Making Ambient Music with the Elektron Model:Cycles ☁️ Episode 1: Drone Sounds / Everlasting Chords

(Thanks for watching! 🙏 If you liked the video, please leave a thumbs up 👍 and subscribe 🔔)
The Elektron Model:Cycles is a great piece of gear to make ambient music ☁️ In the first video of this new series with the Model:Cycles, I show you my technique to get deep drone sounds, which is in my opinion a key component in almost any piece of ambient music. With its "Chord" machine, the Elektron Model:Cycles is great at making those, but there are a few key steps to follow in order to get it right!
The video is split in different parts:
0:00 Introduction
0:32 What are we trying to achieve?
1:15 Creating a basic drone sound
3:07 Giving life to the drone sound
4:03 Switching tracks the right way
4:39 Outro
5:08 End jam

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

What is your favorite tip with the Elektron Model:Cycles?? 👇

[@mattbrealey2744]

Ctrl-all works with the machines button! I’ve found it quite useful when I’m stuck on where to take a track 👍

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

@@mattbrealey2744 Love that one too 👍

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

If you hold down the TRACK button, when you switch to tracks, that are infinite sustained, it will not stop the note, and you can make changes to the parameter knobs, while the note keeps playing. Another one is... In the Scales menu (FUNC+PAGE), you can set different beat lengths for each track, so they can loop out of phase, and you can set different time multipliers there too, so you can have one track going real slow, and others going faster. You can divide the tempo 1/8 to get super slow playback.

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

Using this tip, I set up all six tracks, with infinite sustained bell tones, that randomly change pitch very slowly. Add reverb, delay, and LFO sine wave, controlling fine pitch, on each track. It sounds like I'm in a Tibetan monastery. Nice ambient vibe. Thanks again for the great tips.

[@amalgamdesign3220]

4:00 about switching tracks: if you hold down the Track key at the same time that you switch tracks it doesn't trigger so you can go back to T1 without the infinite note deactivating 👍

[@bryantwalley]

I came to the comments hoping to find this very thing. Thanks.

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

Revisiting this video, after a year. So glad google put it in my suggestions again. After watching it again, I created what I consider, my most important group of Model Cycles tracks, since purchasing it. A series of variations of drones with melodic lines, and dashes of sound effects, that hypnotize me, relax me, and help me sleep. And they give me beautiful dreams. Thanks again for sharing this information/techniques, for getting sustaining sounds from Model:Cycles, a truly magical groove box. And best wishes for your continued success with music. Have a wonderful day. PS, My favorite tip (besides this one) , is using velocity on trigs, to control panning, instead of volume. In the PAD/VELOCITY MENU, Set the Vel Dep to 0, and Set the velocity destination to pan. Then adjust the the velocity of each trig, to determine its location, in the stereo field. Hope you like this one.

[@tetkiktedavi1674]

Make a sleep album and release so other people can sleep, too!

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

@@tetkiktedavi1674 thanks for the suggestion, and bringing this post back to my attention. Have to admit, I have done so much since then, I forgot about this project. I will hunt down those tracks, have a listen, and make a recording I can share. Have a great day!

[@Paulsmusik28237]

Beautyful jam

[@MrTizzay]

Just got my Model:Cycles and this video really unlocked it for me! Great tutorial and awesome vibes, I think the Elektron is a great ambient machine and I'm loving making these kinds of sounds with it

[@tetkiktedavi1674]

Great series, hope you can come back to YT to make more videos. You are an excellent instructor.

[@badfriend1780]

Спасибо за видео!

[@pepemollinedo]

Wonderful!

[@alleine.6541]

Thanks, that;s what I was looking for! :)

[@kardle]

Great tutorial on non obvious options for extended drones.

[@epneviidet]

❤

[@mattbrealey2744]

Fantastic video, thanks so much 👍 I totally missed that there was an INF option for trig length!

