robertsyrett1992]

I can't believe how quickly 20 minutes of sculpting zapping sounds passed by.

[@dcosta7120]

Great stuff. Any chance you can invent with Lfos a probability trick on this machine?

[@maxmarco]

thank you! MD gives tons of access to probability with the LFOs since it has a random waveform, I actually tend not to use probabilistic functions that often for my music making but your comment is a good reminder it would be worth it for me to try and show what's possible with MD LFOs with respect to chance operations

[@marcosaciar1138]

which model of machinedrum is? sps, mk 2,UW?

[@badhombre2484]

this is what i'm talking about

[@inkajoo]

Sounds like straight up FM synthesis.

[@maxmarco]

the EFM bassdrum machine is just an oscillator with a pitch envelope that has a modulation oscillator with a feedback routing, classic 2-operator FM. The EFM machines in the Machinedrum represent a number of different simple FM algorithms with pitch ranges and modulation that make them suitable for particular types of percussive sounds

[@inkajoo]

@@maxmarco Oh right, duh. I thought for a second the LFO's were high-resolution enough to do FM but that's not very likely, huh?

[@maxmarco]

technically the LFOs can do FM but yeah it's very lo-fi due to the resolution aspect and the max speed of the LFOs can only be achieved at max BPM (300bpm)