Elektron-Users

Amongst all the feature requests, here's a big up for Elektron. Many years - many, many years - of making music using painstakingly tracked keys, automated sounds, hardware stuff, later ITB stuff, and all the time wondering what in the hell was the use for those boxes that did.. well, what? Hmmm... Elektron stuff; beatboxes for those of us without Stylus RMX...

...then I got an OT. And it finally clicked. The interface, the workflow, the LFO's, the p-Locks... this was the type of stuff I'd been trying to make using my DAW [starting with eMagic Logic..]. Anyway, not since I picked up my first synth [a CZ101, BTW] has any gear clicked this much so quickly and so easily. I bought an MNM to go with the OT, and then an MDUW came up at a price too good to resist.... so... here I am. Making music, smiling all the damn time. Quite often I do something that screws it all up, and it sounds fun - funner than whenever I screwed something up in a DAW..... Why didn't somebody tell me about this stuff sooner?

Damn you all for your wicked digital ways and your trigless trig voodoo . Happy Halloween!

+1

I've bought the 3 machines the same year.
First i got the Machinedrum , that was a revelation !
6 months later i bought the Octatrack and i was so amazed that 4 months later i got the Monomachine.
I never had that much fun doing music.

I got my OT yesterday...

First minute: hey that's a darn cool startup animation.

Hour 1: I'm pushing buttons, turning knobs and crossfading the preset patterns. I have absolutely no idea of what I'm doing but it's superfun

Hour 2: I'm starting my own pattern and I follow the E-U tutorial to make the "looper crossfader-transition" thing. My livesetability is immediately taken to the NEXT LEVEL.

Hour 3: Playing with live-sampled loops from my MD and my EMX, assigning scenes, remixing loops in real-time. I reach the K-hole of sound design. Dissociation of the body and mind. I'm puking rainbows of never-heard-before soundwaves.

Hour 4: Loading a chopped-amen jungle loop from the CF card and repeating "hour 3" step. I'm puking, chopping, slicing and LFO'ing the rainbows. It's a total rainbowfest.

Today at the office: withdrawal syndrome.

^ Great story Paiheu!

I've actually had my OT for months, started out ploughing trough the whole manual with the OT in front of me, and clicked well with it. Then, months of no time to use it.. getting back into it the last couple of weeks, and I must say it's a huge kick when it starts flowing.

I recorded my first OT only jam this weekend;

http://soundcloud.com/pokelok/ot-jam-1-2011-11-07

I got my ot as soon as it was availible. As everyone knows without the os updated it was kind of a let down. As soon as I updated...well that was it. I havn't recorded anything yet. I havn't even jammed with my band with it yet. I know that whenever I boot it up I will find a new sound or funtion that I hadn't mastered yet. I have all three machines set up on the coffee table in the lounge room. They feel comfortable their. It reminds me of when I first got the MD just tweaking randomly maxing effects out to see were they go. In short I like many of you am in love.

Yeah. The instant hands-on-feel and the all around logic of these boxes makes me feel almost like a teenager again.

After using Cubase for way too long (those bloody engineers took so many of my years! So many! ):
No more fixing your automation for hours and still sounding boring, no more clicking and drawing curves that look right, but don't sound right. The excitement of everything happening in real time and knowing that you're not fully in control. But also, in the same time, p-locking and tweaking your sequences in smallest details.
The lack of automation that forces you to think forward and practice your skills. The interface that doesn't let you see, but let's you hear and concentrate on what you do.

The fader in OT. Forget the knobs, forget the buttons, forget the touch screens. Fader+scenes is a BRILLIANT way for creating instant movement or total mayhem. Or both at the same time, which is my favorite. I want at least three or four of those faders in one box. Here, please, take my money and make me one. I'm selling the house to fund it.

These boxes encourage me to play in almost live-like way, which is something that I didn't do before (I'm no proper player). There's also something that reminds me of the attitude and feel of software like Impulse Tracker, back in the day, when it felt like everything was possible with just the right samples. I haven't even bothered to start my computer sequencers after I got the Octatrack.

Sunland wrote:
There's also something that reminds me of the attitude and feel of software like Impulse Tracker, back in the day, when it felt like everything was possible with just the right samples. I haven't even bothered to start my computer sequencers after I got the Octatrack.

People keep asking me if the OT is "Ableton Live in a box."

My answer is: "No - it's more like a hardware Renoise."

Ha ha! I remember when I got mine 7 months ago: the day I opened it, I stuck it in demo mode and sorta lumped around. 2 hours later and I'm at a friend's house and magic happened:

"How'd you do that?" "I don't know! I just sort of thought something should happen when I turn these two knobs and press these buttons with the music!" "Keep doing that!" "I will, I don't want to stop...I'll just pretend I'm a DJ!"


So the rest of the night I acted too cool to talk to them, got too drunk and quit early.