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Glad that it helped! That's the first thing I was looking for when I got the M:C 🙂

[@jamessusbilla]

beautiful. thank *YOU*

[@AV-fh7rp]

Amazing!

[@tieum8198]

Cool !!! Merci à toi😊

[@brokenscart7989]

Awesome, thanks

[@hellenicamusic]

Well explained. Thank you.

[@pablobarria296]

beautiful video!

[@newflanged_]

This tutorial was amazing, you explain everything super clear and I can follow the steps perfectly fine! Thank you!!!!!

[@kmz8160]

Спасибо! Интересная информация, приятная музыка. Снято профессионально, отдельное спасибо за зум на девайс при работе с ним.

[@napatsnidvongs6611]

Thank you sir!

[@GeorgeLocke]

Very practical advice!!

[@karl.weaver]

A VERY easy subscription!

[@emrob31]

Thanks for this inspiration!

[@raoulvandewetering6284]

amazing sound

[@edoardobelinci]

THX a lot!

[@nftera377]

This is how I started my day!

[@noodlingaround2023]

Highly useful. Many thanks..

[@JaseOn]

loved the jam

[@pauwels_francois_djset]

really great !

[@Left-All-Rights]

Hey! Keep in going! Your Kontent is unique well done!

[@martinsouthall]

This was great! Thanks for the inspiration.

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Thanks for watching 😉

[@otherplaces]

Very helpful, cheers.

[@DocBolus]

Nice idea, I am sure I can adapt this technique to the Samples

[@Leo-zx9kp]

Great tutorial, thanks !

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Glad that it helped 👍

[@eddieehlin3577]

Short, clear-cut and well projected. A really good base for exploring ambient sound, which i'm about to do. :-)

[@Hakucho64]

Well explained, and great production values = subbed.

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

Just the kind of information I was looking for. The more I experiment with my Model:Cycles, the more I like it. Thanks very much for sharing, and best wishes for your continued success :-)

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Glad it was helpful! It is really a great piece of gear 👍

[@pauwels_francois_djset]

I love what you are doing with this device. I plan to buy it soon as my first machine. I think it will be a good start.

[@Charlieboy2680]

Great video,very easy to follow! Thank you for this,you have a new subscriber!!

[@tomb-X]

👍👍👍

[@tiffanzsolti]

You must restart doing videos again. Your channel is a gem.

[@Left-All-Rights]

Thx

[@thomp9054]

Great content! 🍪nom nom nom🍪

[@raum3354]

Greets from Bremerhaven... Stefan...

[@chitlun]

This is excellent! Thank you for a great tutorial…You asked to point out if there’s anything we didn’t like. I’m not sure about the shifting of the camera zoom on the top down view, it should remain close up on the unit. I really don’t need to see your ornaments, I’m here for the gear, peace ✌️

[@user-sy6sb2to9m]

О, башня Татлина

[@IanJones942]

I haven't seen you post any new videos in a long time, so I hope everything is OK. These videos have taught me a lot this year!

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Everything’s ok, just not much to say 🙂

[@IanJones942]

@@thesoundoftomorrow That's good! Keep up the good work on the M:C!

[@usonearth]

nice man, love it, i want to get this one and bring it on my travels and make music travel videos while traveling hah :] then i dont use youtube music :d

[@CraftyOldGit]

I've been wondering about getting a Model:Cycles. After watching this, it will be difficult to not get one.

[@korschen]

Great Video :) how did you make that bleepy/glitchy sound that comes in at 5:35?

[@bigbodge]

One possible issue with the first condition approach (though I cant think of any better one) is that it seems that muting a track causes the step to not be triggered, rather than just muting the sound, so if you have 6 drones and want to start your recording with only one playing, so far the only way I can see to do that is to manually decrease and increase the volume of each track, which is a bit annoying

[@GTChris]

Thank you, this is great. Instant subscribe and bell ring. If I would have any thing I would think you can improve it's for beginners like me to show a bit more clearly what buttons you press and what parameters you change aside from mentioning. But I also should just read the manual a few more times, I know. Again thank you.

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Thanks for the feedback, point taken! 🙏 It's always hard to find a good balance between explaining every single thing and making too many shortcuts, I'll try to improve 😉

[@StefanvanderKlooster]

Great tip. I have the Model:Samples though. Any way to do this on that one as well? The button you need to select is different on the Samples

[@martinhaswell9671]

Yes, infinite notes also work on the Model:Samples by setting a note length trig to infinite and then setting Decay to infinite too.

[@pepemollinedo]

Please a tutorial of the ARPEGIOS ON THIS VIDEO!!!!

[@selfade]

Hi. I cant find answer to one question - is it possible to load tone machine on every track? just to layer some textures. i have absolutly no need for drum sounds, but this looks like nice machine for some atmospheres. thanks :)

[@s.weyerhaeuser7000]

You can add tone or chords on every track.

[@elek-trick]

Are those two birds healthy musicians as well ?

[@michaelcurtismusic742]

Thanks a lot for this, its like you read my mind! Exactly what I needed!!! I have a question, say I want to add another chord drone, but not at the start. If I have one set up with the same method and try to add the track during play mode, nothing happens. The only way to get them both to play is to have them both selected and play from the start. Is there a way around this? Thanks in advance, looking forward to more of these videos.

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

So, there are two ways to do it: either you have both starting together but just have the volume of the second one set to 0 and bring it in progressively. Otherwise, you could have it in a separate pattern and do seamless pattern switching which will be the topic of an upcoming video (probably episode 4 🙂)...

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

@@thesoundoftomorrow I'm experimenting with this now, trying the MUTE on/off feature is interesting, and PARAMETER LOCKS (as opposed to NOTE LOCKS), can change the sound without triggering a note. Parameter locks can be set in Grid Recording mode, by holding down the FUNC button, when pressing a Trig key. Or you can record Parameter Locks by changing knobs in Live Recording Mode. Setting the Parameter Locks to have varying probabilities, can make interesting results too. Thanks to this video, and the Random LFO/Noise video, I am deep into Ambient experimentation territory, and getting some great sounds :-) Next thing is, to experiment with infinite reverb setting, and Delay feedback set hi, so that it keeps looping forever. Have a great day!

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Yes, all of the above will be part of two upcoming videos 🙂

[@diegod369]

I’ve been looking for the GATE feature on the digitakt. I know it’s done with the LFO but I can’t make it play continuously. Do you know how to give life to it on the Digitakt?

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

I think you need to make a conditional trig by pressing Shift and the trig you want to play continuously (it should be blinking) 🙂

[@TheDangoodwin18]

Is there any way you can adjust the pitch of the chord later on in the pattern so that you can create chord sequences using the drones? Not sure if I'm missing something but it didn't seem to work when I tried.

[@jammintoast]

I'm wondering that as well.

[@Srejv]

I think you can use a trig-less trig with a p-lock. Hold func when you activate the trig then you can p-lock a different pitch. Or maybe just use a regular trig with p-lock.

[@pjkz]

could you not just set the trigger pad for the track to INF fixed length so it doesn't stop the track if you touch it ?

[@diegod369]

I’m trying to create this same infinite length note on the Digitakt and I can’t make it infinite. Any tips or advice?

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

I think you need to make a conditional trig by pressing Shift and the trig you want to play continuously (it should be blinking) 🙂

[@truvor88]

Mute does not work on drone tracks for me!

[@n_o_]

4:04 it doeesn't sound like you actually say how to switch tracks without triggering - that can be done by holding down TRACK and pressing the track you want to switch to...

[@timur9898]

Друг, было бы круто хотябы субтитры добавить на русском языке, твой контент уникален.

[@thesoundoftomorrow]

Спасибо!